How to Build a LEGIT Online Course (That Works in 2026)
Learn how to build a legit online course in 2026 with proven strategies. Step-by-step guide to creating courses that sell and transform students.
In this video, we delve into the step-by-step process of creating a legitimate online course that stands out in 2026. From identifying your niche to leveraging advanced technology, we cover essential strategies and tools to ensure your course captivates learners. Whether you’re a seasoned educator or a budding entrepreneur, this guide will equip you with the knowledge to succeed.
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine. This is episode 157. In this episode, we’re going to discuss the title “How to Build a Legit Online Course That Works in 2026.” This was generated by a number of videos I’ve watched recently: one from Alex Humozey, another from Pat Flynn, another from Amy Porterfield, and a few others listed in our show notes. I’ve got my great co-host, Kirek, and we’re going to share our feelings. I think the course world, the membership, the subscription, and the community world have changed, but I also feel some of the fundamentals are still there. It should be a great show, folks.
[00:01:22.510] – Jonathan Denwood
You should get a lot from it, hopefully. So, Kurt, first of all, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:01:31.560] – Kurt von Ahnen
I love to, Jonathan. My name is Kurt, Kurt von Ahnen. I own an agency called Manana Nomas and work directly with the awesome team at WP Tonic.
[00:01:41.220] – Jonathan Denwood
We really do. If you’re looking for a great hosting partner, you get the freedom of WordPress and the flexibility, but you just don’t want to deal with any agro with it. Coming over to WP Tonic is a great idea. Before we go into the meat and potatoes, though, I’ve got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I also want to take the opportunity to say we’ve got some great free resources. We’ve got a free list of the best WordPress plugins and services. Plus, we have a course by Kurt himself that will show you how to build a course from beginning to end, and you get it at 50% off. It’s very reasonably priced. To get all these goodies, all you have to do… Oh, plus you get special offers from the show’s sponsors. To get all these goodies, just go to wp-tonic. Com/deals, wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. So, Kurt, where should we start in this conversation? I gave Kurt some extensive show notes, I tried to, every episode, and I gave you a list of videos of the people I named at the beginning, and hopefully you’ve had time to have a quick look at the videos and that.
[00:03:24.460] – Jonathan Denwood
So what was your impression initially of what’s been said in a lot of these videos? You’re muted, actually, Kurt.
[00:03:39.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
Sorry about that. I was actually opening those videos in the background, and I didn’t want them to come through on the podcast because I wanted to see those notes, too. We haven’t really divulged to the audience the core message: that selling courses is dead. I just got to tell you, Jonathan, maybe I’m a Luddite, but I get really irritated when somebody who made $15 million selling courses comes along and says, well, courses are dead. Alex Hormozy is endorsing this school platform, then he’s going to jump on and say, “Here’s a way to build a legit course.” It’s insulting. It’s insulting to people getting started because it implies this happens magically. Where does… Like in SEO, we call it domain authority, right? In the learning space, you have to establish a root source of authority. And if you don’t have content to support that authority, you won’t build an audience. And for these people who have become millionaires in the space to try and tell other people that it’s a dead space, that’s just insulting.
[00:04:55.560] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I agree with you, almost 95%. The last 5 % is, I’m just going to put this to you. As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, Pat Flynn has a video outlining some of the topics we’ll discuss later with Amy Porterfield and Graham Conran. There have been a number of these, and all these people have been highly successful, but they end up producing courses about producing courses. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And a lot of their material is aimed at people with no prior knowledge of taking a course. And to be fair, this is what this… Much of the content we produce for this podcast is aimed at that audience. So there’s nothing wrong with it. And they all have or have had high-ticket courses, but they’ve also had very low-ticket courses under $100. And then they’ve got a medium or lower-priced course that’s normally under 500. Because of what has happened with AI, people can get this knowledge from it. I don’t agree with that. I think if your course is that shallow, a bit of research on AI can be a main competitor. I think there’s probably something wrong with your course.
[00:06:51.500] – Jonathan Denwood
But on the other hand, one of the areas where AI is very good is going over and finding the information, and then presenting it to you in a way that you can research. But I think, and this is only my personal opinion, Kurt, is that they’re also pitching, moving, or changing their business model, which is AI overviews. It is the amount of traffic they generate that they can sell their 497 course to, which has increased dramatically. It’s also exhaustion. I think a lot of the people who were looking for an introductory course, they have been sold to. And there’s been course inflation in that particular sector of the market. Also paid advertisement, paid advertisement on Google, on YouTube, and especially on Facebook, has just got more expensive and more difficult to get the return on the investment that they’re looking for. What’s your response to what I’ve just outlined?
[00:08:31.920] – Kurt von Ahnen
I agree, I agree, I agree. But here’s where I get, again, I go back to insulting, you mentioned the word shallow in your answer. And to me, when they make content like this, because your show notes went to very specific targeted ideas of course sales. I think Alex Hormozy’s video was the well-rounded because it said, Here’s the three ways to make a legit course. Don’t sell to everybody. Filter your audience. Make sure that they can actually fail the dang thing. Only qualify people. So when you listen to it, you go, Okay, everything he’s saying here makes sense because it adds legitimacy to your training product, which only really has certain use cases that that’s real. If I’m going to teach someone how to work on motorcycles or how to be a doctor, I want to make sure they learn and pass and earn the certificate. But if I’m training somebody like how to make a coffee mug, how to paint ceramics, it’s not a pass or fail situation. That’s someone taking a course just for self-improvement and betterment, right? So there’s use cases. But the shallow part, Jonathan, is they’re talking about things that as a reputable agency, Manana Nomas has been promoting for over a decade.
[00:09:59.800] – Kurt von Ahnen
I I’ve always been a fan of the good, better, best pricing strategy. I have always tried to tell my clients that there’s no such thing as passive, build it and forget it and become a millionaire overnight. That doesn’t happen. You have to have skin in the game. You have to work at it. And so when these influencers were talking about shifting to a cohort model or a coaching model or a community model, that just falls perfectly into the good, better, best pricing strategy that I’ve been recommending to clients for over a decade. And that is have a base course, have a minimal viable product, a base course that people on a budget can get access to. And then the next price is maybe cohort, group learning, where you’re getting some live interaction and you’re getting some skin in the game with the creator in a group scenario, but you’re getting there. And then best is like that one on one coaching where they’re going to pay a 10X value for your time. And And if you look at some of the comments in these videos, a lot of people make reference to, yeah, but this still puts me in an exchanging hours for dollars situation, and I was trying to avoid that.
[00:11:10.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I’ll be honest, Jonathan, I just don’t have the patience for that conversation. Everything that creates revenue takes effort. And so there are benefits on selling one to many as opposed to one to one. But you’re still exchanging time for dollars in some a way, even if your content is static. If your content is static, you still got to manage the site, manage the members. You and I are fully aware of what it’s like to have to provide management and maintenance for our clients. So you either pay someone to do it or you do it yourself.
[00:11:45.000] – Jonathan Denwood
I watched a video by a lady called LaTisha James, and I can only go what she says. She says that she is That last year net, gross, sorry, the turnover that she did in courses was like a million dollars. Well, that doesn’t compare to Pat Flynn or Amy Porterfield. She said that she never bought any of Amy Portefield’s courses, but she watched a lot of the free material, the podcasts and videos that she that Amy produces, and she was encouraged to go into the course. She says that she’s very satisfied with the end results, right? Yeah. I don’t know this lady, but she seems reasonably legit. But she remarks that these people, like Amy Portefield and Pat Flynn, and of course, Alex is a little bit out of this because he is a major investor in a platform that sells courses. To be fair, Pat Flynn is a major investor in circle, but the way he’s changing his business model suits the platform circle. Don’t get me wrong, folks, there’s nothing illegal, but almost all the people Pat Flynn has got a major investment in circle Alex has got a major investment in school. Amy Portefield had a special relationship with Kajabi.
[00:13:53.800] – Jonathan Denwood
So did Graham have a special relationship with Kajabi, and they get a special affiliate rate, which you or Kirk, if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re never going to get, because they brought a lot of customers to the Kajabi platform. Graham, every second video for a period of time was promoting the benefits of Kajabi, and he did use it himself. There’s nothing wrong with that, long as you understand the game. I I just, I wouldn’t say worry, I just wonder a lot of the people that are attracted to Amy Portefield or Graham or Pat Flynn, do they understand the game? What do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:14:45.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think they understand the game that if they come out with a new message and get their 2. 7 million followers to move in a certain direction, they can make some more money. But I think you have to use the gift of discernment to look at the message, who’s delivering the message, what’s the motivation for the message, and then really think to yourself, is this applicable to me or not? There’s another influencer out there that, for some reason, has been on my mind lately, and I haven’t listened to him in forever, and that’s Gary Vaneerchuk. He’s pretty loud, obnoxious. But Gary used to say, I don’t know if he still says, but he used to say things all the time Stop comparing yourself to, and in this situation it would be, stop comparing yourself to Alex, to Graham, to LaTisha, stop comparing yourselves to them. If you came out with a course and you made $65,000 this year or $100,000, you would be over the moon. That would be life-changing money for you as a side venture for most people listening to this. When someone as an influencer makes a video and says, well, I did a million dollars in course sales last year, but I don’t sell courses anymore.
[00:16:05.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
Part of me wonders, well, do you have to do anything anymore? If you invest a million dollars properly, you might never have to work again. Those aren’t your people. You know what I mean? It’s like they’re trying to broadcast. There’s a lady in town that I love. She’s a dear soul. She’s got great energy. But, man, she listens to these people and she follows what they say and she buys training programs. And I think to myself, you’re not in the same league as these folks. You’re not playing in the same sandbox. And so you’re not going to get the same results. You need to pick sandboxes that match your current position and your use case. And if it grows and you can expand and become amazing in five years, that’s great. But I just don’t think a lot of people are there yet. When the people that have large investments and millions of dollars resting on this content, I really struggle to take it seriously.
[00:17:08.900] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Sorry, go on.
[00:17:12.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
I was just going to say, I have to hit this. If I don’t say this, I’m going to feel like I left people hanging. The use case is completely different for different areas of courses. So there’s commercial training, there’s corporate training, there’s personal development training, there’s leadership training for business and stuff. There’s a And the technology has changed a ton. So adding community or adding live coaching to these courses is completely doable and becoming expected now. But I don’t think it’s expected because Alex and Latasha said it is. I think it’s expected because that’s just the evolution of it, and that’s what’s happened over the last half decade.
[00:17:52.080] – Jonathan Denwood
So probably in the second half, we will discuss probably more how community cohorts, mechanisms that help in making your course, your community more sticky, some of the things that you’ve seen worked or not worked. But before we go for our middle break, what are your feelings about AI and not specifically Google AI, AI overviews. Because I think that’s affected a lot of information websites have been hit where they’ve lost 70, 80% of their traffic. Some have recovered, a lot haven’t. I got hit. I’ve never fully recovered, but talking to some other people, they’ve said I’ve done quite well in the figures that I’ve managed to get it back up to. But how, in general, do you think AI over the last couple of years has affected how people see courses, or It was touched by a couple of the people’s videos that we’ve talked about. Also, do you think after COVID, there was just a little bit of exhaustion in in the online. But I think COVID had an effect. I think AI has had effect. But also, I think a lot of these course, online business use major influences, their actions have… They’ve made a lot of money, but it’s also a very similar message.
[00:20:00.980] – Jonathan Denwood
And I was going to use discredited. That’s probably a bit too strong. But they took the shine off the market with selling a lot courses to people that it was going to be easy, that you could just set up an evergreen membership website, and you would only have to put four hours a week into it, blah, blah, blah. Am I waffling or would you Would you like to comment? And then we go for our break.
[00:20:33.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, is there course fatigue like Graham had spoke about in his video? I believe that there is, just like there’s subscription fatigue, I am exhausted of subscribing to everything on the planet. So what do I do? I just start canceling subscriptions, whether I use the product or not. Just start canceling stuff and I’ll figure it out later. That’s why I always say I’m a fan of the lifetime deal because I hate tracking all these stupid subscriptions. It’s the same with the online training. Now, what happens with a lot of this training, and I don’t know if you saw this video, I should have emailed you back. Imran Siddique, Web Squadron, did a wonderful video this last week about scams and these gurus that make these courses, sell you this for 149, sell you this for 549, sell you this for 949 or whatever. And they always promise that they’re going to give you some hidden secret or hidden value, and it’s all hyped up. And then you see the content, and it’s not there. It’s not magical. It’s not new. It’s not anything revolutionary. And people are tired of getting duped. So when you use the word discredited, I believe that that was valid.
[00:21:50.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s valid because people have hyped up the result past what is real. You got to be honest and you got to be transparent with people and you got to let them know what they’re going to get. If you identify a pain point and you sell training based on that pain point, well, gosh, darn, there better be some relief for that pain point at the end of the content. And in a lot of cases, there isn’t. That’s where people, I think, have hit the fatigue that Graham was talking about in his video.
[00:22:21.460] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s common sense. At WP Tonic, we’re Hosting Plus, as we call it. We provide, we specialize in membership, community-focused websites. We use WordPress because the benefits. But if we didn’t host your website and we couldn’t help you and we were totally useless, you wouldn’t be happy if you signed up for WP Tonic. You would be rightly to feel that you’ve been misled, wouldn’t you?
[00:22:51.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah.
[00:22:52.340] – Jonathan Denwood
And it doesn’t always work out for everybody at WP Tonic, folks, but all I can say, and I think, Kirk, I We do care, and so does Kirk and the rest of the team, and we do the best for our clients, and we want them to succeed. But if we can’t provide the basics, we don’t deserve to be in business, do we?
[00:23:15.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, no. And your point about the AI thing, and I see the comment coming in from Asang, people rely on these AI overviews for quick answers. But there’s a difference between a quick answer and feeling really well-founded in a topic. I work with a lot of young people, Jonathan, and one of the things I’m seeing in this younger generation is they don’t have a lot of patience for AI and fakeness. They just don’t. They see something that’s AI. If it’s entertaining, that’s different. If we’re going to laugh and giggle, that’s great. But they don’t have patience to learn from a Hey, Gen icon. They want to connect with person. And I’m seeing this more and more now. I projected this two years ago on one of our shows. I said, Hey, in the next three to five years, I think people will get fatigued from AI interfacing, and they’ll actually crave contact with a real human expert. And I think we’re starting to see that now. And I think what’s going to happen is that’s actually in the next, again, another forecast, another 2-3 years, you’re going to see a heightened demand for courses that are run by real live people and also that feature the cohort or membership example where they get access to you in a live Zoom screen.
[00:24:39.480] – Jonathan Denwood
Which we’re going to discuss that in the second half. Thanks for bringing it up. I think we’ve come to a good place to have our middle break, folks. Like I said, Kirk just mentioned it. We’re going to go through how some of the techniques, some of the skills, some of the things you can do to make sure that your course is going to be successful in 2026. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I want to point out Another fantastic free resource. If you go the Membership Machine Show WP Tonic Newsletter, I send it out once a week on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s written by myself. It takes one of the topics that I have discussed through some of my other videos or content. And also I give a short curated list of the best stories that have come on my radar during the week. It’s totally free. To get this, all you have to do is go over to wp-tonic. Com/newsletter, wp-tonic. Com/newsletter. Twitter, and it’s a great way of supporting the show if you could sign up. I wouldn’t say it’s negative, I think we were being realistic.
[00:26:10.890] – Jonathan Denwood
This topic just came on my radar, and I just thought it was a good topic for us discussing this week’s show, Kurt. So what are some of the things that you think people… I’ll just give a couple of quick things and then I’ll let you take over. I think It’s everything we’ve discussed in previous shows. It’s finding a niche. It’s finding a real need, a real pain point. It’s doing like we discussed last week, do a minimum viable course. It’s building the tribe. It’s building that relationship. It’s getting those first doing an early bird offer, getting a few people to initially sign up to get the will moving, and then getting feedback from those first paying students. And then we got the other… That’s where I would start off. How do you think about that list? And then what would you add to it, Kerr?
[00:27:16.340] – Kurt von Ahnen
During the needs assessment from an agency perspective, that’s where I find out what the real goal of the client is, right? So did you want to be in the course business? Do you want to have the community? Are you more like an in-person trainer? And then it changes the strategy. So like you had said, come out with a proof of concept, come out with a mini-course, do a minimal viable product. In some cases, that minimal viable product ends up being a free mini course that maybe becomes the lead magnet that goes to the community or to the mastermind or whatever you want to call your organization. So that’s one model. But then there’s the other model that I actually like, and that is use the courses as your main foundational product and actually sell those courses and then upsell the community and the one on one coaching on top. That’s that good, better, best example I talked about in the first half.
[00:28:18.080] – Jonathan Denwood
I think really also what has happened with Google and AI overviews, I think if in the educational space, I think the platform that still… There are Instagram threads, there’s TikTok, but I think the big daddy, and it’s still growing and taking market share is YouTube. If you’re really somebody that has knowledge and can communicate, you should be on YouTube. You should be developing your YouTube channel. And it just naturally bleeds in to getting people to sign up for a course or community element of your package. What do you think about that?
[00:29:20.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I absolutely agree with the YouTube angle. In fact, one of my takeaways from today’s homework to do this show was if you take a look at the show notes for each of those three, right? Their show notes are extraordinarily detailed. And that’s one of the things I came away with. That YouTube video, A, the YouTube video is the hook, right? That’s the hook, gets people watching. But anyone that clicks to see the extended show notes is going to see the whole bio and life history of Alex Hormozy. It’s going to have links to all kinds of projects. And then the SEO kickback from that, I imagine it’s got to be a lot higher than those servicey one paragraph intros I have in my YouTube channel. He’s got millions of followers and I have 100 followers. So that tells me right there that that’s one of those things. So you’re pointing out, you have a course, you have a program that you’re selling. What’s a great way to get people to see it? Youtube. And I agree with you 100 %.
[00:30:28.600] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, and I think next week we’ll talk about YouTube and some of the people, because as you know, Kirk knows, I’ve been doing a lot of research about… Because I produce a lot of videos, and it is not easy, folks, because you have to… It’s finding a balance with YouTube, especially if you’re in a niche. You’re not going to get enormous audience. But I say that there’s people in the WordPress space and they got a couple of hundred thousand or 100,000. You don’t need a tremendous… And that sounds large, but in the world of YouTube, that isn’t. But it’s all very contradictory because I think only 5-8% of YouTube channels have more than 10,000 subscribers. I will have to check that because I’m just going by my memory, but I think I’m not wrong. I have to get AI overview. But I think that’s right. I think at the most, it’s only 10% have more than 10, bar me, subscribers. What are some of the other factors? I think I’m still very positive about YouTube. I think the other thing I, I wouldn’t say failed on, but I didn’t appreciate was build, and I think that is linked to what Alex says, which I don’t agree totally, but is, I think offering a lot of free materials, and encouraging people to go to your website and offering a lot of free stuff if people sign up, because building up your email list is really important, I think also.
[00:32:37.940] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s something that I didn’t appreciate, and really building that up and pruning it, pruning it, and looking after it is really important because if you’ve got, not a massive list, but you’ve got a couple of thousand people that regularly open your email, read it. It’s going to be much easier to sell them at your initial course if you got that resource. What do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:33:13.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
If the question really to me is, do I still believe in giving away free stuff? I still believe in giving away free stuff. However, I try to encourage at least my customers, my clients, to be selective and strategic about what is free, how much is free, and how the free is delivered. If you watch these influencers, if you do more than listen to what they say, if you watch what they actually do, you can really come away with a lot from that. I think a lot of people just starting out make two major mistakes in either direction when they first launch. A is they try to sell their course for absolute retail plus, and they think the smartest person in the world and anybody would be a fool not to take their course, and then they wonder why nobody signs up. You’ve seen people launch a course for 500 bucks and nobody signs up, and they go, well, something must be wrong with my website. Well, no, something’s wrong with your message. You’re not going to get 500 bucks from strangers. The other side of the coin is someone that gets hooked on this idea of give away your best for free, becomes white papers and videos and webinars, and they do all this stuff for free, and they work themselves into a tizy for free.
[00:34:37.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
And they have that imposter syndrome that prevents them from actually marketing a course near retail. And that’s where I see a lot of people carry the free thing on so far and so long that it becomes painful for them to get to revenue positive. And so you’ve got to figure out the balance. And sometimes you need a second person in the room. Sometimes you need a voice of reason on your team that says, hey, let’s do these three white papers and this webinar as free products. But they’re all lead magnets, and they all require an email to see it or view it. And then they go into the funnel to buy the- I call it…
[00:35:16.900] – Jonathan Denwood
Mentally, I call them paths.
[00:35:19.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
Exactly. Pathways.
[00:35:20.900] – Jonathan Denwood
I see them as pathways. That’s how I mentally-Part of the user experience is to get them into…
[00:35:29.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
So You need something. That’s why I was so insulted by the content that I viewed in preparation for the show, because these people that have already made millions and had hundreds of thousands of followers and these giant tribes are trying to tell people Just getting started. Don’t waste your time. This doesn’t work. Well, obviously it did work because you’ve got this huge audience. How am I, Mr. Nobody, supposed to portray myself as an expert in any field if I don’t offer up some content, some assets, and exchange some information for marketing content that I can market to people to grow my tribe and grow revenue. It’s a very tricky business. And it’s funny because you and I are having this conversation, and we’re probably talking in circles to some of the people that are listening or viewing. And I just want to say, if you’re confused right now, don’t be mad at yourself. This really does take work and research and your niche and use case and all that stuff. There’s not a tried and true blueprint that guarantees success with that.
[00:36:39.120] – Jonathan Denwood
It just takes a little bit of time, but it doesn’t take forever either. But I think we’re going to do an episode about podcasting because it has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s like anything that doesn’t cost an enormous amount of money, it’s not going to be overnight. If you think you’re going to make money from podcasting, I I can assure you, only the top 5% of podcasters make any income. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m lucky to get sponsorship that covers my costs. Or helps with a particular bill. But I couldn’t make a living off podcasting, only if I was teaching people how to podcast. But it’s still something worthwhile doing and using YouTube and getting, concentrating on building not an enormous list, but a list that people really open. That’s about what you’re going to produce courses on. Now, The other factor that, and I had similar things, especially Graham, when he was boasting his coaching. I don’t think it’s anything new. I think it’s just like you remarked in the first half of the show, doing coaching, doing group coaching, doing one-to-one coaching is a natural path that’s being there for people that do build a successful membership community, isn’t it?
[00:38:20.180] – Jonathan Denwood
But what he was saying, and I find the man nothing offensive, and I’m sorry to bash him, but when he was saying, Well, I sell one-to-one coaching packages around $250,000. Now, if he does, good for him. But all I know about people that could afford a 250 one-to-one consultancy package, Graham must be bringing a lot, put it this way, a lot of value. He’s looking at me, folks. If you just listen, I’ll get an old-fashioned look from Kurt. For me, I’ve been very diplomatic, aren’t I?
[00:39:14.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
You’re being super diplomatic, and that’s where I take a look at some of these things that these influencers say, Hey, look at me standing next to this Lamborghini. Let me show you how to make money online. Shut up. Stop.
[00:39:26.100] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s the problem, is that. I did start to smile when he was saying that, basically. I don’t think Amy is engaged so much in that. I actually think there are a few people that would give her a considerable amount of money. I’ve always found, and I’ve interviewed her once, and it was fine, but I’ve always found her content, not to be useful, but shallow. And to some extent, perhaps, I always found his content to be fine, but shallow as well. But I think people like them.
[00:40:10.060] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, they’re personable. And to be clear, he might be selling $250,000 coaching packages because he is also a person of means. If you are a person of means and you’re hanging around in circles with people that make a few million dollars a year, for them to spend 100 grand, 200 grand on something they perceive as valuable, that’s a doable situation. If you are in the six-figure range for your income, the chances of you selling a quarter million dollar trading package are pretty dang slim. I have a product that I sell. It’s $45,000 to work with a single business for a year’s worth of training, live sessions and coaching with their management. It’s 45 grand. I don’t sell that very often, but when I do, I sure am happy. And the people that take that training from me generally see about $750,000 to $800,000 in additional revenue as a business. So the thing to me that is important, and that’s the data that Alex Hermosi was talking about. You’ve got to have some a thing that you say. I’m not going to brag about how much money I make selling these courses. That’d be silly. But what I’m saying is, Hey, if you own a dealership and you’re in this situation, and this is the pain point you’re experiencing, I have these other clients that have gone through our program and have come out the other end with better customer service, better retention, and an extra 800 grand.
[00:41:48.230] – Jonathan Denwood
Like on the website, if you can, it would be fantastic. We had a couple of video testimonials. You would have white papers describing one or white papers describing what results a organization got by doing that course. There would be videos that you talk about the key steps that got that particular organization to that particular level. It’s all stuff that you got to build out on your websites or you hire people to help you do it. Now, so coaching, high-ticket coaching, I think Amy was talking about that also, to some extent, Pat Flynn and definitely Graham. But I think The areas where this has always been there, folks, and it diminished because there was a lot of people selling evergreen courses and the delusionary idea that you be on a beach and only spend four hours a month, and you can make six figures. There’s a lot of people saying that they got there. I was always rather negative of that. But I think now they’re looking at community being more active, having a platform where you can build community community, but it’s a lot more work. And also doing the courses with a student in batches cohort.
[00:43:43.500] – Jonathan Denwood
Can we quickly go through… Because this term community, which is, to me, a mixture of a forum of area that has some of the functionality of a Facebook group, and then mixing it with cohort process is what… I think, yeah, I would agree with those elements, but you got to understand what you’re getting involved with as well. What’s your comments on that, Kerr?
[00:44:13.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
The question is the difference between cohorts and communities?
[00:44:17.740] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I think they’re marketing both. Community elements, your membership needs to have… This word is banded around a lot recently. The last community, rather than membership. And then also cohort, changing from an evergreen to cohort mythology.
[00:44:42.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
So, to me, the cohort thing is super interesting because there are different ways to perceive cohorts. When I define a cohort, I simply explain that it’s a way for a group to take a course together. And so, a cohort, people could still learn independently, but let’s say the course starts on February first and it ends on February 28th. So everybody can enter the course on February first and they get out of the course on February 28th. So technically, that’s a cohort, right? Because it’s a group of people taking the same course at the same time. I prefer to integrate a cohort with community tools. And that’s where this dynamic website, which is already a learning management system, comes in: if you add community tools and a cohort, well, now everyone starts the class on February first and gets access to a group forum to discuss each lesson. Or maybe there’s a way to do a live shared Zoom meeting every Wednesday for the month they’re taking the course. But that’s when we say community, what we’re talking about is a way for the students to interact with each other, not just with the instructor, because a well-positioned learning management system has the ability for the student and the instructor to communicate as part of the LMS, like whenever, right?
[00:46:14.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
So the idea of a cohort is to create a more group-like scenario, hopefully improve course completion rates, because selling the course is one thing; getting everyone to finish it is a completely different thing.
[00:46:29.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, you hope it reduces churn, don’t you?
[00:46:32.120] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, so you’re trying to reduce churn. You don’t want to give refunds. You want everyone to get excited and do this thing together. Well, the excitement is amplified when students can communicate with each other, and that’s what these community tools do. There are many community tools in the WordPress space. So again, it comes to use case, how much you want to moderate this community, because that’s a task in itself. And what features do you really want to give them? Are you going to do Zoom community calls? Are you going to let them banter back and forth in a forum? Are you going to have them use comments in the lessons to share their opinions as part of the lesson format? There are many ways to address it. But I think that’s when a course really begins to take a life of its own. It’s one thing to have the idea and draft the curriculum. It’s a completely different thing to have a tribe of people actively communicating about your creation alongside of what you created. It really gives it life.
[00:47:38.540] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but it’s more administration overhead, folks. You’re going to have to be more directly involved. But don’t get me wrong, folks, it’s still totally manageable with a full-time job, or if you’re working for yourself, and it’s totally manageable, and it has all those benefits because it’s more sticky, it reduces churn, and AI can’t replicate that. But in general, just to finish off, how do you see AI? What’s your general feeling about how AI is affecting the way people see courses?
[00:48:28.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think I alluded to it earlier. I think if you’re using AI to create your course content and you have, like, Hey, Gen avatars doing your talking and all that, I think you’re going to damage yourself in the long run. I think you need to make your course material as organic as possible. And I think AI is a great tool for helping you reach audiences or identify weak spots in your curriculum. There are many ways to use AI positively, but from a user experience perspective, I think AI will push people in the other direction. I think people will be craving that human contact. And the more organic and human your website appears, the more successful it will be in the long run.
[00:49:17.860] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s a number I like bringing. We like doing episodes where we talk about AI and AI products that come on our radar. But I do follow a couple of YouTube channels, and they’re really promoting that AI is going to totally replace courses. Funny enough, they’ve got their own communities. One of them does it on Fluent Community, which is a great decision. But I periodically watch what they’re talking about and demonstrating. And so far, I’ve not been very impressed. And this is somebody that you a lot of AI. I think Kirk would say that I do use a lot of AI, don’t I?
[00:50:07.840] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. I’ve begun using it more and more. I’m surprised at how often the windows open on my computer and what I’m really using it for. But it’s a lot of research. It’s a lot of filling in content gaps. But in the end, when I publish something, it’s got my voice. I think that is incredibly valuable. Valuable. And I don’t want people to get lost in that. There are tools right now where you could say, “Hey, Mr. AI, create me 10 blog posts a week on this subject and automatically post them to my website.” And we have people in the course marketplace who we help with these kinds of things. And then they wonder, like, People don’t seem to be reading my posts anymore. Yeah, because they all have the same pattern, then they end with a conclusion, right? Everyone knows ChatGPT wrote it, and people are getting tired of it. If you don’t have the energy to create your own content, they’re not going to have the energy to want to read it.
[00:51:14.000] – Jonathan Denwood
I think that’s a great way to end the show, but I still think it’s a fantastic way to build a secondary income or in the end, build a business that enables you to give up your day job. So, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and what you’re up to?
[00:51:35.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’ve been slacking off on LinkedIn lately because of all the spam, but LinkedIn is still probably the best way to actually make contact with me. I’m the only Kurt Von Oen in there, and I’m easy to find.
[00:51:44.840] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fine. If you want to schedule a consultation with me, Trudy, or Kurt, go to the WP Tonic website to start an initial chat. We also offer consultation packages to help you develop your membership idea and launch it. We provide the hosting all the tools, plus the consultation, and we can provide that all in one package for you, folks. We’ve helped tons of people have successful launches. We’ll see you next week with another great topic. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
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