Make Money in 2024: Profit from Your Skills with an Online Course. Start the Journey.
Empower yourself with the knowledge and tools needed to capitalize on the booming e-learning industry in 2024 with an engaging online course. Explore innovative ways to package your expertise into valuable content that attracts eager learners seeking specialized skills. From crafting compelling course material to optimizing revenue streams, this video offers invaluable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs like you. Seize this opportunity for financial growth.
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
BlogVault: BlogVault
#1 – General Introduction
#2 – Identify your niche for creating online courses (Urgency)
-1 – Self Improvement
-2 – Relationships
-3 – Career
4 – Health
-5- Finance
#3 – Can I earn money from developing an online course?
-1- Who you are serving
-2 – What do you want to be known for?
#4 – Define your Big Purpose
-1 – A fundamental change you may bring about for your student
-2 – An effective strategy to help you achieve that outcome for your student
#5 – is to try out different course structures.
#6 – Examine alternative revenue streams.
#7 – Determine the appropriate pricing.
#8 – Where are the most incredible sites to sell online courses for money?
The Show’s Main Transcript And Links
[00:00:00.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 66. In this episode, we will discuss how to make money in 2024 from your knowledge with an online course. It’s a vital subject. I’m sure you’ll get some knowledge from listening to or watching me and my guest, Kirek, on this particular show. So, Kirek, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers before we go into the meat and potatoes?
[00:00:43.800] – Kurt von Ahnen
Indeed, I own a company called MananaNoMas. I do leadership and membership-type websites and work directly with folks like Jonathan at WP-Tonic and LifterLMS.
[00:00:57.190] – Jonathan Denwood
As I said, in this episode, We’re going to be talking about how you can profit from your knowledge and skills in a secondary business that has the ability to become your primary business if you wish to. It’s a great opportunity. You can build a great company in 2024. We think we’ve got some great tips and insights to avoid some of the pitfalls you might encounter in this journey. But before we go into this show’s main meat and potatoes, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We’ll be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I’d like to point out that we got some great special offers from the sponsors, plus It’s a curated list of the best WordPress plugins and services. If you’re looking to build your membership or community website on WordPress, and both me and Kirk think you should do that, it’s a great choice around digital sovereignty, customization, and just the best value solution out there at the present moment. To get all these goodies, all these special offers, and the created list, all you have to do is go over to Wp-tonic.
[00:02:37.860] – Jonathan Denwood
Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals, and you’ll find all the goodies there. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot, but that’s all you’ll get from that page. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s a great resource, folks. So let’s jump off. So let’s do a quick… Before going to the main points I’ve listed in the show notes, Kurt, have you got any more significant picture thoughts about this subject that you’d like to share with the audience before we go into the specifics?
[00:03:21.990] – Kurt von Ahnen
Jonathan, when I saw the notes come through this week for the show, I was pretty excited, to be honest with you, because this is basically the not to do what Kurt wasted his time with for years before consulting people on how to launch their courses. The launch of an online course is so counterintuitive to most experts that you’re bound to make all the mistakes if you don’t take some coaching or get some information from other people first. It’s huge.
[00:03:55.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Thanks for that. So let’s go into I’ll add the general introduction, which I think we’ve done. Let’s go into point two. And I put it this way, Identify your niche, create for your online courses, pain point, urgency. And I’ve said this before, but I will continue saying it, don’t think volume, building what I call War and Peace of a course. Great book, War and I’ve listened to it on audiobooks a couple of times. I’m more of an audiobook guide than a reader because I can kill two birds with one stone. It’s a great book, but it’s a hefty book. You do not want a lot of people, when they’re starting out on this journey, folks, for understandable reasons, they think volume is going to lead to success. No. I’m staying in this from the bootstrap start. The bootstrap… I’ve just lost the thread.
[00:05:12.050] – Kurt von Ahnen
Rob Rowland?
[00:05:12.600] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, Rob Rowling. When you have a startup, you’re bootstrapping a startup. He came up with this saying he wants to be either a painkiller or a vitamin. And I suggest it really does need to be you’re solving some pain for your students. But there’s that extra thing because I’ve said these things before, but I’m adding an extra bit. If you really want your first course to be successful, there’s got to be urgency. It’s a combination of solving their pain point, but these people also need your knowledge to solve that pain point. Otherwise, well, yeah, I’ve got a pain point. I’ll take that course in maybe three months’ time, or it looks good, but I don’t have the time or a thousand other reasons for them not to purchase your great course. But there’s urgency behind it. That’s a totally different cup of tea. What’s your response to what I’ve just outlined, Kurt?
[00:06:33.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it’s not so much, not so much, on top of it being a pain point, urgency thing. What we really wanted to say was you’ve got to figure out that niche that you’re creating the online course for so that you can properly address that pain point. For instance, one of my biggest mistakes was I got certified in leadership and speaking. And so I thought, well, I’ll just I’ll put together some leadership courses, some speaking courses. I’ll put together some self-improvement courses. And I put together all the stuff that interested me. And I made this giant library of training. It was one of my first LMS sites. And I had like 22 courses in it and all this wealth of knowledge. And not a single dang person wanted to sign up and take anything. Because you know what? What was I solving? What problem was I solving for folks? What was I preventing their Did I say, Stop your divorce in three easy lessons? Did I say, Lose weight by bikini season? Did I say, No. I was just like, Hey, let’s all get together and sit around the campfire and make each other better. And that wasn’t enough of a pain point to get sales.
[00:07:48.750] – Kurt von Ahnen
And then I learned over the course of time, I needed to niche that down. And my leadership had to be focused at certain divisions of retail store owners that would get rid of this, this, or this happening. I noticed that I got a better buy-in when I could do that.
[00:08:05.900] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m going to put some meat on this. I’ve got five that I did some research, and these are the General 5 leading… They’re not niches, definitely, because these are very broad categories. If you tried to do your first membership website in these general five categories that I’m going to give you, folks, unless you’re well known in any of these categories, you’re going to find it difficult. But if you can find a particular niche, and I’m going to give an example after I read out these five categories that hopefully solidify the point I’m trying to make, and I’ll see if Kirk I’ll get Kurt to mark my effort. So the five broad and most popular categories for people to make courses are self-improvement, relationships, career, health, and Finance. Like I say, if you try to build a course, unless you got a large audience or you’re well known on some other platform, it’s very unlikely. So let’s choose one, and let’s take Relationships here, Kurt. And this is the example I’m going to give. So let’s say relationships, but you’re going to focus on men, and men that have problems in their personal relationship with their main partner.
[00:10:08.660] – Jonathan Denwood
How do we get the pain and urgency? Well, we dive down a bit deeper. We provide a course that can advise… If you’re facing a divorce from your major partner, you’re married, and you’ve got children, and you’re facing the decision to hire a lawyer, and you might be going to family court. You can provide a course that describes the process, what will happen in court, what are some of the key things that you as a man that still wants access to your children and be part of their upbringing. What are the things that you need to know about certain states, certain processes? What do you need to know about hiring a lawyer? What are some of the red flags when you’re choosing a particular lawyer to hire? What are some of the questions that you need to be able to ask? Can you see where I’m going from this, Kerr? And because you But this is important knowledge, isn’t it? I would imagine a lot of men when they’re spouse, and it, statistically, unfortunately, Kerk, 70% of marriages are started, married couples, heterosexual relationship. And the marriage, it’s the 70% of divorces are started by the woman.
[00:12:00.530] – Jonathan Denwood
And a lot of the men in those relationship, it comes straight out of the blue that the marriage, the female partner wants out the relationship, and where the woman… This is scientifically proven, folks. It’s not my bias coming out here. I want to make out here. I’m not you. It’s We’ve been proving that 70% of divorces are inculcated by the female partner, and normally, they’ve been thinking about the divorce for quite a long period, but the male person, it comes totally out of the blue. So they’re probably not seeing it coming. It’s hit them, and then they’re probably doing a Google search to find information. There’s urgency in their need. They’re confused, they’re lost, they don’t know where to turn to. Do you think I’m laying out well here the difference when somebody’s got a urgency and also a pain point here, Kurt?
[00:13:18.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
Oh, yeah. I feel like you’re diving into my background some. I was actually on the board of directors for a program called the Father Show Resource program that helped fathers reestablish visitation rights with their estranged children. It is interesting, right? So the name of that course would be how to win visitation rights in Nevada, how to win visitation rights in Louisiana, and then a course for men. But yeah, having a course name and having some content or copy that addresses that pain point and that urgency will help you gain success with the course.
[00:13:58.820] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, and I’m not being sexist. You could like, I got to work and come into pregnancy. You’ve got your aim in your course at a certain female section around relationship. But it’s just not some vague. Another, it just come to me here. You could aim your course at professional or executive-level females who are thinking or who have delayed their first pregnancy, but the time is running out and they’re concerned, how can they prepare their employer? Or how can they get themselves into the best financial position if they are a lawyer or some form of professional? So their career isn’t totally decimated by the natural need to have a child. You could design a whole course that can advise with coaching around that particular issue. Is that a good example, do you think, Kurt?
[00:15:15.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think we saved ourselves over favoring the men. So I think we’re back on track.
[00:15:21.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes, I think I was on very dicey. I think I’ve managed to dig myself out of a big pit there, haven’t I? Hopefully. I will let the audience decide. If you’ve got some feedback about my attempt with the not destroying myself in this podcast, please leave a comment on the YouTube channel, the WP Tonic YouTube channel. Where you find the video of this podcast. Can I earn money from taking online courses courses or doing online courses? I think I’ve got a bit confused there. Yeah, you can, but it’s linked to the couple of examples I’ve just outlined here. If there’s urgency, if there’s pain resolution that comes out of your course, and there’s some form of urgency, you’re going to be able and you fulfill what you say you’re going to be able to help the student, the individual, out with, you’ll be able to price your course to the value that it gives, where a lot of people, like I said in the introduction, they link their first course value by the length of the course by having 50 lessons, endless sub courses. I don’t know. Like I said, the war and peace that’s taken a year plus to do all the videos, blah, blah, blah.
[00:17:08.690] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s not where the value comes from. But if you do what I’ve just, and I think I did a… I’m blaming my I’m on my own horn here, but hopefully, Kurt will say I normally don’t do that, is that I think if you do the pain point and the urgency there, the ability to charge a reasonable amount instead of straight away discount in it, something that’s taken over a year, this bloated war and peace course, and you’re already talking about discounting it before you even got your first set of sales in. I think you’re in a much better position. What do you reckon?
[00:17:47.300] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think people don’t have to listen to either you or I on this one, Jonathan. I mean, social media is full of dudes leaning on Lamborghini’s, telling them how they can be millionaires if they just put up an online course. So can you make money at it? Yeah, you definitely can. But there are a lot of steps in this. It’s not you just lean up on someone’s Lamborghini and claim it as your own. It’s the stuff that we mentioned at the beginning of the show, absolutely. But then I learned along the way, how do I make money from the course? I found out that people, more so than content, think they’re paying for access. So if you put yourself in position as the expert, the person that knows about something, they’re going to want some access to you. If you have a good, better, best pricing strategy for your course, you’re going to be able to charge more and higher premium rates for it. For example, you could have an entry-level version of your course, a more advanced version of your course, and you could also have a version of your course that comes with some live workshop, master mind one-on-one coaching, something like that.
[00:19:02.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
And so remember that every time you extend yourself and add access of yourself to your courses, you 10X. I mean, it’s exponential growth for the earning potential. Can you make money? Absolutely. You just have to have a really sound strategy behind it.
[00:19:21.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. I’ll put two subpoints here. It’s linked to what we’ve outlined in point two. Who are you serving? But like I said, the two examples, I gave the example that was focused on my audience, and then I dug myself out of a grave because I thought on my feet here, and hopefully, Kurt was impressed. I think he was, because I hadn’t planned that out. But as I was digging a grave for myself with example one, I managed to pivot on my backside and pull out a good example for number two. An example for a male audience, and then I had a good example for a female audience. So who are you serving? If you can work out that, which is part of your niche, and don’t produce something that’s all embracing with the five main categories that I outlined, self-improvement, relationships, career, health and finance. And I think I chose relationships, and I think I gave two really good examples of two sub-niches underneath the main category of relationships. I think we’ve given A good and clear example of what a niche is and how that niche has to solve a pain point. I know I’m repeating myself a lot in this podcast, folks, but I’m doing it intentionally because I think if you don’t get the pain point and the urgency there, if it’s your first course and you haven’t built a reputation, you’re not known After you’ve done this first pain, your courses can be a little bit more broader because you’ve built a reputation with a particular audience, and that was point two.
[00:21:27.480] – Jonathan Denwood
The subcategory of three is, what do you want to be known for? Well, if you’ve dealt with this pain point, let’s take the female. You’ve helped a lot of students around how to deal with their professional corporate reality and what’s the best tactics when you’re wanting to have your first child so your career isn’t decimated. It is a great concern, I know, for a lot of female friends I have, where I’ve known that it’s kept them up at night, worrying how their career is going to be affected. But after that, you can add additional subjects, additional courses. But if it’s your first course, it’s got to deal, in my opinion, with a pain point, and there’s got to be urgency. Does this make sense, Kurt?
[00:22:36.450] – Kurt von Ahnen
Absolutely, sir. Not, sir. Jonathan.
[00:22:40.290] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes, he keeps calling me sir. It’s something very American. Either they call you dude or they call you sir. I don’t like dude. I think that’s very slangy. But then they go to the other extreme. They call you sir, which is I suppose I’ve gone from the UK. The only people that are called Sir in the UK is if you’re united by the ‘queen’ or the King now, the King, because obviously, I keep saying Queen, folks, because she was so long the monarch in the UK that it’s ingrained in me. I’m waffling there a bit. Define your big purpose. I was thinking about this, and it’s more to do in my nature, folks, I push against this, but I do think it’s important. I think obviously the financial side, like any business, but I think apart from the financial side, if you’re going to maintain this and it’s going to be a real business, I don’t like these people that say it’s not about money. That’s nonsense, Father. That’s nonsense as far as I’m concerned. But there’s also got to be another purpose to it because you’re going to have some big ups and downs on this journey.
[00:24:12.250] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s going to be some days that aren’t going to be great. But there’s going to be other days when you launch your first course and you’re getting sales in and you’re getting a good feedback from the students. There’ll be other days where you’re just getting complaint after complaint after complaint, and nothing seems to be… If there isn’t a bigger purpose, a purpose why you’re passionate about the subject or why you’re interested in the subject, there won’t be a lot to sustain you through the lodes. What do you reckon about this, Kurt?
[00:24:49.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, to me, the big purpose can’t just be a façade you put on temporarily while you’re promoting the course or just in your tweets or your posts about something. When I saw define your big purpose, I thought, yes, absolutely. Like, what’s the mission statement? What’s the purpose of this thing? But then it almost has to become an embodiment of what you’re trying to represent through your emails, through your posts, through your live videos, all that stuff. And the more you touch on what that big purpose is, the more people will identify with it and be to whatever your offer is.
[00:25:33.830] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think it’s great. We’re going to go for our break now, mid-break. Hopefully, you got some value from my Wafflein, and the more the precise insights from my special host, co-host, Kurt. But I think hopefully I’ve given a couple of good examples of what is a good example of pain point and urgency. We’ve got some great Any other insights, we will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I just want to point out that if you’re looking to build your membership website and you’re looking for great hosting and a selection of the best plugin solutions that have been picked out by us to help you build your membership community website, plus email marketing, plus ongoing support from a knowledgeable team. If this all sounds really great, why don’t you look at building your first membership website and hosting it on WP WP Tonic. We love you to be part of the tribe, I think, and I think Kirk agrees, we offer some of the best value on the market when it comes to helping people build their membership website on WordPress. So go over to Wp-tonic. Com.
[00:27:04.540] – Jonathan Denwood
Have a look at what we go offer, and you can also book a free consultation with me. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot, but we’re going to give of that. So let’s go on, on this winding journey together, listeners and viewers, around the yellow brick road, Kirkshire now because he’s moved to Kansas, so it must be his favorite song now, The Yellow Brick Road. The Wizard. Yeah, the Wizard. So let’s go on to number 5, Try out different cool structures. I think this is another thing. People get obsessed about layout of the course. I think spending time on the core message of your Home page and About Us page is really very important. Hitting the main pain points of the niche audience that you are trying to attract. That audience should have urgency and being able to say that your course will help them and do it in an efficient, timely way. But messing around with the course structure layout or the lesson layout, it has its place, but you shouldn’t really do fundamental things like that until you get your first batch of students in and start getting some feedback about what was confusing about the layout, what was clear about the layout, what would assist them in being able to progress through the course in an effective way until you get that feedback.
[00:29:07.050] – Jonathan Denwood
But also the combination, which Kurt touched on, normally it’s more there’s all different levels of upsell and downsell that will mean that they will have more access to you personally or in a group scenario. What’s thoughts about this, Kurt?
[00:29:33.350] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think when you start thinking about different core structures and things like that, there’s a part of me that agrees with what Jonathan said, but there’s another part of me that wants you to really think about something. In the corporate training categories, there’s a term called micro learning. And I think this is somewhere that a lot of people get confused. Some people create these lessons that are long, very verbose, lots of narratives, lots of sections. And if we think of things on the Internet, we think of things as like H1, H2, H3. These are the degrees of headlines in your content. So I try to inspire my clients to use much shorter, smaller pieces of content for lessons so that your user, your student can go micro learning, mark it done, go to the next one, mark it done. And every time they mark something complete, it’s like a little dopamine hit. It’s like a like or a share on social media to them. And that builds that momentum and it helps inspire them to want to go to the next thing. If your lesson structures or course structures are very long and laborious, unless you’re hitting a demographic that’s really into that of content.
[00:31:01.310] – Kurt von Ahnen
Jonathan spoke about that before. He’s in a course that has lots of content. It makes sense for that demographic. But most beginners in the eLearning segment would do better to have short quarter lesson content and then more pops and more messages of affirmation for getting things done.
[00:31:23.130] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s funny you bring this up. I need to refresh myself about this course that I bought myself, folks. One point, Kurt, the guy that’s running it, he’s got a very soft voice. He’ll go, Hello, this is Lesson 325, listeners and viewers, and we’re going to go in to page SEO, and we’re going to go into Page SEO, and we’re going to go into the subsections of each. And it goes on in this monotone soft tone, folks. I literally have four The content is good, folks. The guy knows what he’s talking about, but it’s just done in this monotone soft whisper. And I got to have literally… And On each lesson, there’s about four videos, and each video is about 20 minutes long. And you’re listening to this voice. And unless I’ve got a constant supply of coffee, I’ve nodded off, folks. I’ve actually fallen asleep. So keep the video short and sweet. Break it down into, I think, five minute bites. It does depend on what… Obviously, it does depend on what you’re trying to teach, folks. Obviously, there’s got to be some element of common sense here. But if you can cut it down into small bites, the videos, the written content, the quizzes, I think the better off you’re going to be.
[00:33:04.860] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:33:07.090] – Kurt von Ahnen
I agree 100 %. The more that you make things easily digestible and Think of a TV show that you like and why do you like it? Think of a really popular show and why it’s popular. Think of a kick and pop song and why it’s dominated the charts for so long. And then think about learning content and think about which ones really rise to the top as far as success goes and ones that seem to… Well, you’ve never heard of them. So take some of that to heart and make something that people want to be a part of.
[00:33:47.830] – Jonathan Denwood
On to number 6, examine alternative revenue streams. Well, you can offer upsells, downsells, depending on what platform. That’s one of the great things about WordPress. And the solutions we offer at WP Tonic, it’s really quite easy to do upsells, physical products, digital products, extra digital resources, PDFs, digital books, swag, access to group, coaching, group discussion. There’s endless ways of looking at getting the internal internal I’m struggling with my words this afternoon. It’s been a long week, folks, but different revenue streams. What’s your thoughts about this one, Kurt?
[00:34:42.430] – Kurt von Ahnen
You got to get out of the box. Now people, you got to get out of the box. One that’s constantly overlooked and one that I think is very interesting, depending on your use case and demographic, is the use of affiliates. And not from the standpoint of like, you’re the affiliate recommending other people’s stuff. But let’s say you have a course that serves a corporate market, you could very easily allow other people to become an affiliate of your product so that like a regional salesperson that visits multiple retail outlets, if it was the type of training that retail salespeople would take, they could recommend that course, and then they get 10, 15, 20 %, whatever you negotiate with them. And then you keep that 70 to 80 % for yourself, but you’re not having to actively sell it. You’re creating that extra revenue stream through other people acting as your salesperson without actually having to hire salespeople. There’s just really cool ways that you can put… Jonathan, you just made a recommendation to me last month, and that was take a course that I was offering in one of my properties for free, just as a lead magnet, and you said, Hey, why don’t you put that on you to me and sell that thing?
[00:35:59.670] – Kurt von Ahnen
And that literally just went live yesterday, my course on that.
[00:36:02.370] – Jonathan Denwood
Great. Have you got any sales yet?
[00:36:05.060] – Kurt von Ahnen
No.
[00:36:06.090] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m surprised because I bought a LinkedIn course and it was okay. It’s not as good as your one. I think there’s only one or two courses about LinkedIn still on there? Was there more on there?
[00:36:18.850] – Kurt von Ahnen
There’s quite a few courses on LinkedIn, but they’re all different. Mine was how to increase your connections without spamming your audience. And most of the other courses are how to spam your audience to grow your LinkedIn.
[00:36:33.460] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, that’s a good position. You’re trying to find your niche. I’m sure it’d do quite well. I think you’re going to do reasoning well out of that. It’s not going to make I don’t think you’re rich, but I think it’s going to be… And I think the exposure it will give you will be worth the effort. Yeah. Yeah, I think the thing is, affiliate marketing If you got the pain point and the urgency and you got the structure and you’ve broken up the core structure, and you’re getting… I think then the pricing, which will lead to the next point we’re talking about, you’d be able to charge some decent… You’d be able to charge reasonably well for that course because you sorted out some of the fundamentals. Then I think the affiliate side, I should attempt to get a real expert on this. Listeners and viewers, I will attempt to get a real expert on the show to discuss this because I know affiliate marketing around courses, B2C or B2B, is just if you can get people to come on board and be affiliates and they are active, It can be a real way of getting your first course and being a good success.
[00:38:07.120] – Jonathan Denwood
So it’s definitely an area that I haven’t looked at enough. I will find a real expert resource to come on the show for that, folks. Determine a pricing. I think we’ve talked about on and off throughout this show, but what’s your thoughts about this one? Because it’s a nightmare, isn’t it?
[00:38:29.530] – Kurt von Ahnen
It is a nightmare. The thing that happens a lot to course creators is you put all the work in, you get it all done, and then that imposter syndrome takes over where you wonder if you really are the voice of reason or you really are the expert in the room. And then you notice that there’s 10,000 free videos on YouTube about your subject. And then you start to devalue your offer and you start thinking, well, I was going to sell it for $99, but now I guess I could sell it for $1,099. And I just want to try and encourage people not to go down the route of being the cheapest in the room. That race to the bottom devalues your product, but it also pushes qualified buyers away because a lot of people are thinking, well, I might pay $100 for a course to learn something, but for $20, there’s probably nothing of value in here. Remember, the part of the value of your course is that you have curated the content and you’ve put it into the story arc of a course and you’re providing a service to people. So even if there were free videos on YouTube, it’s not curated and story arced and all those things.
[00:39:40.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
So don’t shortcut yourself and be aware of what’s appropriate. The other thing, and I’m sorry to dominate this question so much, Jonathan, but don’t be afraid of, Hey, I’ve got a few signed up. I’m going to try and double the price and see what happens. Hey, I’ve got a few more signed I’m going to add another feature or add another section, and I’m going to try and double the price again. I went from a product that was literally $1,500 a year, which is now selling for over $40,000 a year. Now, the volume is not high enough to make me a millionaire, but what I found was the content, the pain point I was fixing, and the audience I was selling to, wasn’t interested in buying it for $10,000, $12,000, $18,000 a year. It was It had to hurt financially in order for them to understand its value. That’s just the way that it worked.
[00:40:36.960] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think they’re great points. I think I actually gibberish in some of my show notes here, folks. Where’s the greatest sites to sell? I’ve changed it to sites to sell online courses for money. You’re on. Well, you just had it. See, this is how I think it works. You should not build world war and peace. You should build a really focused 101, smaller initial course that has some pain and urgency. It could be a real slim down one, so you get it out the door, basically. You could utilize some of the video materials on YouTube, but then you could also decide. This is how I would do it. If it was me, folks, I would produce a mini course, aimed at the 101. I would put some of it on YouTube in a controlled way to promote it, doing my YouTube SEO, making sure that I title it and the description of the video, the thumbnail, There’s a couple of really inexpensive tools out there. There’s Tubeuddy and there’s IQTube, I think it’s called. They’re the two leading that you can utilize to help you with your YouTube. And then I would put that mini course on Uname or some other platform like that.
[00:42:25.730] – Jonathan Denwood
And then the feedback response I get from the Uname, I would build my next course out, a bigger course. By then, the Uname should be established. I can look at the traffic, which YouTube videos I would produce extra material just for YouTube and look at the analytics that I was getting to guide me about which subjects to guide me on this second course, which would be the main course That would be around a couple of thousand dollars. Is this making sense, Kurt?
[00:43:05.790] – Kurt von Ahnen
It is. I think the main message, though, here is don’t get overly excited without doing the strategy and the homework first. How many people… Wp Tonic has a wonderful offer, right? You want buddy boss, learn-dash, lift or LMS, you want to build your own thing. It’s fantastic. But do Have a sample of something. Make sure you have community or clients or students or somebody that your offer will get in front of before you invest the time and the money and build something giant. I really like your idea of trying a smaller unit out on Udemy and gaining some momentum and then expanding the content for your own offer on your own space. I like that.
[00:43:55.790] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. You can offer group, excess, Because you could even do a… It doesn’t have to be precisely one-on-one on Udemy, but it’s just more at a certain price point. Then you can do a slightly more detail and then offer group and individual access to yourself, and that could really appeal. The thing I want to get is, I’ve been thinking about this, and I gave these two examples I’m really, really my drum in my own drum here, but I don’t normally do it. I think I gave really two good examples in the first half of this show, folks, of how you could just take general relationship, and I just took those really off my head, really, folks. But I think they really showed how you could take the general category relationship and really find two decent niches that have pain, solving a pain point and also have urgency. Because unfortunately, if you are going to court around access for your children, that’s rather urgent, isn’t it? If half your income comes from your executive job or your profession, but you want a child, you don’t want that income to be totally destroyed, or you don’t want the prospects of promotion to be totally destroyed.
[00:45:33.110] – Jonathan Denwood
I think that’s rather urgent, isn’t it, in most people’s minds? So I think if you do the work in working out the pain point yourself, and I keep stressing this because I would say the majority of people that approach us for consultation and advice, which we can provide, we just don’t provide hosting and the tools. I would say the bulk of them haven’t done this. Would you agree with this, Kurt?
[00:46:15.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
I hesitate to say it the way that wants to come out of my face.
[00:46:21.440] – Jonathan Denwood
It normally doesn’t stop me. I just blurt it. Most people that I talk to are truly not prepared.
[00:46:30.890] – Kurt von Ahnen
Just not prepared for the adventure, for the work, for what it will take to make it happen. Unfortunately, most learners who sign up for an online course aren’t prepared either for the work to be good students. If you have a course creator who’s not prepared and students who aren’t prepared, you end up with a teeter-totter that’s not going to finish.
[00:46:56.550] – Jonathan Denwood
Without the pain and urgency element, folks, I would say half your students, at least, will never finish the course. Many of them, a percentage, will ask for a refund. If you get the pain and urgency correct, That reduces. And the last thing is, if you haven’t got an established audience, you haven’t done, you can still launch your course and have success if you do the research around pain and urgency. I think what I have to finish off, what I didn’t make clear, is if you already have an audience, you can probably win it. And what I mean by win it is that you don’t do the pain and urgency, and you still probably could have a reasonably successful launch of a course. If you haven’t got the audience in that and don’t do the pain and urgency bit and sort that out, it’s doubtful that this course you’re spending time, energy, and money on will be a success. And that’s why I’ve said pain, pain, and urgency about 15 times in this podcast. I’ve been a bit bore, haven’t I, Kurt?
[00:48:19.950] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think it’s essential for listeners and viewers to drive home the idea that… And just to be plain. We’re just ordinary people, Jonathan. You and I are just everyday run-of-the-mill folks. If you were going to compare yourself to Tony Robbins, Tony Robbins has an immense audience. He could make a course on beekeeping and make a million dollars on it tomorrow. He could complete a course on polishing scratches out of your driver’s door from a parking lot and make a million dollars. But we’re not talking… This show is not geared towards people like Dean Grazioso Russell, or Tony Robbins. It’s geared towards people at our level, Jonathan, Kurt, other people we know, and peers in the industry making courses to go to the general public. And for you to make that leap from a normal person to a recognized expert, I think one of the things you haven’t repeated enough is defining your significant purpose. And so if you are very well represented on your purpose and you nail your niche and your pain point, you’re going to gather a following, and it’s going to take a little bit of time, and you got to be patient.
[00:49:35.250] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s a long game. But once the benefits of that long game start to come through, you’ll see the revenue outweighs the heartache and the bills, and you start to enjoy it.
[00:49:47.280] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. So, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?
[00:49:53.930] – Kurt von Ahnen
From a business perspective, Manana Nomas. Anything that is Manana Nomas online leads back to me. And then LinkedIn. Make a connection on LinkedIn. And heck, if you can’t figure out how LinkedIn works, I know a guy that’s got a course on that. I’m the only Kurt von Ammen on LinkedIn.
[00:50:12.550] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. If you want to discuss any of the things that we’ve outlined in this podcast and this video, you can go to the WP-Tonic website, and you can book a consultation with me. It’s free. And if any of the things we have brought up during the show, I’m more than happy to discuss and clarify any of the things or any of the questions you might have. Plus, we’ve got a great Facebook group community, the Membership Machine Show. You can join that group for free. If you have any questions, you can go there, and me and Kirk will answer your questions ASP. I’m on there every day. As I say, please join us on the Facebook group page, the Membership Machine Group. As I said, if there are any questions that you’ve got that come up in listening to this podcast, you can join that, and we’ll answer them. We will be back next week with either another discussion or a guest. It will always provide value to you in building a great membership or community website in 2024. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
WP-Tonic & The Membership Machine Facebook Group
Why don’t you sign up and be part of the Membership Machine Show & WP-Tonic Facebook group, where you can get all the best advice and support connected to building your membership or community website on WordPress?
Facebook Group
