Ep 236 - Here's What the Internet is Not Telling You About Creating and Selling Courses
In this episode, I’m breaking down the real work behind launching a course as a coach. If “passive income” is one of the main reasons you’re creating a course, you’ll want to tune in—I'll explain why creating a course might not be as passive as you think. I’ll also dive into why having a tested framework is absolutely essential, along with what it really takes to keep clients engaged and excited about your offer.
Be sure to listen for actionable tips on building a course that truly works, refining your content, and maximizing the impact of every launch. This episode is a must if you’re ready to create a course that connects deeply with your clients and grows your business!
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Transcript
Today we're going to talk about courses. So before you launch a course, I want you to listen to this podcast. I'm going to be sharing the truth about creating and selling courses because I think the online space is filled with so much misinformation. So I'm going to share the three things that you need to know before you attempt to launch a course.
So first of all, it's not passive. I know that in the online space, everybody talks about, and many of you that I have consults with will say I am building a passive business or I want to set up a course because it's passive now I know I've talked about this in the past on the podcast But I need to revisit this and say nothing in business is passive.
Nothing What is passive is the actual recording part? so it's recorded and it can be replayed more than one time or the Document that you're sharing or the workbook or the checklist or the guide can be created and shared one to one Time. Okay. That part is passive. I agree with that. And that is amazing.
And that is actually something that we teach all of our clients to do to create supporting educational materials that will help private clients, group clients, That is kind of like course materials. Okay. Those help educate people so they can have better outcomes with your coaching. But if you think about something being passive, it's like you get to put it up there and people just keep buying it, which also is true.
Like you can put it on a landing page and you can have a button that somebody clicks and buys it. And I know this because I do it too. Okay. I have courses, *but what I want you to know is in order to have a course, you have to do the marketing to sell the course and marketing never ends. Never ever ends.*
Okay. Marketing compounds on itself, right? The more marketing you do, the more that's out there, let's say, you know, if you're doing like, YouTube shorts, they stay out there forever. So the more that you do, the more followers you get. But again, whatever you're doing, Doesn't necessarily mean that it will continue to, I don't know, like, let's say a YouTube short that you've done, if you're not currently doing it, those subscribers and that feed just goes basically, flat.
So I had somebody recently who was on a call with me, and she was talking about, Her YouTube channel, which was phenomenal, but it was a YouTube channel. It was 10 years old and she had incredible amount of followers and she was getting new followers still today, which sounds exciting. But as I was talking to her, I said, look, you have to re engage those people.
Again, just because that audience is there, or just because you have a product created, doesn't mean that anyone will buy or anyone from that audience will engage. So again, Nothing is passive. You have to create, it's like you have to put gas in the tank, right? You have to continue to fuel the engine of your business with continued marketing.
So continue to do that over and over and over again. And also over a period of time, you'll want to freshen things up. So that's the first thing. Nothing in your business is passive. I will mention one more thing before we move on to the second point. Inside the Life Coach Business Building School, one of our core essential elements that we teach is about building a boutique style business that will allow you to have a boutique style life.
One of the ways that we teach people to do that is to repurpose content. Now I will say that does help you have a more passive feeling business. It's a podcast where you can take one email and turn it into multiple social media posts or you can take, you know, one thing like this that I'm recording, as an audio for the podcast, a video for YouTube, we can make a social media out of it.
So that becomes multiple things. that's like. being able to maximize your marketing, but again, not passive. All right. The second thing I want you to know is that you need a proven framework. So before launching a course, you have to make sure that what you are going to do will work. So many of the people that I talk to that are in the early stages of their business, they have spent the last year.
Creating a course, they have spent all this time mapping out the, the modules and recording them and putting workbooks together and presentation slides before they ever tested it. And if this is you, it's okay. Like, let's take what you've got. Let's figure out how to make the most of it.
And it's not your fault, don't be feeling bad right now. Like, oh, crap, I've done that. How would you know any better? That's basically what the online space is teaching you. But to have a course before, you know, if it's what people need or want is counterproductive. So what we actually recommend and what I want to recommend to you today is that, you decide on a course or I'll call it group coaching or a process or framework that you're going to use.
Let's call it that. Cause of course, again, sort of gives the idea that it lives out there. You know, on the internet and people just buy it, okay? So I want you to think about your framework. What I would like you to do is map out your framework, or your blueprint, or your process, your proprietary style, your signature coaching process, of how you coach.
And then what I'd love for you to do is to take people through it. And while you take people through it, you build it. Okay, this can even be individual private clients. So you map out what you want to do. Your framework gets somebody the result that you promise in your marketing message. So you say, I help women, Do this particular thing. You have to map out, well, how am I going to help a woman get from where they are now to where they're going to be? Okay. You guys with me? So you have to map that out. Once you map out your framework, then you get somebody to come work with you privately or in a small group setting and you bring people through it.
And I always recommend that you only have like two weeks of content prepared ahead of time. Always be working a couple of weeks ahead of time, you know, in case you're sick or in case something happens, you're prepared for your clients. But ideally what you will find is that it will evolve as you go. I actually have a client.
That is launching a group right now and what she is finding, she thought it was going to be a 12 week group and she had it mapped out for 12 weeks and what she's finding now she's in week 4 is that it really is more of an 8 week group, so it's actually 4 weeks shorter than what she thought, most of the time people end up finding out that they need more time than what they thought, but she's actually Getting feedback from people each week.
Then she goes and she takes the information that she had compiled for the next session and she tweaks it according to what the interest is, what the questions are. Now that is how you build something incredible. Now she's got something that we know works, We've gotten feedback. We've gotten testimonials.
We know it is a home run. That is how you create a framework. You test it. You try it. Sometimes we call that beta testing. You get testimonials along the way. You get feedback. By the way, let me give you a quick hack. When you record something, your course, and again, I'm using that word loosely when you record your coaching that you do where you're teaching the thing.
Okay. Let's say the second week of your coaching where you teach it, if you'll take that transcript and, you know, zoom creates, It's transcripts. Now, if you take that transcript and you put it into chat GPT and you ask it to give you testimonials from that, actually heard that, I can't remember who it was from, but I'm taking that idea.
Remember, there's no original ideas. I'm taking that idea from somebody else and sharing it with you. actually received an email from a marketer about that. It was so cool. Such a genius idea. So you can get testimonials along the way, even when you're not asking for them. Now, I would definitely get the transcript, get the testimonials and then say to the person, Hey, is it okay?
You said this quote in the coaching call. I said, okay, if I use that as feedback for, you know, to promote what I'm doing. Everybody's going to say, okay, but anyway, so that's the second step. Make sure you have a proven framework. The third step is that I recommend that you do it again, more than one time, either in group or private.
So this particular client that I'm talking about, she actually kind of has like her test group and then we have it scheduled. to launch January of 2025. So that's going to actually be the launch of the course. the launch of the group coaching program. Lord, I keep saying the word course and I'm telling y'all that courses are not passive.
I want to make sure we're not getting confused about that. When I'm talking about a course, I'm talking about the content, the education, the framework, the process that gets somebody from point A to point B. Okay. Okay. So. Anyway, you're going to want to launch it, and I would recommend again, that you've already tested it with private, that you're going to do it in group, and that at some point, this will become the framework for your business.
Our framework is the Life Coach Business Building School. It is the coach to profitable entrepreneur framework process. Okay. We have four essential elements that help you go from just being a life coach to also becoming a profitable entrepreneur. Within each one of those elements. We have multiple things that happen that we teach that we walk you through implementation.
That's our framework. So again, you want to launch it. And as part of launching it, you guys, you're going to be writing the emails. You're going to be creating the social media posts. You're going to be putting together the marketing materials. All of that to can be repurposed. So I guess essentially it almost almost becomes kind of passive because once it's done one time, you can take the same marketing materials and almost duplicated and use it again.
So like if you have an email and flow desk or a workflow and flow desk. That's an email marketing tool that we teach in the life coach business building school. You duplicate the workflow, you reset the dates. Okay. And then you can relaunch that workflow to begin to nurture people about the opening of your next, you know, program date.
Okay. Your next group date opens on this day, January one. All right. That is the three things that you need to know before you launch your group coaching program or what you might call your course. Number one, nothing is passive. Number two, you need to have a proven tested framework. You want to get client feedback to create something that's not in your head.
Remember I've been telling you in the last few weeks, *do not go to your mind, go to the market to get what it is. People want.* So you have a proven process. And then number three, you have to get together what it is that you need to do to actually launch it. After you've tested that includes the marketing materials, the social media, all of the pieces behind that.
Okay. So excited that now we have addressed this idea about a course. We actually do teach this in the life coach business building school, all about creating your signature offer. And I am so excited to tell you that I actually have, uh, Created some courses. Again, nothing passive about this. I'm currently marketing it to you right now.
We are going to be launching it very soon. If you're not on my email list, it's actually going to all be unveiled during black Friday week and cyber Monday, which means it's going to be phenomenal deals. So this is going to be the most affordable way for you to work with us. It's basically going to be a starting point for you to get introduced to some of the things we do and to definitely get some quick, okay.
Wins. So you'll be able to learn about nailing your niche, about making offers, right? You're going to learn about selling. We have Canva, many different things that we are launching that are small, bite sized ways that you can learn from us Before you take the big plunge and you go all in and say yes to working with us in the life coach business building school or in our VIP coaching experience or in our done for you elite coaching experience.
All right, you guys have an amazing week. I hope I have brought you clarity about courses so that you know, again, Not a problem that nothing is passive, but just know the truth about what it takes to have a successful coaching business. You guys have an amazing week. We'll see you soon. Can't wait to hear what you have to say about all that you're going to buy from us on Black Friday.