[Transcript starts at 1:12]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. Right off the bat, we got two announcements coming your way. Well, maybe three. I only wrote down two, but let's give you the third. One, got a haircut today. Feeling fresh. If you're watching YouTube, you can see this. If you're watching, thank you.
Second announcement is straight up, thank you. So y'all have submitted some reviews and it just warms my Maestro heart. We got a few new ones in there. Y'all are the best. Blair, Jas, Mrs. K, Micah, Amanda, thank you for the written reviews on the podcast. If any of you listening to this would like to leave a review, I don't know what podcast player you leave it on, you listen to it on rather, but I would love them. Mainly cuz I love reading them.
I think it does in some way, shape, or form help with getting the podcast out there. But my main thing is that I just, I love reading them, so thank you if you've done that, even if it's just the stars. I, I hate saying just the stars, but even if it's the stars as opposed to the whole written out thing. Thank you. I, I really appreciate it.
The third announcement, is that the Thursday episode for this week, right, so this episode is gonna drop on Monday, May 15th. The Thursday episode will be on Thursday the 18th. I'm looking at my calendar over here. That's gonna be a guest episode. Haven't had a guest episode in a while, and I brought on my girl Erica Webb.
She is just in my heart. She's inside of my heart. Um, she's in my Mafia. She's been in the ecosystem for a long time. She is actually the moderator for the, for the Mafia. She's taken my Intensive. She's just, I just, I have big, big, big love for this woman. And finally she decided to not decided, she agreed to come on.
Um, I've asked her in the past and she was like, I'm not ready. I don't know. And now she was like, yes, I'm ready. So that episode's gonna drop on Thursday the 18th, and to me, that episode is largely an account, a firsthand account of what it's actually like to run an online business. To start and run an online business.
We tend to hear like, you know, the sensationalized stories of the, or the outliers. People like started and they blew up and they just like made a million dollars in one minute. That's not Erica's story, and I believe that her story is actually very representative of the typical, uh, you know, journey for having an online business.
So if you're looking to hear what it's actually like to run an online business, if you're thinking about starting one, if you have one and you wanna feel less alone or you just wanna hear someone else's story, then puhlease tune into Thursday's episode, episode 476. And yeah. Thank you.
So today's topic, we are going to be talking about how to launch a successful, that is the key word, how to launch a successful online course using Kajabi.
I am being that specific with the software that I want you to use. Why? Because it's the best out there. I am sick of people using shit that doesn't work and trying to do workarounds and things like that. I want you to be able to grow with things. I want you to have ease and not be, you know, hung up on just some of the technical stuff because you're using something that's really not designed for the outcome that you want or the product that you want.
I have used Kajabi for years now, um, literally years, and it's the best. It grows with you. It has grown in the space as well. Yes, there's a ton of different ones out there. I am here specifically to talk about Kajabi. If you wanna learn something else, by all means, do something else and go learn it from somebody else.
Okay? I also of course, have an affiliate code. This episode is not like sponsored by Kajabi. They don't know that I'm doing this this episode. Um, but the way the Kajabi works is everyone who pays for Kajabi can get affiliate codes. Uh, so I have that and it will get you a free month uh, if you use it. We'll drop it in the show notes.
Thank you, Courtney. I am also going to, or I should say, of note, I'm going, this episode, I'm talking about the organic approach to launching this online course. If you want to go and run ads, right? That's not organic. If you wanna have the paid approach to running, uh, and launching a course, you can do that.
I am not here to teach you how to do that, right? I'm gonna teach you the organic route, meaning that we've built an audience, we've attracted an audience, we're using a lot of that inbound traffic, uh, and then we're selling to them. If you want to go spend money on ads and, and do it that way, by all means, go and do that.
I am not the one for that. Um, actually my girl, Claire Pelletreau, she can help you with that. Um, and her website's gonna be ClairePells.com, I believe. Um, either way we will link that in the show notes. We also, I also did either did one or two episodes with her, um, I'm a big fan of Claire, so you can check her out.
So when it comes to launching an online course, really the first question you should be asking yourself is, should I be launching this course? The answer, probably not. I am here to manage expectations and give it to you straight. I see business coaches out there just telling people like, build the thing.
People will come. That's bullshit. Will not happen. It will not happen. Making the course, building the course, that's the easy part. That's the simple part. Even if you're not so, like technologically, um, inclined cool, you can pay someone to do that realistically. It's actually not hard to make the course, especially if you're using software like Kajabi.
It's largely kind of drag and drop. It's, it's a very simple process. The truly difficult process. And the process that will take the longest is getting the eyes. It's building the trust. It's attracting the people who actually want to buy the course, who actually want to pay you the monies, right? Again, if you build it, they will come. That's not the truth. That is a lie.
So yes, this part of the episode is largely perhaps looking to talk you out of making a course, mainly because I see so many people in the space getting duped and you know, paying for these courses about how to make courses or getting coaches that tell 'em to make courses and then they don't sell anything and they're just like, What did I do wrong?
Or the course must, I must need to make a different course. And I'm like, you have no audience. You need to attract an audience first. Okay.
So if I haven't scared you away yet, you're still listening, the rest of this episode is going to outline the 10 steps that I recommend if you want to launch an online course and have it actually be successful.
You will see as you continue to listen to this episode that perhaps there are more steps. It's more complex, it's more in depth than you thought, or than you've heard or than you've been told. And that's the point. My whole brand, my whole business is about transparency and honesty and just managing expectations and giving it to you straight.
Even before I was, you know, doing stuff online, as a physical therapist that's largely what we do. We tell it to you straight and we're like, Hey, this is gonna take a year to get better. And people are like, excuse me, I'm offended. I'm here to give you the truth. Okay.
So the 10 steps that I recommend when it comes to launching a successful online course using Kajabi:
Number one: attract the audience. So we're looking at this organic inbound approach, meaning we create content and then the traffic's coming to us. We are attracting it. This is largely gonna be that content creation model. This can be social media, this could be blogging. Don't forget about podcasting, which I think is just a phenomenal tool.
I have a whole episode about why you, I think I said why you should start a podcast. Basically, it's a business hack. We can link that. Thank you, Courtney. Right. You don't need the podcast in order for the course launch to be successful, but these are things that can definitely help. We need some place that you are putting out content and attracting interested people. You're providing value for them and showing them, hey, I can solve problems. Hey, let's build a relationship. You can trust me. And then, hey, I have this other solution that you may want.
During this time, while we're doing this content creation and and attraction marketing, I also recommend that you have an email list going because you're gonna wanna be able to have direct communication with these people that you're looking to sell to, right?
It's actually much easier to sell to an email list or sell on your email list than it is to sell on social media. You put post up on social media, you know, as- if you're selling, it's gonna get suppressed. Instagram doesn't want you to make any money without giving them some money. So that doesn't happen on in on, excuse me, on your email list, right? You send it out, you can sell. It's gonna go to everyone.
So this first phase, attracting the audience. I personally recommend that you lean on this phase for a minimum of 18 months. I know I'm the bearer of bad news. I'm okay with that. Of note here, do not expect in-person clients to want an online course.
I've seen that happen. I've seen people try to lean into that and I'm like, that's not gonna work. People who are in person, for the, the most part, want in-person services. People who are online, they are gonna be more willing to have online products and they typically don't want the in-person things.
Right? So do not expect, well I have this, you know, I have clients currently, I have a waitlist for my in-person clients. I could sell them an online course. They're probably not gonna do it. They probably don't want it. They want an in-person service.
Okay. Second point here. Second step here is to provide the service directly.
So whatever you're thinking about this course would be, I need you to have the reps and the success and the understanding of it, the proficiency with it, first. So we're gonna provide that service directly. We're gonna pro, we're going to solve that problem, directly. Typically this is gonna look like one-on-one service, but it could be a group or leveraged model.
Oftentimes you're gonna go from one-on-one, and then you may go into the group or leveraged model, and then we look to create kind of a self-paced DIY, do-it-yourself, kind of course. This could also theoretically look like a really engaged online audience. Like for me, um, I had taught them in person, but there was online interest and online communication happening.
I'm thinking about my first course that I did, which was Breathing with the Maestro, right? I had people reaching out to me online for mentorship opportunities, so I knew that the eyes were there and I was able to deliver that online first, so I knew. Excuse me. I had proficiency with this actual, um, in this case it was Breathing with the Maestro, I had proficiency, proficiency with teaching this, I had proficiency with actually utilizing and implementing it in person as well. Right. I was a physical therapist. I still am a physical therapist, but I was a treating physical therapist. I was working for Rock Tape. Uh, you know, I was teaching this in person, I was working- using it with clients in person.
I was doing online mentorship things or opportunities. Um, so I provided that service directly. I need you to have proficiency with this thing. Why? Because it's also gonna allow you to know what the hangups that people have are. Uh, is that, I dunno if that language is right there. It's going to allow you to know what people's hangups are.
Let's say that. Uh, it's gonna allow you to kind of create a process for this, right? In the beginning, we're just like learning information. It's very different to actually teach that and package that information. When you've delivered this service directly, you're able to do that cuz you've established, you've, you know, created your own methodology for this thing.
So step number two, provide the service directly, solve the problem directly.
Step number three is do your market research- do your market research and gauge interest. Do people want this thing? We do not make the thing until we have people that say, yes, I want it. Yes, I will buy it. From a social media perspective, Stories are great for this, right?
You can poll your audience, and this is why I said I want you to lean on that engagement, that interaction with your audience for a minimum of 18 months. Right. You're interacting with 'em, you're building trust. You're already asking them questions. This way it's not just like this random ask, and you also have people in the audience that are willing to engage with you, right?
And willing to answer your questions. So Stories can be great for this. Emails can be great for this as well, where you send an email out and you're like, Hey, I've been getting a lot of questions about this. I'm thinking about making this this course. Would you buy this? Do you want this thing? Legit, just ask them.
In Stories it could be a poll. In your email it could be, you know, you link to a Google form or you know, you can just ask them to, to hit reply. It's your choice how you actually collect the data, but I want you to do the market research and see is there interest. If no one is saying yes, if no one's asking you things yet, do not build the thing. If you build it, they will not come. That's not how it works. Okay.
Step number four, analyze the feedback, right? We're doing the market research, we're asking the questions, so now we're gonna analyze the feedback and if you'd like, this is a kind of a bonus step here, involve your audience. So when we're looking at the feedback, we're looking at, we've answered, we asked the questions and we're, we're looking at the data there.
This is where you can kind of decide if it's worth it, quote unquote. Uh, sorry. Hit the mic there. We can decide if it's worth it to actually make this thing. I want you to kind of, I want you to understand that kind of how conversion rates here, conversion rates work here. Meaning if you put a poll up and you say, Hey, I'm thinking about making this thing, would you be interested in it?
A hundred percent of those people are not gonna buy the thing. I would love for you to think about, hey, about five to 10% of these people would buy this thing. Based on that, is it worth it for me to make this thing? If you have a hundred people that say yes, and then five to 10%, that means five to 10 people that we can think, yeah, they, they would probably buy this.
Again, I know I'm the bearer of bad news, but I'm here to give it to you straight. So if you're like, nah, it's not worth it for that few of people, I'm using air quotes, bunny quotes here, you can't see me if you're listening. Um, if it's not worth it, then don't make the thing yet until you have more people top of funnel. You have more eyes there.
This episode, I'm speaking about Kajabi as the place where you're gonna host this online course. And to that end, it's Kajabi is a hundred, $150 a month at its base level. There's three different tiers for Kajabi. The base one is 150 bucks. So you have to think about how much is this course?
How frequently am I selling it? How many of these am I gonna sell? Okay, is it worth it for me to do this?
The second part of this, right, so step four was analyze the feedback and then involve your audience. The second part of involving your audience would be if you're like, okay, I see many people are here, uh, yes, if I do five to 10%, it is worth it for me to do it. Okay. Then I would love for you to consider asking them what is the number one thing that you wanna learn from this course, or what's the number one question that you need to have answered by this course? The, a great way to to collect this information is with a Google form, and again, we see why it's nice to have an email list. Cuz these are your warmest leads, your most interested people.
This is exactly what I did for Breathing with the Maestro. And a lot of this was guided initially by, by Jill. Super, super helpful. You know, she's an online business goat. Uh, so I had them, I asked this question. Why? This is called the IKEA effect. I've spoken about this in past episodes, but the whole concept with the IKEA effect is that we are more interested and invested in things that we created, right?
So you'll lug your freaking particle board of furniture across the country, especially when you're younger because you built it. Whereas if it's just something you bought, especially if it's cheaper, you're like, ah, I don't really care as much. So same, same for this course. If we have them helping you build it, what's the number one thing that you wanna learn from this course?
Get the feedback from them and then you tell 'em, okay, these are the things that are gonna, that's gonna be in this course. They're like, holy shit, I help build this and my question's gonna get answered. They're far more likely to buy, right? So step number four, analyze the feedback and involve your audience.
Step five: announce this shit and put yourself on the hook. Announce it and put yourself on the hook. This means setting a date and say, Hey, I'm launching this thing. Y'all said you wanted it. Got to collect your feedback. You're interested. I'm doing this. Here's the date that it's going to come out.
Now again, this really only matters- I have someone in in mind that I'm thinking about who, like this doesn't necessarily work great for them, but for those of us that are greatly moved, um, to action by that external influence there, this'll be great. Cause you're like, well, I put the date and this is the, the date that it's gonna be. Now, in terms of deciding on that date, we're gonna look at it at least a month or two out, mainly because you need time to hype it up, right?
So we're gonna get into this about creating the hype and such, but if you're going through this in stepwise progression, you're gonna need at least a month or two. So you have, you actually need time to actually hype it up and to make the thing, okay? So we pick a date. Announce it. Put yourself on the hook.
Tell people to mark their calendars. The more advanced step here is to create a waitlist. This is again why I want you to have an email marketing software. I prefer ConvertKit. That is what you're gonna use for your waitlist. It's a bit more advanced, but again, I'm telling you how to successfully launch this thing.
It will always be easier to launch something if you have a waitlist. Those are your most interested people. So the time you announce it should be the time that you create that waitlist and announce the waitlist, get people on it. And the incentive for being on the waitlist is going to be typically that they get some sort of price reduction.
Because it's a DIY course, it's a self-paced course. You're not gonna typically limit how many you sell, but you can change the price and say, Hey, okay, if you're on the waitlist, you get early, um, access, and you get a discount from that. Okay? So that's step five. Announce it and put yourself on the hook.
Step six, create slash build the course based on what you learned from providing the service, all right? I said earlier that I want you to have provided that service, solve that problem, either in person or online, whatever. And now we can look to translate that into this course. The things that I want you to really be thinking about how, excuse me, number one, what is the problem that is being solved?
These course, I don't want 'em to be some massive course. This is your first course. Let it be small. What is the problem that this course solves? Second part, what is the process that you take people through to solve this problem? This should be simple because you've already done it a zillion times in person or online, you know, one-on-one or in the leveraged model.
Either way, you've gone through it so you know what this process is. How long does this take to actually get that solution? How long does it take to learn this thing? Meaning this could be time-wise, like how many weeks does it take, if it's like if they implement stuff, or how long does it take you to actually teach this thing?
Right? I do want this course to be shorter cuz it's gonna be your first one. I want people to actually get through it and we're gonna gonna go into that. The next part here would be, what are the main questions or problem areas that people have? The people that you've been taking through and kinda doing this with, you know, one-on-one and working with,, what is the main hangups and has, how are you going to address that with this course?
We want results for people, right? Their results are your reputation. The whole goal is to solve this problem and get people through the course, get them the results. Remember, if you've run this thing live, meaning you've solved the problem for people, you've done this in person, online, whatever, this outlining of the course is actually very easy.
You're gonna work in reverse. But it's very easy. The hardest part will be cutting down the actual course, cuz you're gonna probably have so much that you wanna talk about, and less is more. All right, or less is best. It's not about what you know, it's about what they actually learn.
Technically, or from the technological technology side, I recommend Kajabi.
That's what this whole episode is about. Why? Because it's so simple, I will say, to use. If you're not super technologically inclined, then yes, everything's gonna be difficult. But based on what's, you know, what is out there and the other things that are out there, and from the user experience and what I've used and the people I've worked with, Kajabi, it's is the, the front runner.
It'll, it'll allow you to break the course up easily. It allows it- from the user perspective it's very nice. Um, from the just aesthetic side of it and how you can customize or personalize things, very nice. So I recommend Kajabi. I recommend keeping each of the individual modules short, 15 minutes or less per section, right?
We want people to actually be able to sit and get through this thing. I really love a first course that's about two hours long. You can make it fucking 72 hours long if you want, but people won't get through it. Two hours is very nice. My courses that I have up, Breathing with the Maestro, Instagramming with the Maestro, ReelsU, two hours.
So this is where learning how to cut things down, it becomes a very helpful tool. It's a very difficult tool, uh, very difficult to do, but, um, this is a difficult ask, but it will be better for the consumer. Alright. Understand that when it comes to self-paced courses like this, online courses, they only sell when you're selling them.
It's not like, well, I made this thing now it's just gonna sell forever. If you're running ads to it, it will sell. If you're actively promoting it, it will sell. The third part here is if you get people through it, they can talk about it. You can also get feedback from them and get testimonials, and that will help you sell it.
But if it's this massive behemoth course that people can't get through, you're creating a barrier, one for them, but two, also for you to continue to selling- for you to continue selling this thing. If you want some more details, you want some more guidance, yes, I do have on-demand webinars. They're not courses, right?
Because it's just straight through here. I haven't broken them up into the chapters or anything like that. I have on-demand courses that you can purchase. Um, one is how to, oh, hit the thing on the computer. One is How to Create Super Dope Online Courses. We'll link that in show notes. And the other one is The Audiovisual Upgrade, which I recently ran.
So if you're looking for like the tech and gear side about lighting, the mic, the camera, things like that. That's The Audiovisual Upgrade. Okay, so we'll walk you through and, and I talk about- in the How to Create Super Dope Online Courses, that kind of talks about as well, like should you have slides, which is up to you.
How do you do the screen recording? What uh, software do I record- what do I recommend for that? So that will all be in there. I didn't wanna put that into this specific episode, just cause it's, the episode would get just entirely too long and I could go into detail on those things in the on-demand webinars.
Okay, so that step number six was, make the course.
Step number seven, we're not selling it yet. We're gonna create hype. Now, I should probably put- throw the caveat in here that I will be doing step six and seven simultaneously. Alright? I will be making the course as I'm creating the hype. You don't have to be done with the course and then create the hype.
You can do them concurrently, by all means, right? But I kind of wanna just like put some steps and structure to this, this episode. So step number seven, create the hype. I call this, we call this in the biz, the anticipation phase. I call this specific time period, the magic month. So you wanna give yourself at least a month to talk about this thing, be promoting it on social, promoting it on all your channels, and it's a month from the day that you wanna start selling it to the public.
Okay. The content that's going out during this time to build the hype, that anticipation phase, think about what Apple does. The commercials and the, the, all the hubaloo that's all around it. The easiest thing to do is to go through the course and just take pieces out. Yes. People will pay you to say it again.
They're gonna pay you to organize it for them. They're gonna pay you to say it when they're specifically ready for them, excuse me, when they're specifically ready to hear it. So you're gonna go and take pieces out, not the whole thing. Right. Taking individual pieces out and that's the content. David Grey does a phenomenal job with this, absolutely phenomenal.
His Instagram, David Gray Rehab, we'll bring him on the podcast as well. He's a great guy. Uh, I did an episode with him on his podcast. We can link that. Thank you, Courtney. Uh, but the goal here with this content that you're sharing in this anticipation phase is to show people that you have a solution to the problem that they want solved.
So you're gonna provide solutions in the content. You're going to show outcomes in the sh in the content. All right. Yes, we can get a little bit more strategic and just do some posts that are looking to, like, get more eyes. But the big thing is I want you to show people that you can solve their problem.
Show them what it looks like on the other side of working with you, of, of, you know, stealing your brain, of borrowing your brain. All right? Show the outcomes. Also provide solutions. So this is gonna be that hype phase, and you're gonna just be talking about whatever this thing is. It's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming.
They will take their cues from you. And this is on all of your social channels. This is in your emails. This is everywhere.
Step eight: bingo bango, we sell it. Sell it. How do we actually sell it? The technical side of this, this is why I love Kajabi. You sell it through Kajabi. It allows you to make sales pages.
It allows you to have the actual transactions, right there. It's all in one place.
Sales pages, I will say, do not matter as much as you think, especially when your audience is warm. That's why I said in the very beginning of this episode, we're talking about this organic approach. You're gonna have a very, very warm audience that actually trusts you.
All right, so on that sales page just loosely, we want you to say, what is it? It's an online course. What, what is this thing? What's the promised outcome? What are they learning with this thing? What's the process that you take them through? Not like how you do it. What are the steps? What's, what is the, the methodology?
Then you can say how this thing works. People tend to like really focus on the deliverables, but that's the less important. People wanna know what the outcome is. What's the problem I have solved? What am I gonna learn? What am I gonna be able to do on the other side of this course? Right? What's the benefit for me?
You share some testimonials, you have an FAQ section. All of these you can just create so easily on the Kajabi sales pages. You have the price on there, and then you have obviously, you know, an about you section, and that's, that's all you really need. You can do way more, but that's as a start, that's all you really need.
You're gonna sell to the waitlist first. Again, this is more technical than perhaps you folks think. You're like, I can't just like put it on Instagram? You could, but I want you to actually be successful here. So you're gonna sell to the waitlist a week-ish before you sell to the public. All right, so that waitlist is in your email list, right?
You have them on a special list. You're gonna just sell to them. Typically, you offer them a discount. 20% is nice. It's like a nice enough to create that kind of dopamine hit of like, oh, this is actually saving money here. You're gonna sell to them via email. You're not selling to them via social media. This is like a private thing. It's just the people on those waitlists- on the waitlist.
You can price or kind of reverse price anchor this if you want. I know it's a little bit technical, but stay with me. Meaning if you want to make a hundred dollars on this thing, some people would dis, would discount the the rate to $80.
But you can kind of reverse anchor it and say, okay, I wanna make a hundred dollars on this. So this way the waitlist gets it at $100 and everybody else gets it at at 120. You get to choose how you do this. Technically, you can do this with a discount code or actually changing the price. I'm putting some of these more nuanced things in here cause I know someone's gonna have the question.
The social media content during this week, right? You're selling in your email just to the waitlist. The content that's going out on social media is just continued teasers, doors are opening. Doors are opening next week, doors are opening next week. I'm gonna sell this thing to you next week. And then you will open the doors to them.
So you sell to the waitlist for a few days. A week max. You sell to the public for a week. You don't need to sell more for more than that. Right. You've been talking about it for a month already. Like they know it's coming, they're ready for it. Sell to them. I do like, and I, and I have switched my position on this cuz now I understand kind of the utility here.
I do like kinda the open, close model of like, it's only for sale right now and then it's not gonna be be on sale- it's, we're not gonna be launching it again until whatever, um, next, you know, few months from now, whatever. It's just designed to help people take action. Um, another thing you can do with this is, um, you could change the price.
Sometimes you'll see people do that where like, I want you to take action and I'm gonna have inaugural pricing. It's 97 bucks and then it goes up to 1 97. Or whatever you feel, you know, is, feel good about doing.
Another way you can do this and and encourage action is to hybridize it. Meaning there's a live component to this self-paced course, that's a little bit more advanced.
Um, that concept, that approach is a little bit more advanced. Um, but that is another way to look to like get people to take action now or encourage people to take action now so you can help get them through this thing, right? Cuz that's the goal. I want you to actually move through this course. All the content during this week that you're selling to the public is about the course.
When you're selling. Be selling. When you're selling, be selling. So this way, when you're not selling, you don't have to be selling, right? Cuz you did it all. Yes, we will also be selling in our email to our main list and to anyone who didn't buy who was on the waitlist, they get these emails as well.
A bonus here, this is a bit more advanced. Stay with me if you can. Look to incentivize those people who purchased, to share the fact that they purchased. You could do this in a welcome video. You could also do this in a welcome email. This is again, why Kajabi's nice. Cuz you can have welcome videos just right on the thank you page there where you ask people, Hey, DM me, let me know that you purchased. You could give them a, uh, an assignment and be like, when you've completed it, DM me. And then you screenshot that and you share it on social right, and create that social proof there.
You could do a giveaway. I've done this in the past, where anyone who shares, they get entered to get their money back.
And then you pick someone, right? You just write down the people who are sharing, and at the end you just put 'em into a, you know, random drawing, whatever, and one of those people gets their money back. And it's marketing for you. That's the, that's essentially what the cost is gonna be, right. They're, you're refunding them, but that's the cost of your marketing and advertising for that. That is amazing.
All right, so a little bit more bone- a little bit more of an advanced step there, but can help you to actually make this launch successful.
Step nine is to get people through it. I said earlier that you could hybridize this where it's a DIY, do-it-yourself, it's a self-paced course, but you can hybridize it, meaning you have like a call at the beginning, a call in the middle, and a call at the end, right?
So it's not weekly calls necessarily, but it's just to like, answer questions, pull people through. Uh, you could send out weekly emails. You could have them automated that go out. Kajabi will do this, right. So, and you gotta really sell the content. Jill talks about this, she does a great job with this of, you don't to be like, Hey, module two is available.
You wanna tell them what are they gonna learn. Why should they, you know, go and look- do this right now. Like, what's something exciting that's happening in that module? Uh, you could have the course be dripped, meaning that it comes out like they can't get to the next chapter until they finish this. So that's actually called locked, when they can't get to the next one without completing this first module.
Um, dripped means that it gets sent out to them automatically at whatever cadence you decide.
The big things when it comes to getting people through the course is, in my opinion, the duration and the cost, right? So yes, having some sort of hybridizing and like where you're actually working with them will help get people through.
But this is, that aside, the big things for getting people through the course is gonna be the duration and the price, which somewhat tie together. Typically longer courses have a higher price point. Um, and then there's kind of the, I know for me personally, like I did Ramit's course and it was like 2000 bucks and I was like, I'm fucking gonna go do this cause it's expensive.
I don't wanna just leave that there. Whereas it's shorter course or just a lower price course, 97 bucks, maybe you're not as inspired, you know, or you don't have that pain, uh, that price point pain to pull you through it and get you through it. Um, but a shorter course does lend itself to you sending out reminders as being like, Hey, this thing's gonna take you two hours.
And you can like actually just pace them through and be like, Hey, if you do module number one on a Monday or this week and you do module two on this, this whole thing will take you X amount of time to get through, cuz it's only two hours long. Right. So just to help them out.
Zooming out here, understanding that DIY- inherent DIYs inherently bring with them the, the issue of people not doing them, which is why I don't love them as a first offer for people. You know, have that one-on-one offer. Have that group offer. And then we look to make these DIYs because people oftentimes don't do them, and, ya know, people are adults. Autonomy is sexy. But from a business perspective, I don't just want a transaction, I want to help someone. I wanna get them a result so that one, they get a result, and two, they go tell other people.
So just something to think about when it comes to making this online course.
Okay, last step coming up. Number 10, collect feedback and iterate. This is one of the hardest ones, is collecting the feedback. You could send out a questionnaire, but again, not everyone does the course. Um, it could automatically go out after they finish.
Um, it typically needs to be short, though. Don't, it shouldn't be a million questions. People just won't do that. You could, you could incentivize it and say, Hey, if you do this, you get like, you know, 10% off your next thing that you buy, whatever. Um, yes, getting feedback will be easiest for hybridized courses.
Meaning if there's touchpoints with you, they are live with you in some capacity, you'll have face time with them. It's going to be easiest to ask for those testimonials or ask for that feedback on the course. Kajabi does allow you to see completion rate, and we want at least 50% of the people actually doing this thing.
We want them to actually go through this thing. So if you're seeing that it's lower than that, then we look to go back to that to step number nine of how can I look to get people through? Am I sending them emails? Am I, you know, having the, the emails go out automatically that are a bit more compelling, I don't love that word, but are a bit more, you know, we're just gonna use it a bit more compelling in terms of getting, you know, and, and encouraging them to actually go into the module and complete the, the content and, and consume, consume the content.
Okay. In terms of iterating, Kajabi does also allow you to add modules once you sold the thing. You can always add modules at any time. You can add more content to this thing at any time, which means that you can always provide updates for your current people, and if you relaunch this thing, the current people are already enrolled in it, and you can just relaunch it with the additional modules or, you know, you're changing, swapping videos out, things like that. When I had my Instagramming with the Maestro course, that's what I would do. And eventually I pulled it cuz I just couldn't keep up with the changes that Instagram had. But I would just swap modules in and out and be like, I'm gonna make a new video.
I'm gonna upload that. I'll send an email out to everybody and let them know like, Hey, there's a new video, or I've changed this video. Um, because things have changed. Uh, so that is a nice feature. Again, why I want you to use Kajabi just is, it's just, makes your life easier. It's better for the consumer. I believe that it's better all around.
Okay, so those are the 10 steps. I know this was a heavy, meaty episode, but my whole goal is to, you know, pull back the curtain on this, but also to, to outline what it takes to actually launch a successful online course. Right? It's not just build it and they will come. Right? It's not just focusing on building it.
People tend to think that's the hardest part, and it really isn't. To me, it's actually the most fun part. Uh, the, the hard part is getting the eyes and building the trust. Cuz I promise you, if you have trust, and people, they, they want stuff from you, it doesn't really matter what the course looks like.
I launched my first course- I did not use Kajabi. I used Vimeo. Do not use Vimeo. Uh, and that was a $25,000 launch. Breathing with the Maestro. And I was like, oh wow, okay. And that's cuz I had shown up for four years before then, just providing value, connecting with people, helping them out. Teaching. Right. So it's not just build it, they will come, it's attract the audience.
Simon Sinek, Simon Sinek says it, do not find people for your product. Build a product for your people, right? It's a loose quote of what he says. Again, my goal is to have you actually be successful with this, which is why this episode is a bit longer. I know I'm speaking quickly. I get excited about it. I wanna let you in on, on what it actually takes, right?
I don't want you to get sold to Golden Goose of like, I'll just build this thing and I'll make all this passive revenue. It doesn't work like that, dude. It does not work that way.
I gave you a bunch of bonus or a few bonus steps, um, that you don't necessarily have to do, like the social proof one, but I don't want you to ignore those things and I want you to kind of think about them as launch enhancers, right?
Those are the things I did for that first launch. I did everything. Jill really helped me out. I did all the things for that, for that, um, Breathing with the Maestro course, and that's why part of the reason it did so well, okay.
Yes, I recommend Kajabi and Kajabi alone. You get what you pay for. It's actually com comparable to a lot of the other things that are out in the space.
You get more honestly with it and it will grow with you. And from a actual actually creating and selling the course, there's far less hangups than you're gonna have. So people are like, oh, I'll save like 50 bucks, and then they have all these other hangups cause they have like workarounds and they're like, then the sales page doesn't look that good and they couldn't get metrics on it.
So Kajabi will allow you to do all the things and it will grow with you.
Um, realistically, you probably should not make a course. I'm going to be completely honest and transparent with it. With you. If you're in the beginning phases, you don't have an audience, you don't have demand yet your time and energy is better spent on building that audience, attracting that audience. Provide content for people. Provide value. Be on social media, be blogging, be podcasting, whatever you know feels best for you. Video, you know, vlogging, YouTube, whatever feels best for you. Provide that content. Have that organic approach. Look to attract people.
Remember, just cuz you have an in-person audience doesn't mean that they're gonna want an online course. They probably will not. I don't want you just thinking, I'm gonna make this thing and I'm gonna make a zillion dollars. It doesn't work that way. The majority of people who make online courses don't make any money.
They typically lose money doing it because they don't have the audience. Then they have outsourced like how to actually make it cuz they're confused about it. They're using some shitty software and then they come to me and we have discovery calls and I'm like, man, fuck. That coach did not, they did you dirty. I don't want that for you.
On the flip side, if you are ready, you're like, I have the audience. You know, I've delivered this thing in person, or excuse me, I've delivered this thing. You know, I've actually delivered this thing. I've, I've solved this problem. I understand how to, I wanna productize it, how I wanna systematize it, the methodology I wanna pull out, and the process I want to, to have and, and teach and, and make into this course, I hope this episode was helpful for you. I am in your corner. I want your success and it can be a phenomenal thing to create. Uh, I'm just here to manage expectations and hopefully set you up for success.
All right. I'm looking at this episode. It's a little longer. Thank you for being so patient with me.
If you liked it, you loved it, you're picking up what I'm putting down, you want more episodes like this, maybe drop me some stars, five stars, preferably. Maybe leave a review. I love reading them. Again, I don't know if they really help get the podcast out there, but I, I like reading them. If you're watching on YouTube, drop me a comment.
Would love to hear from you. And that's it. Alright. As always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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