This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
How can you create and sell a premium online course? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Chris Guillebeau, your host here. Online courses have become one of the most popular ways for professionals to share their expertise. It's also a great side hustle.
But standing out in a crowded market takes careful planning. You need to think about how are you gonna position this? How are you going to sell it? Who are the ideal customers? How will you reach them?
Lots of stuff to consider. So today's question comes from Kevin. He's a leadership coach. He wants to create a premium online course. And what does premium mean?
I guess in this case, it just means like a high level of investment. Like it's not a $50 course or a $10 course. It's probably several hundred dollars at minimum. So how can you do that? How can you make sure your course is successful?
How do you structure it for maximum value? What are some strategies to position it as a must have resource so that potential clients or customers see it and are like, wow, I need that. Like even though this costs several hundred dollars or more, I need this information, this knowledge, the transformation that's going to occur as a result of me taking this course. And we'll get into that in my answer. How do you create and sell such a course?
Detailed question in my answer right after this. [Music]
Hey, Chris, this is Kevin. I've been working as a professional in leadership coaching for several years. And I want to take my expertise to a broader audience by creating a premium online course. I'm not sure how to structure it though, or what makes an online course stand out when there are so many already out there.
How do I create something that feels worth the price point? And what's the best way to position it as a valuable resource in a crowded market? [Music]
All right, the way that you create something that feels worth it at the high price point is to focus on value, focus on benefits, focus on the transformative effect of this course and why it is so urgent for your intended audience. So let's break that down a bit, starting with your ideal audience or your one single ideal customer. What is the greatest problem that they have?
How can you provide a solution to that problem? What would their life look like if that problem were to be solved or resolved or significantly diminished? How can you make their life better in a tangible way? And if you have a good answer for that and you can build the right course or product of any kind, then you're on the right track. Then it's a question of, well, what is that worth to that person?
And if you're trying to sell a course for $500 or $1,000, you need to connect that price to the value the person is going to receive. So start with the target audience, clearly articulate the outcome, make it really specific. So it shouldn't be like in this case, I believe Kevin is a leadership coach. So it shouldn't be learn leadership skills. It should be something like build the confidence to lead a team of 20 people and exceed your quarterly goals, just as an example.
I mean, it could be something else, but the point is something that is very valuable that people can say, oh, if I can do that, then that's great, that is worth it to me. Use a results driven framework, break your course into milestones that lead participants step by step into their desired outcome and make sure that your production quality matters, especially for a higher level course, but ultimately more than the production quality, the actual information that leads to transformation is what matters. So, you know, if you have a really nice camera, that's great, but it's much more important to have course materials that creates that transformative effect. And all along the way, all along the customer process, you know, a building trust and generating interest, getting them to go from maybe that's interesting to, oh, I need this. It is ultimately about how can I build a relationship to where people can't say no, where they're like, oh, this is, I need this.
And with the right well-position course, you can turn your expertise into this high value resource. That is the path, of course, where you look at lots of different examples or ways of doing that through many of the different episodes. So I hope that's helpful to Kevin and somebody else out there. Let me know how we can be of service to you in your quest to start a side hustle or an income generating project, your first one, your second, your 10th, your next one, whatever it is. Of course, a new episode is out every day, seven days a week, always completely free.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project
