This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Should you create a free course before launching a paid one? I love this question. Is offering a free course before launching a paid one a smart strategy or does it just attract freebie seekers? Yesterday we talked about monetizing a Facebook group. Somebody has built this Facebook group to 15,000 members, but it's all completely free.
So they're finding a way to monetize it, hopefully without being too off-putting to people who are experiencing something free. So this is a little bit similar, but without having the existing community, if you're starting from scratch, should you create a free course? Or it could be a free group, like we talked about yesterday. But what's the right way to do it? How can you do it in a way that will eventually lead to being paid?
'Cause that's what you want, right? You want to be able to serve an audience, serve a community, but also profit yourself. So that's the question Jake from Minneapolis is wrestling with. He's developing a productivity course for freelancers, and he's wondering whether launching a free mini course will help grow the audience or if it's just delaying revenue. You don't want to just give something away for free if you could get paid for it.
Well, maybe you do, but how do you balance these things? I guess that's what we're looking at. Let's break down when a free course works as a sales tool, perhaps an ideal way to do it. That will help achieve Jake's goals and somebody else out there as well. I want to encourage everybody out there to be making things, creating things, building something for yourself that can hopefully lead to more financial freedom.
Detailed question from Jake and my answer coming right up. [Music]
What's up? This is Jake from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm in the process of creating an online course about productivity for freelancers. And I've been debating whether to launch a free mini course first to attract an audience.
I see a lot of people doing this, but I'm not sure if it actually leads to more sales or just attracts people who never intend to buy anything. Would offering a free course help me build trust and generate more customers? Or am I just giving away value without getting anything in return? [Music]
Hey Jake, I think there are two ways to do it, at least two ways. So I don't think there's really a wrong way.
Free courses can be a smart marketing tool. They're not always necessary. You could just have a well-designed sales page that communicates a good amount of information or a good video that communicates a good amount of information that then draws people to the paid course. But I also think it's okay to break the content or the lessons up into like maybe four mini lessons that you deliver through a free course. You don't wanna give away too much.
You don't want it to be overwhelming. You want to maybe give people like bite-sized content that helps convert them into buyers. So you need to structure it in a way that naturally leads to the paid offer. And typically, like the best free courses are small. They solve a small specific problem.
So they're not like holding back necessarily, but they leave room for more advanced solutions in the full course. So you are building trust. You're showcasing your expertise. You're not just being salesy, like you're legitimately helping and solving problems. But then there is a clear call to action for the paid version.
I would say the biggest thing is to keep it simple if you're gonna do it and focus on something kind of low-tech. You could also just host a free webinar where you teach for half an hour or an hour and you briefly pitch your course at the end. That can be just as effective. So a downloadable resource like a PDF checklist or toolkit, again, that solves a specific problem and leads into your course can work well. Lots of different ways to do it.
Don't get hung up too much on the details. I would say focus on this solution that you are ultimately trying to provide. And then from there, you think about what are the best mediums? What are the best deliverables? How do I get it out to people and so on?
But always be benefit-focused, solution-focused. What is the transformation you're hoping to create for ultimately your buyers, your customers, readers, subscribers and so on. Be solutions-focused and of course, let us know how it goes. Listeners, let me know how it goes for you as well. I know you're out there doing all kinds of different things.
We have a global community of people in all walks of life in all different levels. We have full-time entrepreneurs. We've got lots of people working at companies or day jobs. We're just kind of exploring this world and that's great too. So wherever you're at, I hope you do one thing today to get closer to a goal that you believe in and I hope you'll continue to listen.
It's always free. Subscribe, follow wherever you like. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
