There are A LOT of ways to make money online. But, that’s no surprise.
You already know this.
If you’ve Googled around at all, you’ve probably come across articles telling you how to make money with:
- Blogging
- Affiliate marketing
- YouTube
- Ebay
- Amazon
- eBooks
- And many more.
Am I right?
I’m just like you. I first got started blogging professionally at the end of 2012.
I read a post from Problogger’s Darren Rowse, which told me that I could ACTUALLY earn a full-time income from blogging.
I didn’t believe that I actually could, but I was in my 3rd year of college and I had nothing to lose. I launched a blog and started producing regular content.
I went full-time on that blog in 2013 and haven’t looked back.
It’s paid for my apartment, all of my tech gadgets, and my lifestyle in New York City.
Pretty crazy!
At the time, making money from Adsense was all the rage. After that, it was ebooks.
Now a days, it’s online courses.
I’m here today to show you how you can start making money online right now with online courses. I’m also going to share why online courses are better than all of the options I mentioned above.
Darren Rowse launched my career online. I hope that I can do the same for you!
1. The Formula Used to Sell Courses
Creating an online course isn’t the hard part.
There are lots of tools that you can use to create and host the content.
The hard part is getting students to enroll in your course. The difficult part is SELLING the course that you’ve created.
Not only is selling inherently scary, but it also seems complex and foreign.
Think about ALL of the courses out there that you could take right now. Just imagine the piles and piles of dusty books that fill libraries around the world. Many go un-read.
Anyone can create a course or write a book. The only way that you’re going to make money is if you convince potential students that it’s worth their time.
Thankfully, no matter how much you screw up, there is a formula that you can fall back on to keep your hopes up in the early days.
Here it is!!!
Email List Subscribers * .01 = New Course Sales
Typically, about 1% of your designated course launch list will end up becoming students of your online course. This assumes that:
- You’ve warmed up those “leads.” You’ve shared helpful content with you, and they have an idea of your expertise.
- You’ve collected those leads ethically. People have opted-in to receive content from you.
- You’ve created a course on a topic that people actually want to learn. More on that here.
- You’ve clearly stated the benefits of the program. You can’t just expect people to assume what the benefits are.
Now… when you first hear this, it might sound depressing. Actually, I think it’s motivational!
You don’t have to be a sales expert to make money with online courses. You just have to deliver value.
Of course, if you want to improve those numbers, you can learn a thing or two about sales.
2. Make Money In Your Sleep (no joke)
When I was 19, I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad. It completely changed my life.
I became OBSESSED with the concept of passive income. I wanted to figure out how to earn money in my sleep!
It took me several years, but I’ve finally cracked the code. I can teach you exactly how to earn money in your sleep. You don’t have to do anything. You just gotta collect the cash.
Here’s the answer… create PRODUCTS that customers can BUY.
Woah… groundbreaking right!?
Let me explain. When you run a service-based business, you’re still trading time for money. You’re working from project to project. You’re on the clock helping grow someone else’s business.
When you run a product-based business, there is a one-time transaction between YOU and the customer. After that transaction, you might have to do a little customer service, but aside from that, you don’t have to do anything else.
Now, here’s the secret.
You want to work to produce products that don’t require you to be there for the transaction to happen.
Yeah, you could open up a deli and sell products at a retail price, but you have to show up every day and manage that location.
Yeah, you could open up your own pizza shop, but you gotta be there every day. You gotta greet customers, make pizzas, and run the cash register.
When you offer an online course, a student can enroll at any time during the day, and you don’t have to be there to manage the process.
They can learn a bit about the product, watch your teaser videos, and buy it. It’s all automated. You don’t have to be there.
Cool, huh?
You can spend 3 months making a kick ass online course and then reap the rewards. There is very little time investment going forward, unless you want to include a specific hands-on component.
What’s great too is that, as long as the content is still relevant, you can continue to see sales years later.
It’s pretty powerful.
3. Choose a Profitable Topic
No matter how convincing you are, you can’t get around simple math.
There are a certain number of people on earth at this very moment that want to learn key skills.
Of ALL of the skills that people want to learn, some are more popular than others.
There are a lot of people who want to learn how to play guitar. There aren’t many who want to learn how to speak Klingon.
But, popularity doesn’t equal profitability.
A course topic is only profitable when there are enough students who want to learn the material AND who are willing to pay premium prices to acquire that knowledge.
Think of it this way. A teenage YouTuber might have a big audience, but that audience probably doesn’t have a lot of disposable income. They’re unlikely to invest in a $3,000 program, particularly if it’s a boring business topic.
In this case, a business course wouldn’t be the best business move. That YouTuber would need to build up a separate audience first.
Now, let’s say there is another YouTuber that has an audience of 10,000 aspiring business people from age 30 – 45. This group has disposable income AND they want to learn a particular topic.
For them, teaching a course on business would be very profitable.
Consider these decision points:
- What topics can you teach?
- What will students pay money to learn?
- Where can you gain access to these potential students?
Don’t shy away from a topic just because someone else is teaching a similar course. That actually means that there is demand in the marketplace for this knowledge!
You can also gain a quick understanding of the subjects that people want to learn by browsing book topics on Amazon. Which ones are most popular?
4. Enlist The Help of A Mentor
This entire process is gonna be a lot easier if you study someone who’s done what you want to do. Learn from their strategies, techniques, and overall mindset.
Thankfully, because the internet is around and stuff, I can reach out to you right now with a video! This video goes into more things that you need to know before making money from your first online course.
I’ve put it together for you below. I hope that you enjoy it.
Once you watch the video, I’d love it if you could take a sec to leave a comment on YouTube and let me know about any questions that you have.
You’re about to embark on a very exciting journey. I took the same road as you.
When I first got started, I didn’t know anything about online marketing or sales. I was completely clueless.
It was very intimidating. Being a young guy, I also felt like I didn’t deserve to stand out online. I had to wrestle with my own inner demons.
Making the decision to go out on my own was the BEST decision of my life. I’ve grown so much and can’t wait for what’s in store for the future.
I hope you make the same decision. When you do, I won’t be there to judge you or laugh at you. I’ll be there to help you. Don’t be afraid to reach out.