Why Make a Course?

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

COURSE CRUSH is a step-by-step method to creating a profitable course that your people love. The first step in the COURSE CRUSH method is to pick your topic, but before you even get to that step, you really need to determine if making a course is right for YOU.

Here are the reasons why you might want to make a course:

  1. A course can be a highly profitable product.
  2. A course can turn your casual site visitors into committed followers and customers.
  3. A course can position you as an expert in your field.
  4. A course can help you dive even deeper into a topic that matters to you. Through teaching, you will learn more about a topic than you ever thought possible.
  5. A course can create a strong bond between you and your people.
  6. A course can help you educate people on a topic that matters to you.
  7. A course can document and distribute important information to those that need it.
  8. A course can be easier to update than an e-book.
  9. A course can incorporate many elements -- text, video, audio, files, quizzes -- that can be helpful in learning.
  10. A course can have an affiliate program (it's built into Teachable).
  11. A course can be private and you have better control over who can access it.
  12. A course can be expanded upon and scaled up over time, which means you can also increase the price over time.
  13. A course can be as passive as you wish, meaning you can help people without needing to be present for learning to happen.
  14. A course can be a joy to create and extremely fulfilling.

I find those all to be compelling reasons to create courses. Most of you will be focused on reason #1 (as I was), which is totally fine. There should be no shame or guilt in wanting to earn a living while also helping others. I recommend you embrace it fully, if this is your motivation. When I embraced it and set a monetary goal for my first course, it pushed me to work hard on my course and do a good job at it!

So you may be wondering if there are reasons NOT to do a course. Here's some examples of situations where I feel a course is not the best choice:

  1. When the information you want to convey is not meaty or extensive, you may be better off with a short e-book or webinar.
  2. When your goal is simply to collect leads (subscribers), a course is more work than some other options.
  3. When your goal is to create a static product that does not ever need to be updated, a course is likely more work than is necessary.
  4. When you want people to simply print what you've made and read it offline -- and nothing else -- a course is not the easiest solution.

As an example, when I have information that I want to convey through mostly words and pictures, I tend to put that into an e-book rather than a course. Then my people can simply download the ebook and go on their merry way. But when I need to have additional information, such as videos, or I want to be able to update that information on the fly, I lean towards courses.

I've created four online courses (this one will be my fifth) for my blog and they are not only the major source of my income, but the major source of my joy in working online.


Meta: It may be obvious to you why someone should learn something, but it isn't always obvious to your students. Be clear and spell it out!

Complete and Continue