Introduction
Fall is the time of year when many entrepreneurs find themselves checking their checking account balance, their running credit card balance and trying to figure out what to invest in for their business. This is especially true because so many amazing things launch in the fall months and there are some spectacular Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals that will pop up.
Unless you are one of the entrepreneurs with endless pots of money, these are things that need to be planned out. And you know from Episode 208 that I think every course creator should be buying and learning from other course creators.
This brings the inevitable question of what courses to invest in. After all, we can’t go into endless debt nor can we just continue to figure things out on our own year after year.
Today I’m going to share some insights that I’ve had over the past few years of being immersed in the entrepreneurial online course space that will help you avoid some of the same mistakes that I’ve made and instead use your money and time in a way that leads to success.
After all, it is nearly impossible to build a successful and profitable business if we are stuck in a vacuum without outside ideas, teachings, and input.
And be sure to stick around to today’s Sixty-Second Solution where I’ll share the number one thing I look for in digital courses and experiences that are over $500 because it means the difference between success and stagnation.
Spending Money
As someone who has been teaching and creating courses for over 15 years, you likely know that I love to learn. That means that I’m inclined to take all the courses that I can. The challenge here is that we do not have endless amounts of money to spend on courses. In Episode 208 I shared that there are three primary reasons that you should be investing in online courses and today I want to cover how to choose which courses to invest in.
I don’t know about you, but that is a hard part. I feel like I would imagine a kid in a candy store feels like when they see a massive bin of their favorite treat. They light up and get really excited. There are so many great creators out there. Experts in what they do and show a willingness to share that knowledge with others through their courses.
You know, as a course creator, how much time and effort they have put into their course. But not all courses should be at the top of your budgeting list. Let’s walk through three things that I use to evaluate a course before purchasing and in today’s Sixty-Second Solution I’ll share with you the top thing that I look for in a course that costs over $500.
#1: Cost
When looking at what courses to purchase and which ones to wait for until you’ve earned more income, it can be hard to figure out your rank ordering. And let’s face it, you can’t afford them all, especially all at once. You have to pace yourself, just like at a Thanksgiving family dinner that has all of the amazing sides.
One of the first things that I look at when evaluating courses, and this is something that you can keep in mind as you price your own course, is the cost. There is something of a standard in the digital course industry to keep raising your price until you hit that sweet spot. People are still buying at a good rate, but you have moved past that lower ticket price.
In fact, a lot of people will talk about how many $2000 courses they have purchased, meaning there are a lot of $2000 courses out there, especially in the entrepreneur space or business to business space.
So what cost should you be looking for? I personally love the courses that are under $1000 for a few reasons.
First up, if a course is $1000 and I have a $2000 budget then I can purchase two different courses on two different topics and learn twice as much as I can with just one course that costs $2000.
Secondly, I find that the courses that hover at or just under $1000 are filled with great, in-depth content. They just don’t have the flashy video work, fancy slides, or highly polished worksheets. Those things are what make the course good. It is the content and the course creator’s explanations. A plain Google Doc worksheet is just as effective as a highly branded worksheet.
Finally, those courses under $1000 tend to have creators who are still deeply connected to their students. They aren’t so far out of where their students are that they can’t remember what it is like to be the newbie, or the person just getting started. One comment that I’ve heard recently, over and over, is that the $2000 course creators making millions a year have lost that connection with who their students are and what they are going through.
In today’s Sixty-Second Solution I’ll let you in on another reason I love courses under $1000 as I share what I look for in a course that is over $500.
#2: Clear Objectives
Now when looking for courses to take and figuring out how to best make use of whatever budget you have available for Research and Development you want to consider more than just the cost. Yes, cost is critical but it is one piece. Once you find a course or, even better, a couple of courses that all teach the same concept like social media growth, start looking at their objectives.
A quality course will have strong objectives with a clear path to help you achieve those objectives. One of my colleagues, Jerry Potter, has a course on creating leads on social media that actually buy. His program, Social Media Leads Lab provides a framework for creating a social media habit and approach that will naturally grow over time and attract people who convert to buyers. And as part of the Leads Lab approach, there are monthly calls where he shares what is working, what has changed, and even has Q&A sessions to allow people to get real-time help and feedback. Remember that, because we are going to come back to that concept in today’s Sixty-Second Solution.
Another colleague, Tracy Beavers, whom you might have heard speak about her program, Business Visibility Made Easy on Episode 155, walks her students through a process of using Facebook, and other social media platforms to grow an engaged audience. In fact, her free Facebook group is one of the best I’ve seen. She teaches her students how to replicate that concept with their own flair.
One of the big reasons both of these programs are top notch is that they have clearly defined objectives. When a student goes into these programs they know what the outcome will be if they implement each and every step along the way and ask for help if they get stuck.
This is what I’m looking for when I’m investing in a course. I even do this for my child’s homeschool curriculums. Someone posted a few weeks ago that they were starting a debate club and registration was open. They posted a link to the brief description and a checkout link. The problem is that there were objectives or outcomes available. The price was about $100/month which equates to $1200 per year to be involved in the debate club. Without those objectives, the price feels much steeper because you don’t know what you are actually getting.
As you think about your own courses, whether you are creating your first course or revamping an existing course, be sure that your website visitors know exactly what the outcome will be if they follow everything to a “t”. What are the objectives of your course? Be up front and clear about them. This will not only help your students feel confident in investing with you, but you will have fewer refund requests as well. There won’t be misunderstandings.
As you look for courses to take, keep in mind those objectives and if they aren’t readily available, ask the course creator for a list of the objectives. It could be that they have them clearly defined, but didn’t think to include them in their marketing materials.
Choosing courses can feel hard, but with just a few ideas to keep in mind, it actually gets much easier. Keep in mind the cost and the course objectives.
#3: Format
When looking at courses, everything could be right about the opportunity, but if the format is not what you need, you’ll never finish it. We know as course creators that we have to keep learning. Even if we are limiting our learning to how to best run an online business, there is still continuous learning that has to take place.
And for most, that means buying courses. Courses are not all created equally though and we definitely can’t afford all of the courses out there so we have to make some educated decisions on how to spend our hard earned money to facilitate growth.
These are the exact same things our course students are thinking about when they come across our courses so you can easily apply this concept to your own course.
When evaluating a course, we have to look at the format of the course and compare it to what works for our learning style, our time, and our overall needs. For example, if a course is offered live each week on Tuesday at 8am ET and you work in a full-time office position from 7am – 4pm, this is likely not the best course for you, especially if there aren’t recordings or this is the only time and way to get feedback and help. On the other hand, if you drop off your kids at school at 7:30am and come home to get to work in your business, then that 8am course might be fantastic.
One of the things that I love best about Jerry’s Social Media Leads Lab course is that the Q&A’s and the monthly What’s Working Now calls are all available via a private podcast. For me, having the option to listen to content on a private podcast makes it so much easier to consume the content and then have time to implement. I can listen in the car, while putting on my makeup, or on a walk.
When you have a round-up of courses that you’d like to consider, check out how you can consume the content and think about what works best for you. I once listened to an entire course via the podcast and then printed out the PDF worksheets and completed them one module at a time.
You have to find what works best for you and in today’s Sixty-Second Solution I’m going to share with you the number one thing I look for in any course over $500 that goes beyond cost, objectives, and format, but also magically ties in all three elements!
Action Item
Are your wheels spinning yet? Or as we often say, is your brain whirring with ideas? Maybe you have ideas for how to improve your course plan or update a current course. Or perhaps you are itching to tackle that list of courses you have in mind and now have a few more things to add to that decision tree as you figure out where to spend your research and development budget.
The key is to take action. What will you do this week to move forward? If your budget is tight right now and you aren’t thinking about spending money at this exact moment, take a look at your course or your plan for your digital course and take the concepts of cost, objectives, and format. Imagine you are your course student and look at your course and materials from the perspective of this podcast.
If you are itching to get your hands on some courses now, compile your top topics that you need to learn about, find a few courses on each topic and then evaluate them using the principles we talked about in today’s episode. Using these criteria and the one I’m about to share in today’s Sixty-Second Solution you should have a clearer idea of what courses best fit you, your business, and your budget!
Sixty-Second Solution
In today’s Sixty-Second Solution let’s talk about the number one thing to look for in a course that is over $500. The reason I say over $500 is that this is often the price point when the course content moves beyond basic and requires more effort to implement effectively and correctly.
In other words, this is often the point when you will be more likely to need help to meet those carefully crafted course objectives that the course creator has set out for you. What I’m about to share is also the reason I love courses under $1000 because they are much more likely to do this one thing that will make a huge difference in your success.
The number one thing I look for in courses over $500 is how much help I’ll get from the course creator themselves. Now, I’m not talking about 1:1 help necessarily, but I’m going to carefully examine the opportunities to get help. Is it just a Facebook group or are there monthly help sessions where I can ask a question? If there are monthly help sessions, does everyone who has a question get a chance to ask that question or is it limited?
When you have the opportunity and willingness to make use of help from the course creator, you are much more likely to be successful.
Where to Go Next?
Whether you are thinking about how to best spend your R&D budget or how to best help your potential students know that their money will be well-spent with your course, money is a key part of being an entrepreneur. It is also one that most of us would love to hide under the covers than talk about openly.
If you are ready to think more about money, go back and check out Episode 206: Entrepreneurial Costs: What is Normal? And Episode 202: Online Course Creator Launch Success: Revenue vs. Profit. Both of these episodes will give you some insights into the money surrounding being an entrepreneur.
And if you are looking for that episode where I talked with Tracy Beavers, go check out Episode 155: The Secret to Building Your Facebook Audience Without Paid Ads. It is a good one, and Tracy has live masterclasses coming up if you are listening to this episode as it launches. They will be in October. Click this link to get on her waitlist and learn from her brilliance!
That’s it for this week’s episode. I’d love to hear from you as you start taking action and making decisions on where you’re planning to spend your R&D budget. Send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook at Digital Course Creator Guide.
Until next time, happy creating!
Note: Links provided may be affiliate links. In the interest of full transparency, I do earn a small commission from purchases you make using these links.
