7 Reasons to Create An Online Course

Published on 3 January 2023

Are you unsure whether it's worthwhileย creating an online course?

It can be a lot of hard work to create your course, not to mention the problem of how to sell it once it's done.

If you've found yourself asking this question, don't worry, youโ€™re not alone!

Many entrepreneurs are hesitant to create an online course because of the amount of time and effort that goes into creating high-quality content.

But if youโ€™re still in doubt, here are seven compelling reasons why creating an online course should be on your agenda.

๐“๐ข๐ฆ๐ž ๐…๐ซ๐ž๐ž๐๐จ๐ฆ/๐’๐œ๐š๐ฅ๐š๐›๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ - if you are earning money by trading your time, there is a ceiling on how big you can grow your business without hiring staff.

There are only so many hours in the day, so that will dictate how many clients you can work with.

And of course you don't want to become so busy that you burn yourself out!

One thing you can do is raise your prices, and that might be a good option for you, but economics dictates that there is only so far you can raise your prices before it's just not affordable to enough people, to generate the revenues that you want.

Having an online course or programme means that you can break the time for money paradigm and regain control of your time!

๐‘Šโ„Ž๐‘Ž๐‘ก ๐‘ค๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘™๐‘‘ ๐‘ฆ๐‘œ๐‘ข ๐‘‘๐‘œ ๐‘ค๐‘–๐‘กโ„Ž ๐‘Ž ๐‘“๐‘’๐‘ค ๐‘š๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ โ„Ž๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ๐‘  ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘ฆ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ ๐‘ค๐‘’๐‘’๐‘˜?

๐๐ซ๐จ๐Ÿ๐ข๐ญ๐š๐›๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ - creating an online course costs you the same to serve hundreds of people, as it would to serve just one person, so your fixed costs get proportionally less as a percentage of each course sale you make, and there is usually zero variable costs associated with having more students, so it is a massively profitable way of generating revenue for your business.

๐‘‡โ„Ž๐‘Ž๐‘ก ๐‘š๐‘’๐‘Ž๐‘›๐‘  ๐‘š๐‘œ๐‘Ÿ๐‘’ ๐‘š๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘’๐‘ฆ ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘ฆ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ ๐‘๐‘œ๐‘๐‘˜๐‘’๐‘ก! How cool is that?

๐๐š๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐ฏ๐ž ๐ข๐ง๐œ๐จ๐ฆ๐ž - do the work once and get paid for it over and over again in the future! This is closely related to Reason #1, in that if you no longer need to be present every time someone consumes your training, you can literally be making money in your sleep.

๐ป๐‘œ๐‘ค ๐‘”๐‘Ÿ๐‘’๐‘Ž๐‘ก ๐‘ค๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘™๐‘‘ ๐‘–๐‘ก ๐‘“๐‘’๐‘’๐‘™ ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘ค๐‘Ž๐‘˜๐‘’ ๐‘ข๐‘ ๐‘ก๐‘œ ๐‘ ๐‘Ž๐‘™๐‘’๐‘  ๐‘–๐‘› ๐‘ฆ๐‘œ๐‘ข๐‘Ÿ ๐‘–๐‘›๐‘๐‘œ๐‘ฅ?

When you are no longer confined by your physical availability you can literally be making money from selling your courses 24hrs a day, 365 days a year!

๐€๐๐๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐š๐ฅ ๐ซ๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ฎ๐ž ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ฆ - having an online course or programme means that you have another way to generate additional income for your business, over and above your core revenue-generating activities.

This will help protect you from some of the unpredictabilities of the market and give you peace of mind from knowing that you have revenue coming in from other sources.

What would bringing an additional ยฃ1-10K per month mean for your business?

๐“๐š๐ง๐ ๐ข๐›๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ/๐•๐š๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ž ๐€๐๐ - If you sell services you can make what you sell more tangible and differentiate yourself from your competitors by bundling your courses into any 1-2-1 deal.

For example when I am helping clients launch their online courses, when they start working with me they get instant access to some high value courses that support the 1-2-1 work that we'll be doing together.

๐ต๐‘œ๐‘›๐‘ข๐‘  ๐‘ก๐‘–๐‘ - You can also use a course in the opposite way, as a down-sell, if people can't afford your 1-2-1 services.

ย  ย  ย  RELATED

๐‹๐ž๐š๐ ๐ ๐ž๐ง๐ž๐ซ๐š๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง - Having an online course is a great way to find prospects for your higher ticket programmes or 1-2-1 services.

๐’๐š๐ฅ๐ž๐ฌ ๐…๐ฎ๐ง๐ง๐ž๐ฅ - One of the things that has turbo-charged my business over the last coupe of years is setting up a sales funnel, whereby people start working with me through lower cost programmes, as they are introduced to the value that I can create for them and experience what it's like to work with me.

Having an online course is one step in a value ladder that moves people from a low price to higher price, as they get the chance to experience what it's like working with you and the value that you create for them, before you ask them to commit to a higher ticket programme.

An example of this is the 'Creating with Confidence Bootcamp' that I run for newbie course creators twice a year!

A sales funnel that includes an online course or programme, has the added advantage that it allows you to increase your 1-2-1 prices, if you wanted to.

๐ˆ๐ง๐œ๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ƒ๐ž๐ฆ๐š๐ง๐ - Okay, so I know I said seven reasons but I like to over-deliver, so here's reason number eight! ๐Ÿ˜‰

Another reason you should consider creating an online course is quite simply because there is an increasing demand for online learning.

Even before the pandemic online learning was a huge growth market, but the pandemic accelerated the demand for online education of all types.

As an example of this huge growth, Udemy reported seeing a 425% increase in enrolments for online courses during lockdown.

Adding an online course to your current business model is a great way to generate passive income and increase the value of your services and now is the perfect time to create a course that meets the needs of your target market.ย 

So I just want to end by asking you, what online course would you LOVE to create?

Remember, every time you put off launching your course, you are doing someone out of the ability to learn something that they really need.

Ready to get started?

Now that you are aware of the meany benefits of adding an online course to your business model, what should you do next?

Well, I am a firm believer in taking action! Just putting one foot in front of the other creates momentum, and before you know it you'll be on on your way to creating your first online course.

An easy first step is for you to choose a Learning Management System!

A Learning Management System, or LMS for short, is software that allows you to securely host your course content; manage your student's experience going through your course; market your course AND of course manage the all-important payment processing function.

Think of it as the engine that will power your online course business and allow you to scale!

Thinkific is the LMS system that we use for our online courses, live bootcamps, Masterclasses and 1-2-1 work with our coaching clients.

The advantage of signing up for a free account right now is that you can play around with things behind the scenes and learn how to use a piece of technology that will become essential to the future success of your online course business.

And because it's free, you will not have the time-pressure to get your course created and launched prematurely. You'll need to allow yourself sufficient time to do your research.

Want to know if you are ready to create your first online course yet? Take our quiz and find out!