How to Kickstart your Online Course

Kickstarting your online course

You have finally decided that you are going to make the plunge and create an online course.  Congrats, that is the step people get hung up on the longest!

Before I get started laying out the steps you need to follow there is one caveat you need to know and keep in mind.  These steps are going to sound simple.  Which they are...

Now the question, “But if it is simple why doesn’t everyone do it?” might be floating around in your head right now…

The answer is that just because it is simple, does not mean it they are easy. It is hard work and you need to push yourself harder than you ever have to be successful. 

When I first decided to leave behind my two million a year boudoir course and make the switch to helping others build courses in their niches I kept running into walls.  I asked a friend of mine, Dan Henry, why my course wasn’t immediately selling like my last one did.  He responded simply, “Your stuff isn’t good enough yet.  Get better.”

So I redid everything over and over again making it better every time. I am still redoing everything to make it better.  I’ve redone almost every step at least 50 times as of this writing.

So remember, this is hard and it is supposed to be hard.

Now that that is out of the way, let's get started!

Brainstorming your course ideas.

The first thing you want to do is create a list of ten things you can teach people.  Your course topic needs to be something that gives people a result at the end of the course.  So if you have a course on accounting, something that gets your student able to do their own bookkeeping.  If you want a course on fat loss, your course needs to help them lose 10 lbs in a month.

It is vital that you hone in on a SPECIFIC result.

If your result looks like helping people to “live out loud” or “manifest their true form” you need to work on it to get more specific.  You will spend more time explaining to people what your course is actually going to do for them than you will selling it. Remember, confused people do not buy things.

(If your heart is set on building a course like that, just skip ahead to my post it power hour video and build out your course.  It will save yourself a few thousand dollars instead of buying one of the gurus programs that help you build it and not sell it.)

But if you are still interested in building a profitable course keep reading...

Now that you have your list of 10 clearly defined things you can teach people, go ahead and pick the top 3 you like the most.

Work on those three for a while and see which one you can hone down the absolute best.

Congrats you have your course topic!

If you are still feeling a bit stuck at this point, I made this video that goes into more detail here.

So lets move onto the next step

Identify your Ideal Customer

Now that you know what you want to teach people it is time to figure out who exactly you want to sell to. Again this is one of those things where if it is easy, you probably didn’t do it well enough.

The simplest way to think about this is to write out an imaginary person that is the absolute perfect customer.  Write out their name, get a photo from google, and start brainstorming their hobbies, interests, family, motivations, etc. 

When you are done you should have a pretty unique and complete profile of a person.  Go past the first date info and it should look like you have been married to them for 20 years.

It should go without saying that if your ideal customer looks like “stressed out moms” you need to do some more work here.

Finally, let’s KICKSTART!

At this point you should have a course idea that is honed to a clear result and an indeal avatar that tells you exactly who you should be speaking to.

Now is the time to do the hard part.  Go ask your ideal client if they want what you are selling.

Start digging around the internet to find out where your avatar is hanging around and start hanging around there.  Once you find the place just ask if they want help with your course topic.

You will either get a yes or a no.

If it is a no, then go back to step one and figure out why!  And be thankful you didn’t do a launch, because you would still be getting “no” but it would be after spending months and tons of money launching!

If it is yes, then get them on a call and help them out!  Get a testimonial and start building your idea into a course.  Remember, testimonials are like currency.  They are invaluable to you when you are starting out.  Nothing builds the know like and trust factor like people sharing how you have helped them.

Congratulations! You have just successfully kickstarted with your first few paying customers!

Where to next?

Now that you have a validated course idea and some seed money it is time to start growing.  In the next blog posts I’ll tell you how to grow your following, build your course, and sell to many people at once.

-Much Love,

Molly Keyser