How to scale your Business with an Online Course
As a coach, consultant, or small business owner, you’ve built a successful business sharing your expertise one-on-one or with small groups. But have you considered the transformative power of creating an online course and how it could scale your business even further?
Let me break down the incredible benefits of online course creation to benefit your business and profitability.
Adding an online course to your service offerings can be a gamechanger for your coaching or consulting business by…
1. Amplifying your reach without sacrificing your time
As a coach or consultant, your expertise is invaluable, but your time is limited. You only have so many hours in the day to see your coaching or consulting clients. If you dream of scaling your business, you’d have to see more clients in the day. But where are you going to find the time to do this?!
A more efficient option is to stop trading your time for dollars and adding an online course into your business offerings. An online or digital course allows you to package your expertise in a way that you can reach hundreds or even thousands of people without filling your calendar full of calls. While you sleep, travel, or work with VIP clients, your course can continue to spread your message, educate and inspire.
2. Creating a low-maintenance passive income stream
Imagine waking up to sales notifications. With an online course, this dream becomes reality. Once created, your course can generate income 24/7, providing financial stability and freeing you to focus on other parts of your business (i.e., creating that podcast you’ve always wanted to start, automating your business, or focusing on upleveling your marketing skills). Your course can give you back time in your day to spend more time with friends and family and focus on other parts of your business that often get neglected.
Plus, with an online course, there are no scheduling conflicts, cancellations, or time-zone issues. Anyone can buy your course, across the globe, at any time.
3. Attracting prime candidates for your VIP services or premium coaching services
What if you created a foundational course that all of your 1:1 clients went through before they worked with you? By covering basic and foundational concepts in your course, you can dedicate your personal coaching time to more advanced, personalized strategies. This not only makes your one-on-one sessions more valuable but also more enjoyable for both you and your clients.
If you’re sick of repeating foundational content over and over, an online course can be a great way to automate that work. You can then charge top tier pricing for your personalized, custom coaching that dives deeply into the problem you solve for your clients (after they complete your online course).
4. Freeing up your time to protect yourself from burnout
Want to future-proof your business? Need to take a break from 1:1 services or coaching? Life happens and unexpected challenges can arise at any time. With an online course, you have the option to hit pause on your coaching services and use your course sales to keep your business afloat (or grow!) as you travel the world, take a sick day, tend to important family matters, set up a maternity or paternity leave, or take that much needed vacation. Say goodbye to business burnout!!
5. Expanding your reach + diversifying your offerings
With an online course, clients who might not be able to afford your one-on-one rates can now benefit from your guidance, broadening your impact and potentially creating a pipeline for future high-ticket services. There are people out there who are desperate to work with you, but they can’t unfortunately afford your services right now. With an online course, you can offer an affordable option that can get them started on their journey, which can also attract an untapped market of qualified customers. Add buy now, pay later options to your course pricing to attract even more buyers.
An online course adds another tier to your service offerings. You can create an ascension model: free content leads to your course, which leads to group coaching, which leads to one-on-one consulting. This diversity makes your business more resilient and appealing to a broader audience.
6. Building efficiency into your business and gathering insights
When you get a new coaching client, it’s an amazing feeling! But then you need to find the time to deliver services in your already jam-packed schedule. With an online course, once you make the sale, the content is already created and delivered. Which means you DON’T need to see more clients to earn more, and you DON’T have to repeat the same content over and over again to new clients. By leveraging technology to spread your message, you’re not just working smarter – you’re exponentially increasing your potential to change your clients’ lives. This is the power of scaling your impact without scaling your time: a true win-win for both you and your audience.
In addition, the data and feedback you receive from your course participants provide invaluable insights into your audience’s needs, challenges, and learning styles. This information can help you refine your course, improve your coaching methods, and develop new digital and passive income offerings you might not have thought of prior to your course.
7. Establishing yourself as an authority in your industry
An online course is a tangible way to help showcase your unique method, knowledge, and expertise, setting you apart in a crowded market. This increased credibility can lead to more high-ticket clients, podcast invites, guest blog posts, speaking engagements, and media opportunities.
8. Having bigger profit margins (with low upfront costs)
An online course does take time and money to set up in the beginning, but once it’s created, it’s a great ROI. Course software is relatively inexpensive compared to the amount of money you can make from your digital course. Sky’s the limit on how you can scale your business with an online course. What would an extra $20K, $50K, or $100K do for your business each year?
Course creators are making extra income just by packaging their knowledge in a different format.
9. Being cutting edge in your business
Online courses aren’t going anywhere any time soon. With the rise of the influencer economy and the digital learning economy, your business will look cutting edge as it offers your clients a way to learn from you on their own schedule, while taking a walk, after the kids are put in bed, or while they are cooking dinner. Many people want flexible options to learn from you and an online course offers just that.
10. Deepening your connection with your clients
Some of your clients may be craving a community to connect with others going through a similar experience. With an online course, you can offer a course community that helps with accountability, connection, and mentorship. Many course platforms offer community in their platform or you can house it in Facebook or another social platform as a perk for being a student in your course. Again, you may gain deeper insights and connection with your audience by seeing your clients and students interact in a different way as they navigate through your course content.
Getting Started with building your online course
Creating an online course might seem daunting (I’ve been there!) but remember you already have the most crucial ingredient – your expertise and knowledge you’re already sharing with your clients.
Start by assessing the types of content you repeat over and over to every client and identifying your audience’s biggest pain points. How can you get your clients results in an online course?
Write out your unique method to get them from Point A to Point B. Start creating your simple course outline and then focus on recording content.
Your fast-track to build, launch, and sell your online course
I was able to leave my corporate job and scale my business because of what I learned about online courses, digital products, and passive income. Now I’m ready to teach you.
I can help you…
Discover your online course topic
Learn about different course strategies and methods
Create and record content
Figure out which tech tools you’ll need to create your course
Compare course platforms and give you tips on what to look for in a course platform
Come up with your course pricing
Launch in 10 weeks or fewer using my step-by-step launch guide
Learn about passive income, automation, and marketing strategies to sell your course on autopilot
If you need additional support in these areas, check out my resources or self-paced course