Everyone thought you were crazy when you said you wanted to be a coach. “You can’t make money as a coach! How will you pay your bills?” 

We hear stories like this all the time. Friends and family doubt the idea of coaching as a profession or business. 

“Who will pay for such a thing?” 

“It’s not covered by insurance so why would anyone do that?”

Fortunately, they’re wrong. 

Your desire to become a coach probably wasn’t to get rich but you didn’t start it as a hobby either. You truly want to help people transform their lives. Transformation, though, doesn’t pay the bills.

But, if you can figure out how to get people to pay for that transformation, THAT will pay the bills!

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How to Make Money as a Coach

Whether you are just starting out or wanting to add additional sources of revenue, there are 7 primary ways to make money as a coach.

So let’s dive right in and talk about some of them.

#1: One-on-One

The most commonly known way for coaches to make money is through one-on-one coaching which involves working with one individual at a time.

It’s a lot like traditional therapy models; one client, one coach, and it’s where most coaches get started. 

With every option, there are pros and cons. Let’s talk about some of the reasons this is a good way to make money as a coach.

Pros:

• A great starting point when you don’t have an existing audience. 
• Startup cost is practically $0. It doesn’t take a lot of money to begin working with clients one-on-one.
• One-on-one coaching is a great way to figure out your overall niche, style, and system
• It can be extremely rewarding when you get to see the transformation you facilitate.

Cons:

• It can be difficult to scale your business because you only have so many hours in a day. You’ll be locked in to how much money you can make.
• The search for for new clients that can afford your coaching services will be ongoing.

#2: VIP Days 

The next option to make money as a coach is to set up VIP Days.

VIP Days are a great way to do a deep dive with clients that need to get through your process fast.

While typical one-on-one coaching programs may happen over a period of time, VIP days condense all the work into one or two days.

Pros:

• You can charge premium rates for VIP days. 
• Transformation happens much more quickly for the client.
• Typically low investment costs. You may want to reserve a relaxing meeting space and provide some VIP extras for clients but the general costs can be taken directly from the client’s payment.

Cons:

• VIP days can be draining and often happen on weekends. 
• These are also not extremely scalable.
• You will always be looking for new clients.

#3: Online Courses/In-Person Training

Once you’ve narrowed down some of the main concerns for your audience, you can start to offer webinars or in-person training and workshops.

These programs typically focus on a specific strategy for moving your participants to the next level.

They are a great way to make money as a coach while also marketing your one-on-one coaching programs.

Pros:

• You can reach a larger audience than one-on-one coaching.
• The presentations are often a great way to promote your one-on-one coaching programs while getting paid.
• You can educate your clients on the basics that will help them get the most out of your one-on-one programs.
• If you are being hired to offer these programs, the cost to set up the webinar is very low.

Cons:

• On, the other hand, setting up webinars or in-person workshops that you will host can be expensive.
• You may not enjoy being on stage or in front of a camera.
• Participants all need to have the same starting place and ending place to truly benefit from the course.

#4: Group Coaching

Group coaching is a way for coaches to scale their services. You can make money as a coach by offering your coaching services to more than one person at the same time.

These group coaching programs typically revolve around a specific topic or desired transformation. They can be conducted virtually or in-person. 

Pros:

• Easier to leverage your time. You can serve multiple people at once.
• More scalable. You can offer more programs at any one time.
• Allow members to feel better supported and like they aren’t alone.
• Can be less expensive for individual members so you reach a wider audience.

Cons:

• Because these programs are less expensive for the members, that means you have to have more participants to get to a break-even point vs one-on-one coaching.
• You will probably have some start up costs for tools to help run your programs.
• More participants means you will need to do more marketing to fill your program.
• Clients may not see as much of a transformation since there isn’t as much time to work directly with each group member.

#5: Mastermind Groups

Mastermind groups are similar to group coaching programs in that you gather a group of individuals together.

However, group coaching is usually designed to last a limited amount of time and take group members on a specific, preplanned journey to the desired destination. The coach serves as the only guide on that journey.

Masterminds, on the other hand, bring together a group of like-minded individuals who wish to support one another.

The coach serves as the facilitator, rather than a guide, and each member can offer input and feedback to the other members.

There’s typically no fixed journey or destination in mind and the mastermind can last indefinitely.

Pros:

• You don’t need to be the all-knowing expert to run these groups. 
• It’s not necessary to have a pre-designed system or path to take group members through.
• Like group coaching, it’s easier to leverage your time. You can host more than one mastermind group at a time.
• Masterminds can be ongoing for long periods of time. This recurring revenue can be substantial without having to market over and over.
• The cost to start a mastermind can be low.

Cons:

• People typically join mastermind groups because of the leader. If you don’t have an audience already, it will be difficult to attract members.
• It can be tough to keep members engaged and active. Many mastermind groups fall apart when their members stop showing up consistently.
• There can be some headaches managing recurring payments and chasing participants whose payments didn’t go through.

#6: Membership Programs

Membership programs are another good way to make money as a coach. Programs typically combine a little bit of everything.

They include live courses, a resource library of training materials, some group coaching, and maybe even a little one-on-one time.

Pros:

• Membership programs, like masterminds, do not usually have an end date. They are meant to be ongoing providing recurring revenue for the coach.
• These programs also allow you to leverage your time and make resources available to more people at once.
• One membership program can easily be scaled to very large numbers.

Cons:

• Most membership programs include software on the back end to manage the members. This software can be expensive to set up and usually has a recurring fee. So if you're just “trying” it out, that can be a high cost to entry.
• If you do not already have a large bank of resources, you will be spending a lot of your time creating new resources for the members. 
• Managing recurring payments, dropping and adding members, and following up on tech issues can be challenging.

#7: Evergreen Courses

Evergreen courses are named after the trees that don’t drop their leaves in the winter.

These courses are made available year-round.

The great thing about evergreen courses is that, once you create them, your work is essentially done.

OK, you still need to promote them once in a while but the work to write and set up the course is done. You don’t even need to be present for the actual course! Another name for evergreen courses might be home study courses.

These programs are one of the most scalable ways to make money as a coach.

Pros:

• One time creation. You only have to write, record, and set up the course once. After that, the money continues to come in for you.
• Highly scalable. Evergreen courses are not limited to a certain number of participants. They can be sold to one or 100k+ people all at once.
• Affordable to the participants. Evergreen courses are generally less expensive than working one-on-one or even in a small group with the coach. 
• You can make money WHILE working with other clients or taking time off.
• Evergreen courses are a great way to introduce your prospective coaching clients to you and your style in an affordable way.

Cons:

• Expensive to set up. The tools and set up of evergreen courses can be expensive to do well.
• Larger audiences needed. Most coaches struggle to sell their evergreen programs and break even because they don’t have a large enough audience yet.
• No visible transformation. For coaches that love to see the AHA moment, there’s little of that in evergreen programs. The most you might get is an email with their appreciation after the fact.

Take it to the Bank

Time to review (as all good coaches would). You want to make money by coaching so you can create more transformation for more people and still be able to pay your bills. A noble and worthy goal.

Your options to make money as a coach include:

1. Offering one-on-one coaching to individuals
2. Creating special VIP days to accelerate the transformation
3. Presenting online courses or in-person workshops to groups
4. Setting up group coaching programs
5. Running mastermind groups 
6. Managing membership programs
7. And selling evergreen courses

By choosing one or more of these methods, you can create a coaching business that isn’t just a hobby but a profitable business.

As a coach or consultant, you most likely create programs designed to draw in new and returning clients.

Whether designed for groups or individuals, you provided needed advice and other offers for your audience.

However, as anyone knows, the biggest hurdle is getting people to register. Afterall, teaching requires students, right?

While you can make social media posts or advertise it on your website, sometimes that’s not enough. 

So, what do you do if the ‘traditional’ ways to get butts in seats aren’t working?

When you’re struggling to boost attendance you’re going to have to reach out to people in different ways.

Here’s five fantastic (and super effective) ways to help you to share the value your programs offer and attract more people to register for your coaching or consulting programs.

Make Calls

Ok, stay with us here. We know that picking up the phone and calling people may be a little uncomfortable for some.

We’ve become accustomed to reaching out via emails and text messages.

While it’s true that written communication allows you to plan out what you will say, making calls provides other benefits we simply can’t ignore.

Making a phone call allows for a two-way conversation.

You have the opportunity to personally interact with people. You get to build or deepen relationships and find out what is happening in their lives. 

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Valuable Conversations

Understanding where your clients are at will help you 

• Design better programs around your client's needs
• Gain insight as to why they may not be signing up (time, fear, money)
• Increase your odds for registrations and referrals

Moreover, those personal interactions will help your clients more fully understand how the program can benefit them, on a personal level. 

All that said, don’t just pick up the phone and start dialing. 

• Make a plan. 
• Be strategic. 
• Draft a loose script but stay open to letting the conversation flow.

Start by reaching out to those that you already formed a relationship with. Previous clients, prospective customers, and anyone else that you know who would be interested in your program.

If Not You, Then Who?

Even if the person says no, don’t be afraid to ask if they can think of anyone that could benefit from the program you’re offering. 

When you get a referral, always ask the person the best way to reach out to their colleague, friend, or family member. 

Referrals can mean more butts in seats but even more valuable is they grow your audience and allow you to reach people you would not have been able to otherwise. 

If you’re still saying, “Umm, yeah. This introvert will never be comfortable with making calls.” That’s ok.

Even though calling is about relationship building, this is something you can delegate.

Believe it or not, there are people out there that love this stuff; it’s their zone of genius!

If you don't feel comfortable making these phone calls, you might want to enlist some help from a super outgoing virtual assistant skilled at relationship marketing to handle them for you.

Send Personal Emails

Automation is a huge time-saver. We are strong supporters of automating everything you possibly can. However, every blessing can also be a curse. 

Spam folders coupled with everyone’s overwhelm with coupon after coupon means it’s a bit tougher to stand out in your client’s inbox. 

This means that you take the time to write the personal emails to your key contacts. From you, to them.

Relate Appropriately

For example, if you have a strictly professional relationship, then you can use a professional tone and style.

However, if you are acquaintances, then use a more friendly and approachable tone. This further communicates to the receiver that this is indeed a personal email especially for them. 

In short, strive to relate to the individual recipient.

Keeping the receiver in mind and communicating that you took time to reach out and that you care can deliver a great return on your time investment. 

Again, be strategic with these.

Make a list of people in your direct circle of influence that would be interested in your program, offer you valuable feedback, or would be strong supporters with qualified referral leads.

Create an Online Presence

Phone calls and writing personal emails are effective but you’re going to need a way to reach people with a wider sweep. 

Videos and live social media posts are a great way to get your message out in an interactive way. 

Show Personality!

• Create a video that explains the program and how it can benefit potential users.
• Go ‘live’ at the start of your promotion and right before registration ends (a few times in between won’t hurt either) to allow people to ask personal questions and to build excitement and value for your program. 
• Create a video showing any handouts or materials they will be getting with the program; their take-aways. 
• Use personal pictures, not just stock images. Show people what your program will offer them. 

These visual, interactive, and connection-based posts help your potential clients process information more easily and helps them relate better to the content and messages that you share with them.

Don’t stop there. Make sure you’re commenting and responding to people on your social channels. This will help your customers develop more trust and interest in your offers and programs.

In short, use images and videos to easily invite people to register for your programs in a creative way.

Appear on Podcasts

Join in on podcasts in your niche to spread brand awareness.

This is a great way to grow your audience, help people find out about you, and connect with more potential clients. If you’re really loving this idea, check out this article on being a podcast guest.

Being a guest on a podcast is the perfect opportunity to share your program while you discuss interesting topics with like-minded people.

If you land a podcast guest spot, focus on sharing interesting points of view or content during the podcast to catch the attention of listeners.

It’s not only about plugging your program it’s about building credibility, allowing people to get to know you, and feel comfortable with you. 

Contribute to Attract

Join high-quality podcasts that fit your audience. This way, you can attract the right people to join your coaching programs while contributing valuable content to the podcast itself. The result? 

• Gain more traction, attention and interactions for your program.
• Draw in high-quality customers potential clients.
• Build your know-like-trust factor with a wide reach

Showing up as a guest on a podcast allows you to draw in more customers, make them feel comfortable and spread your program to potential clients.

Pay for Ads

Sometimes you need a little dough to get a rise in attendance. 

Puns aside, paying for ads remains an excellent way to get more people to register for your programs.

Even with a small budget, paid ads allow you to share your programs with people that may have an interest in them.

This is where metrics and algorithms become your friend.

For example, if you offer life coaching, then the algorithm will aim for people that would be most open to your services.

Target the Right People

Whether you pay to...

• Boost a post.
• Run a social media ad campaign,
• or opt for the pay-per-click model (you pay a website for every person that clicks on your ads)

you’re drawing the attention of specific people who would be most interested in your brand. 

Paying for ads can help put butts in seats while growing your list.

Bonus benefits are building brand awareness, driving more traffic to your website, and helping people find you when they are asking the search engines questions that you can answer. 

We sound like a broken record but if you’re going to put your hard-earned money on the line make sure to spend some serious time designing and implementing ads for your programs.

Mirror Your Model

In conclusion, if the traditional ways of program promotion are not filling your virtual classroom seats give one (or all) of these ideas a try to help you stand out.

Track your data so you can determine which method or combination of methods works the best to attract your ideal client. 

Always be expanding your overall reach.

Don’t stop if the traditional methods aren’t producing the results you’re looking for.

At the end of the day, coaching and consulting is a deeply personal business model, let your marketing strategies mirror that. 

As you do, you’re likely to see more butts in seats and more dough on your bottom line.  

One of the best ways to showcase your expertise is to run an online course. The days when you could simply promise your prospects that you’re worth their investment are long gone. Today, you have to prove that you are worth every penny. 

When you teach a topic you are good at, you leave no shadow of doubt about your expertise. You prove to your audience that you know what you’re talking about. It is also a good way of showing that you are a real expert in your field.

Online courses are now an essential part of any expert, entrepreneur, or business owner’s toolbox. Apart from having a website or business card, you may need an online course to brand yourself. It is one of the fastest ways of getting knowledge out to a global marketplace. 

An online course can scale up your coaching business. Your daily activities may include interacting with other coaches from various industries. But you also need a way of showcasing your expertise. An online course allows you to connect with your audience on a personal level. It can convert your prospects into paying customers by showing how good you are.

The major challenge that people face when running an online course is lack of time. There is so much to do for one person. When you’ve just started out, you might enjoy doing everything on your own. But with time, it may be overwhelming to cover everything by yourself. That’s where a virtual team comes in. 

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What is a Virtual Team?

A virtual team is also known as a remote, distributed, or geographically dispersed team. It is a group of individuals in different geographical locations who work together using communication technologies. Each individual is known as a virtual assistant (VA). They participate in a project by contributing efforts in a virtual work environment to achieve a shared goal.

One of the best ways of becoming an online coach is by sharing knowledge. You don’t have to be a technical expert to build a success online coaching business. You can outsource the technical bits to freelance experts. This leaves you time for other things like managing your clients and accepting payments. 

A virtual assistant can help you set up and run a successful online course for your business. Hiring a virtual assistant will enable you to outsource some tasks such as graphic design, video editing, content creation, or build up an email list.

How a Virtual Team Can Help You Run a Profitable Online Course

The best way to benefit from a virtual team is to outsource tasks that suck away your time and the ones you’re not good at. With a helping hand on the side, you can focus more on things that matter the most for your business. You will be able to run an online course that is audience-specific and impactful.

A team of VAs will help develop your online course and grow your business faster. They will help you in setting up, building, launching, and marketing your courses. The team can help you in areas like content creation and editing, marketing, accounting and branding. 

Among the many benefits of virtual teams is that they do not have to be full-time employees. Most course creators hire independent contractors and freelancers from around the world on a task basis. The following are some of the ways you can benefit from a team of experts working in a virtual space.

1. Setting Up Templates

Templates allow you to create a consistent flow within each course and from course to course. Once you have spent the effort, time and money to create a template that works for the course content and identifies with your brand, you can use it for future courses.  An experienced virtual team can help you build templates for your courses. All you need to do is add content and teach!

To run a successful online course, you need to create slideshows, videos, graphics, emails and more. Since you may not good in designing every aspect of your course, outsource the work that you aren't good at and focus on what you’re good at. 

2. Conduct Research and Analysis

In order to identify the course content that your prospective clients would like and benefit from, you need to conduct research and analysis. Research and analysis can take up much of your time. Outsourcing this part of business to someone else can save you a lot of  time.

A freelance researcher will do basic research and gather additional information for your course content. They will look for good sources of information, summarize and organize the information for you. Depending on your data needs, a good freelancer may also conduct online surveys and present reports for you. 

3. Apply Your Brand to Content

You'll want all the content that you create to be consistent with your brand. This may include branding your templates, graphics, video's, infographics.

4. Customize Your Content

Creating an online course is a lot of work. Although you'll be doing most of the content creation, you'll rely on a team of contractors to help you launch this course. Ensure that the final presentation or course goes through several rounds of editing, proof reading and fact checking.

5. Edit and Design Graphics

Graphic elements are a critical component of any online course. This cannot be overstated enough. Graphics include: images, slideshows, infographics, video's logos, and more. Graphics convey a message, they create movement, visual interest and set the tone for the entire presentation.  Brand consistency is key but does not have to be boring. Create visuals that engage your audience. Additionally, they are a great source of social media content. 

6. Publishing and Converting Content

To engage your audience, you need to create workbooks or worksheets for your students. These worksheets add value to the course and can be used for reference.  After a template has been created by a great graphic designer, an experienced VA can help convert and publish your content in various formats to meet the needs of your audience.

Your VA can create an eBook, convert content into ready-to-publish format or convert your slideshow into a video, using music or audio t0 make it more engaging. Once you have a great video, upload it to  YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. There are so many ways to leverage the content that you have created! 

7. Running Your SEO Campaign

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential when marketing your online course. It requires ample time and attention to create content that ranks high on search engines. An SEO expert will create SEO-rich text, meta-data and choose the right keywords for your course.  

They will help your course be more visible to your target audience, and drive useful traffic to your business. You can be sure of more conversions instead of random traffic to your course. 

8. Set up Your Online Course

To be successful, your online course must be properly set up. Assign the time consuming task of course set up to an experienced VA. The VA will set up the outline structure on your platform and upload to the relevant modules.

The outline structure may include basic module titles, individual lesson contents and graphics. Once set up, you will have placeholders for everything ready. The VA can go ahead to add the content when it is ready and make sure that everything is working.

9. Setting up Your Marketing Funnel 

When you are starting off, you may be comfortable setting a series of emails and other marketing funnels by yourself. But as your business grows, the task may be too much for one person. You can outsource this area to a virtual marketer. The marketer will set up email follow-ups, opt-in pages, sales pages and thank you pages.

Ensure you understand your funnel before outsourcing this area. You can even have your funnel in place and teach your VA how to set it up. This makes it easy for them to replicate the funnel to other courses.

10. Managing Your Social Media Platforms 

Social media is a powerful marketing tool in this age. They provide a great platform for customers to interact with your brand. You get to talk directly to your customers, market your brand, and provide feedback. But with so many social platforms, it is not easy to manage them all by yourself.

A virtual social media manager will help you manage your social media accounts. You need to brief them about your platforms, the kind of contents to post, and the frequency of publishing. Over time, they can also moderate comments and requests on your behalf. 

11. Offer Customer Support 

Adding customer support to your online course guides your audience to using your services correctly. A customer may have difficulties navigating through the course. Guiding them or answering their questions builds a great customer experience.

Since you will not always be there to answer questions, a virtual customer support assistant can help. Let them know your business and understand your values. They will answer customer questions, and help customers access your content. They can also deal with refunds requests and share links to helpful resources. 

12. Setting Up and Moderating Webinars

A webinar allows you to share documents, audio, video, and applications with your audience. Due to its interactive feature, it gives you the ability to give and receive information in real-time. It requires set up and moderation during the webinar

Hire a VA that can help you set up the webinar and moderate comments and questions. Additionally, the VA can download the recordings and edit them for future use. The video can then be uploaded to YouTube or your course platform.

13. Handling eCommerce Aspects 

Running a profitable online course is a form of eCommerce business. It requires the ability to handle transactions seamlessly, and provide customer-oriented services. An eCommerce adept freelancer will manage your online course to keep it profitable.

They will handle transactions for you and take care of order processing. They will create SEO-friendly descriptions for your course and edit images to make them attractive. They will also conduct competitor’s analysis and help in strategy development. 

14. Support and Manage Projects

As a business owner, you probably have so many projects running simultaneously. You may need someone to ensure that all projects are meeting their deadlines. A VA in project support and management will manage the project for you and write progress reports. Here are some great tips on what to expect when working with a VA

What are you waiting for? 

A virtual team can save you time to run you online course. You can hire individuals from all over the world to tackle specific areas of your course. While some will help in setting up your course, others will help in launching and marketing it. Although you may wish to have a single VA doing all the task, it is rare to find an individual good in everything. 

You need to build a team of individuals with unique skills and expertise. You have to pick and choose individuals who are most important to you. Your virtual team can comprise of freelance researchers, social media managers and graphic designers. It all depends on the aspects of your business that you want to focus on and what you want to outsource.

A great way of deciding who to hire is creating a to do list. Identify areas of the business that you want to do on your own, and the others that you can delegate to someone else.

There comes a time for many coaches and speakers when they want to leverage their time more effectively. For some, that means creating an online course to share their knowledge with more people at one time.

I recently had a client join Virtual A Team because she wanted a way to make more money with less effort. She had a large audience and needed help getting the most out of her time. However, the whole process was out of her zone of genius.

Once you begin to think about creating an online course, the actual steps get overwhelming VERY fast. There are, like, a MILLION different choices to make and many of those choices are in areas you probably have little to no knowledge in. After all, your business isn't building online courses.

What is an online course?

An online course is a class, skill, or system taught via online tools such as videos, video calls, emails or other digital presentations. The instructor and the students are not in the same location. And sometimes, the information is prerecorded and consumed on demand rather than a predetermined schedule.

Online courses can be free with a goal of generating leads for the business. Or they can range in price from less than $20 to several thousand dollars.

Do you need an online course?

It’s easy to hear about the huge launches and the great success of online courses and think that’s the quickest path to easy money.

You may be feeling burnt out working with one-on-one clients and want to share your wisdom with a greater number of people. And online courses seem to be a simple and practical way to reach those people.

Until you start digging into those success stories and the work behind them.

Behind the Scenes

Online courses ARE an excellent way to reach more people in a shorter period of time. But, what often goes unanswered in the success stories, is the work that led up to those successes.

There are a few questions you can ask yourself to help determine if creating an online course makes sense for you right now.

1. Are you finding enough one-on-one clients to sustain your business? If the answer is no, then you will struggle to fill an online course.
2. Do you have a system you use with your clients that is easily duplicatable? If you tend to wing it with each client, then you don’t have a system to your approach yet, without a system, then you are the product and that can’t be duplicated in an online course.
3. Do you have enough money or skills to invest up front to get your course launched before the cash starts rolling in? You’ll either need to DIY your course set up or pay for it in advance of your launch. And, it may take more than one launch to recoup your costs. Are you prepared for that risk?

Deciding whether or not you are ready for an online course isn’t always easy. If you’d like to discuss the possibility of incorporating an online course into your business, schedule a call with Virtual A Team.

The Guide to Creating Your Online Course

Once you’ve decided to create your online course, there is a LOT of work that goes into it. I often have clients tell me that they never would have thought of all the steps it takes.

Depending on your budget and time frame, you may not do ALL of these for the first launch. You can use the information to go back and update your program later.

Before we get started, download the Complete Checklist to Online Course Creation and Launch now to have it handy.

Planning stage

The first step in creating your online course is planning.

Before you even begin to create your course, it pays to know that it is something your audience will want.

There’s nothing more frustrating than spending time and money to create and launch a program only to have no one show up.

Design and Develop Content

Determine Your Goals

What will be the primary goal for this course? Is it to generate leads? Will it funnel your audience into a higher price point product such as an inner circle or one-on-one coaching? Or maybe this is your top tier “signature” program?

Study Your Market

Find out what your market wants. Use Facebook groups, Amazon book reviews, polls and surveys to learn what your ideal target audience is looking for.

Study the Competition

What is your competition doing? What seems to be working for them? Can you expand on that or offer a different take?

Take your time doing the research, it will make or break your success.

Identify One Problem with One Solution

Once you’ve completed your research, identify the one problem you want to solve and the solution you will offer. This may have a very different answer depending on what your goals are for the program.

A coach who offers tips on how to be more effective in their video marketing may start out with a free online course walking people through how to purchase, set up and use the right equipment. The problem is where to start and her solution is to provide the step-by-step for getting started.

The next problem her clients face may be what content to create. She offers a low price point online course teaching them about the 5 types of videos used for business marketing.

Ultimately, her new clients land in either a signature course designed to help them overcome their fears of being on video or a one-on-one coaching program designed to help them get the most out of their video marketing efforts.

Outline Program Content

Now that you have your problem and solution, it’s time to outline the content of your course.

No matter what format you choose to present your content, you’ll need an outline to get started.

A few things to remember as you sit down to write your program:

• Each module should be a mini training with a beginning, middle, and end.
• Each module should have a win. What can the students implement after completing that module?
• Keep modules short enough not to overwhelm. If a module is longer than 45 minutes, students may never come back to finish the course. In fact, if you can break modules up into segments of 15 minutes or less, that is even better.
• Title modules with a hook. Make each module title something students will want to dive into. “Module 2 - Equipment” isn’t nearly as enticing as “Module 2 - What to buy based on your budget.”
• Set Action Steps to help your students implement what they’ve learned.

Once you’ve completed your outline, you can begin crafting the course based on how it will be presented (video, audio, text-based, slides, etc…)

Choose Value-added Items (bonus items)

As you write your course, keep in mind optional bonus items. Some suggestions for bonuses include:

• Content that was originally part of the course but was removed for various reasons.
• Prerequisite topics that will help the student get the most out of the course.
• Templates that help students take action faster.

Define the Structure

Online courses come in many formats. It’s time to decide how your’s will be structured.

Will it be presented live with everyone in attendance on each call? Or will it be available ongoing so anyone can join at any time (Evergreen)?

If it is Evergreen, will modules be available all at once so students can go through at whatever pace they choose? Or will the content be dripped to them over time?

Select the Tech

This is where a lot of solopreneurs get stuck. It's easy to look at your options for tech and feel totally overwhelmed. Let’s break it down into parts to make it a little easier to understand.

Evergreen Platforms

If your course will be evergreen, you’ll need to choose a platform to present your content. The platform is the place your content will be housed for access by your students.

Some platforms are designed to help you sell your course. These often take a percentage of your sale. Other sites allow you to keep your full sale price but charge a monthly hosting fee. There are also a few that can be purchased one time and hosted on your own website.

For a review of several online course platforms, check out www.learningrevolution.net

Live Platform

If your course will be presented live, you will want to choose a webinar or teleseminar platform such as Zoom, AnyMeeting, or even Facebook Live within a private group.

Autoresponder

Your autoresponder will send emails to market your program. It can also send onboarding and reminder emails once someone has signed up. We recommend using a program that can handle automations. Our favorite is ActiveCampaign but you may also consider something like ClickFunnels.

Affiliate Program Software

Affiliate programs are a great way to get others to promote your online course. For each program they sell, they get a certain percentage or flat rate. To track these sales, you will need an affiliate program such as Post Affiliate Pro.

Landing Page Software

You will need a sales page for your program. Sales pages are also often called landing pages. There are many options for landing pages. In fact, it’s even feasible to simply create a page on your existing website. However, if you want something that is designed to help convert to sign-ups, then consider one of the following options.

• OptimizePress for Wordpress - This premium plugin for Wordpress has a one-time purchase price instead of an ongoing subscription cost.
• ClickFunnels - Because ClickFunnels offers both the email and the landing page options, it's more of a one-stop-shop. You can also take advantage of the affiliate program software at the higher tier option.
• Your Email Marketing system - Most email marketing programs such as Mailchimp often have the ability to create basic landing pages.

Payment Processing Software

It’s time to collect some money! Payment processing can be as simple as a link to your Paypal account or a more complex online shopping cart. Consider what you have now and what may come with the systems you already have in place.

Need help deciding on the right set of tech tools for your online course? Virtual A Team is here to help. Schedule a complementary strategy session today and we will help you review your options.

Presale Stage

Once you’ve settled on the design for your online course, you’ll need to move into the sales and marketing phase. Each time you start to market your course, it’s called a launch. You may “launch” your course many times or you may launch once and continue to promote it regularly.

Launch Goals

Your launch goals will depend on the purpose of the course.

If this is a free course, your goal may be to get X number of new subscribers. If it’s a premium course, your goal may be to hit a certain number of sales.

Determine the Price

There’s a lot that goes into finding the right price for your course. Some questions to ask include:

• Is the course size limited? If you will be doing a live training and want to limit the number of students, that may increase the price you charge.
• Will you be offering scholarships or early bird registrations? If you offer discounts of any sort, consider raising the final price to compensate.
• Is this a limited time only program? If your course won’t always be available, that also puts a premium on the price.

Other things to consider when pricing your program will be what bonuses you offer, whether or not you will be offering payment plans, and are there any guarantees.

Set Your Dates

It’s important to know your dates when planning out the calendar.

When will your launch sale take place? When will the program actually begin?

Use those to determine the due dates for the following actions.

Gather Testimonials

Testimonials can be very beneficial in helping to sell your course. If you’ve already run this program or a similar program, consider reaching out to past participants to get their feedback. A great testimonial looks like this:

Before taking this program I (state the struggle or challenge that caused you to seek help)... And now that I have completed the program I (state how the program helped you to overcome the challenge and what life is like now).

If this is the very first time you’ve done this program, consider a free beta program with a handful of close contacts. Allow them to take the program for free in exchange for feedback and a testimonial. Their feedback can help you to determine if any tweaks to the content need to be made and the testimonial can be used in your next launch.

Create Themed Graphics

Just like your business has a brand, your course will too. You’ll need special graphics to complement that brand.

• Social media promo graphics (for Facebook, Instagram, etc…)
• Landing page graphics for your sales page.
• Graphics for the emails (a header image, etc…)

Be sure to delegate this task so you can focus on what you do best.

Set Up Onboarding Forms or Agreements

Some programs will require specific agreements or forms to be signed prior to participation. If you have questions you want your students to answer, you can use online form tools such as Jotform or a plugin for Wordpress such as Ninja Forms.

For things like non-disclosure agreements, consider using a tool like HelloSign.

Create Sales & Thank You Pages

How you design your sales page will depend on personal preference and some trial and error. Some people still feel that long-form pages (a sales page that relies heavily on written content) convert better than short form or video based pages.

However, the skill of the copywriter has a lot to do with this. If you aren’t hiring a professional copywriter for your page (and you aren’t one yourself), we recommend sticking to the short form pages.

Consider recording a 90 second to 3 minute video talking about why someone needs your course, what they will learn and what they can expect as a result. Use this video on the sales page and in social media marketing.

Thank you pages are great opportunities to share bonus material or upsell to VIP status. Don’t forget the thank you page.

Write Sales Autoresponder Series

These are the emails you will send to your existing email list promoting your new course. The number of emails will depend on the length of time your launch is underway. At a minimum consider writing the following:

• First email - the introduction to what you are offering.
• Second email - FAQ email answering the most common questions.
• Third email - outlining bonuses and/or early bird deadlines.
• Fourth email - First last chance to go out the day before or morning of the start of your program.
• Fifth email - Last last chance to go out just before the program begins.

Here’s another area where hiring a qualified copywriter can improve your sales results.

Write Onboarding Autoresponder Series

Once someone has signed up for your online course, what do they need to do next? This is where you can attach links to your surveys or non-disclosure agreements. It might also include any prerequisite homework or tips for getting the most out of the course.

Create Social Media Marekting Plan

At this point, you’ll want to start working on your plan for social media.

• Do you need images to share? Get those created.
• Will you do live videos to help promote? Write the scripts in advance.
• Are you going to use social media ads? Create the content and set up the strategy.

Use a social media calendar like the one at Hubspot to plan out your entire social media push. Use social media management tools like Smarterqueue to schedule your content in advance.

Create Blog Posts to Promote the Launch

If you have an active blog, one or two blog posts can help you to market your course. Topics that are beneficial include content that helps the audience prepare for the course (prerequisite type stuff) or case studies of how others have done in the course.

Create Affiliates/Partner Marketing Content

Who’s helping you to promote your course?

Whether you have a fully set up affiliate program or just have a few people who are happy to help you promote, you’ll get more out of their efforts if you create content specifically for their use.

You can repurpose much of the marketing content you’ve already created but be sure to rephrase it in words that fit who’s sharing it.

Package it together in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder that you can share with your partners.

Test Tech

I’ll say this one a few times. Run through a test with any tech you have set up so far. Have someone else receive all of the emails and test that the links are working and there are no glitches in your affiliate programs.

Sales

It’s time to SELL SELL SELL!

Hopefully, you took the time to get all of your sales materials together in advance. That will lessen the workload during your selling period.

Social Media

If you took my advice, most of your social media promotion is already scheduled. You simply need to go in and do your live videos and/or engage with the comments and questions received.

Blog Posts

Now that your blog posts are published, are there any social media groups you can share them in? How else can you use your blog posts to promote your sale?

Affiliates & Partners

If you have not already identified who will be an affiliate or partner to help you promote your program, now is the time. Identify 5 to 10 individuals whom you know would help share your program. Be sure they have a similar target audience to get the most out of their share efforts.

Send them an email and give them a call to invite them to participate. Be sure to give them access to the content you created to help them promote for you.

Call

No amount of social media or email marketing beats the phone call. As your launch date draws closer, pick a list of contacts to call and personally invite them to your offer. A great way to do this is to use the phrase, “Who do you know that would be interested in…” It takes the pressure off of them directly and still allows them to say, “ME! I’m interested.”

During your marketing and sales phase, consider these other 9 ways to market your event.

All Aboard!

Someone signed up! OMG, now what?!

Don’t go into shock. That’s what’s supposed to happen!

If your Onboarding autoresponder is set up properly, this is when that automation kicks in. Just keep an eye on it to make sure everything is going out as expected.

Ready, Set, GO!

You’ve worked on this for weeks (or months). You’ve successfully launched and gotten people to sign up. It’s now time to deliver a kick ASS program!

Just be sure to watch for and address any challenges as you go.

Review

The best programs get better with review. Take some time to send out follow up surveys asking for input and feedback. This is also a great time to ask for testimonials you can use in future promotions.

Take time now to review all feedback while the course is still fresh in your mind. Make details notes and plans for the next launch.

CELEBRATE!

It’s time to PARTAY! Did you meet your launch goals? Even if you didn’t, you’ve put in a LOT of work that will pay off down the line. Take some time to celebrate all of your hard work and effort.

Get the Checklist

There were a LOT of detailed steps in this article. Grab the checklist now and use it for all of your online courses.