DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY

  • DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY, Marketing

    How to Monetize Your Knowledge – A Complete Beginner’s Guide

    If you are wondering whether you can sell your knowledge, the short answer is yes you can.

    Thanks to the Internet, it has become increasingly easy for anyone to monetize their skills.

    In this comprehensive guide, I will walk you through:

    • The most common questions people ask about Monetizing their knowledge
    • How to package your knowledge into a profitable digital product
    • How to sell your expertise
    • The step-by-step process of monetization
    • Plus mistakes you must avoid when you want to monetize your know

    and so much more.

    Let’s jump in.

    Can knowledge be sold?

    Yes, your knowledge can be sold, and very easily too if you do it right. Every day, people are online asking questions and needing help in just about any area of life.

    It doesn’t matter what knowledge you have right now, there is someone somewhere in the world looking for you. The question is what are you doing to ensure when people search for you they find you?

    Your knowledge can be sold in many different formats online. 

    You can package your knowledge into eBooks, digital courses, classes, workshops, coaching, group coaching, webinars, audio presentation, and even in-person classes. 

    If people are asking for your help with something specific, it may be because they are convinced you to have the knowledge and expertise.

    This is the sign you need to start asking people to pay you for your knowledge.

    This is why more and more people are beginning to monetize their knowledge.

    What does it mean to monetize a skill?

    To monetize a skill means to charge money for that skill and get paid for it.

    No matter what skills you have right now, if someone needs your help and you can help them, then you can monetize that skill.

    For example, if you know how to manage and grow a social media account, that is a skill you can charge for. 

    A skill is essentially anything you have mastered for yourself that can bring value and utility to others.

    You have to understand what people are asking for and position yourself to provide the value they need. Skills can be obvious like selling, marketing, singing, baking, etc. Or they can be a little less obvious like communication, empathy, listening, and intuitive guidance.

    Oftentimes a skill is something you have taught yourself through self-imposed practice, repetition, and experience. 

    So do not underestimate the power of what you have learned and the value in what you know right now. You can easily monetize your skills online by asking people to pay you for them.

    How do I sell my expertise?

    If you are ready to sell your expertise, you are embarking on one of the most lucrative forms of business online today. 

    First, you have to consider how you enjoy sharing your expertise.

    Do you love to teach? Speak? Write? To sell your expertise you’ll need to package it into an offer or product that people can easily pay for. 

    If you love to write, you can sell your expertise in eBook formats. If you love to teach, you can easily create a profitable digital course that people can access anytime. 

    If you are someone who loves to speak, you can create audio classes that people can have access to. 

    Selling your expertise online is easier when you have an engaged audience listening to you.

    This is why social media platforms are so powerful for business. On social media, you can attract a group of people who are interested in what you teach.

    Imagine having an Instagram page with 5000 engaged followers.

    If you create an ebook to monetize your knowledge and price it at $10, all you need is 100 people to buy it to earn $1000 online. 

    Or let’s say you decide to sell your expertise in the form of a digital course.

    A digital course is usually priced higher than eBooks and you could easily charge anywhere from $50 – $2000 for a digital course.

    If you package your expertise into a digital course priced at $500 and 20 people buy your course, you will earn $10,000 in course sales. 

    Of course, these are just estimated projections but you can easily see what’s possible. 

    If you want to monetize your knowledge online, read this.

    This will be a simple process for most people.

    What is the process to monetize your knowledge? 

    The process to monetize your knowledge is simple, but you have to be willing to do the work to make it work. To monetize your knowledge means getting people to pay you for what you know.

    And if you want people to pay for your knowledge, you have to know how to sell. 

    This means you need people you can sell to if you want to monetize your knowledge. Selling is easier when you are selling to people who already know you, listen to you, like you and trust what you are saying. 

    Once that is in place, you can then begin to make offers to your audience and ask them to pay you.

    Let’s go through the most important steps to monetize your knowledge online. 

    1. Grow an online audience

    If you want to monetize your knowledge online, you need an audience you can sell to.

    Having your audience means that you have the opportunity to earn money for a long time to come. 

    Pick a Platform you prefer.

    The platform of choice will depend on how you like to create content online.

    If you enjoy being on video, you may want to consider starting a Youtube channel. If you enjoy writing, you may want to start a blog or write on platforms like Twitter and Instagram. 

    I recommend starting an Instagram page because it can be generally easier to grow on Instagram. But don’t focus on the money in the beginning. 

    Instead, focus on creating consistent content on your platform of choice. If you choose Instagram, you can grow your first 5000 followers fast in the first three months. 

    It will take longer to grow a blog or a Youtube channel. This is why most people start on social media and transition to more long-form content after a while.

    I suggest you start growing an Instagram page and get your first 5000 followers on Instagram before you monetize.

    Go From 0 – 5000 Followers on Instagram in 30 Days – Complete Content + Engagement Strategy Course
    Get 1000 Followers in 30 Days

    2. Create consistent content

    Creating content online is how you attract an audience to your brand. If you don’t post the right content, you won’t attract a high-quality audience.

    Do not skip this part.

    Having a quality audience is key if you want to monetize your knowledge and expertise eventually. 

    Most people just want a lot of followers and will do anything to get followers.

    But you must focus on getting quality followers.

    The only way to attract quality followers is by posting quality content.

    DO THIS

    1. Choose 3-5 topics in your niche that you can consistently talk about
    2. Rotate your content on these topics and become known as the go-to expert in your niche
    3. Choose a posting schedule that works for you. Your posting schedule on social media also depends on what platform you choose.

    If you are on Youtube, aim for 1 video per week. 

    On Instagram, aim for at least 1 post per day 

    On Twitter, aim for 3 tweets daily and 1 thread weekly.

    Whatever posting schedule you choose, try as much as possible to stick with it consistently.

    The first 90 days on any platform and crucial and you want to maintain consistency if you want to grow.

    3. Find out what people need help with

    The only way people will pay you is if you can help them. It is crucial to your success that you pay attention to the questions people always ask you.

    Before you monetize, you want to be clear on what people need help with in your niche. 

    So how do you find out what people need so you can provide a product they can pay for?

    Here are some simple ways:

    1. Look in your comments
    2. Pay attention to your DMs
    3. Observe the comments on your competition pages
    4. Ask your audience directly
    5. Observe which of your content topics get the most engagement
    I Want this Workshop

    4. Decide what skills you want to monetize

    Now that you know what your audience is asking about, the next step is to align your skills with the problems people are having. Which of your skills is most needed in the marketplace? 

    Creators get it wrong most times because they want to create what they feel like.

    If you want to make money online, however, you must create what people need. So which of your skills, or what aspect of your knowledge will be most profitable?

    Once you decide what you want to teach and get paid for, the next step is to ensure people know you have this skill. 

    And the way you do that is with your content.

    5. Drive demand for your skills with your content

    Your content is what you’d use to let people know that you can help them. You want to make sure you are creating content in a way that drives demand for your skills and expertise. If you want to create content that drives demand, your content must make people feel: 

    • Understood
    • Educated /Informed
    • Inspired
    • Ready to take action

    You must also let people know that you can help them and make an invitation to have them work with you.

    How do you know you are ready to Monetize Your Knowledge?

    Imagine this for a moment.

    Imagine that right now there is a simple money-generating idea sitting in your head.

    Or you are sitting on it.

    All this time you’ve been wondering how to improve your life, earn more money, and have more freedom, yet there is so much wealth potential in your head just waiting to be unleashed into the world. 

    But you are sitting on it! 

    Long before I started monetizing my knowledge with digital products, I was broke and depressed and unhappy with my life. 

    My unhappiness at the time was also compounded by the fact that I knew I was good for it. I knew I was gifted, I knew I had the brains and potential, I just didn’t know how to turn all this into money. 

    Is that you?

    Do you feel like you are so good at a certain skill that you wish others will pay you for?

    Have you imagined the possibility of teaching others your information and getting paid for it?

    We live in the most exciting time of our lives and the opportunities to earn are endless. Selling digital products online was the key to unlocking the shackles of poverty and despair that I experienced. 

    Today, I want to gift you the keys and a step-by-step blueprint to turn what you already know into a digital product that people want to buy. I wish someone shared all of this when I began, it would have saved me hours and months of trial and error.

    Read this carefully, you might stumble upon the very tiny idea that will unlock the money you already have in your mind. Let’s dive in.

    STEP 1: Uncover Your Gift, Chase Your Curiosity

    The very first step is finding out what you already naturally love and aspire towards. You don’t want to become somebody else. One of my fav quotes by Alan Watts says “Find a way to get paid for playing.”

    Think about the freedom in that.

    Imagine doing what you already enjoy and getting people to pay you to keep on enjoying and having fun. This is the future of work. This is the present reality of making money and how it should be.

    You do not have to slave away at a nine-to-five that you detest. You do not have to exchange your valuable time and hours for peanuts. 

    So my question to you is what do you currently enjoy doing? Best believe, there are millions of people just like you who enjoy what you enjoy.

    When I started creating content online, my curiosity was content.

    Specifically how to create content and grow communities on Instagram. I started a new Instagram page to teach others how to create content and grow on Instagram.

    That single curiosity has led me to other curiosities and now I have added a fleet of high-value skills to my arsenal, one of them being an expert Sales Funnel Builder. 

    So what’s your present-day curiosity?

    Don’t wait to know more than you know now. Start with what you know and love now.

    STEP 2: Share Your Knowledge, Grow Your Audience

    Now that you’ve uncovered what you are wildly curious about, the next step is to share your knowledge about this subject.

    Yes, we have Google to answer our questions but we are still humans and humans are still social animals.

    Social media thrives because of our inherent nature to be social and connect. 

    People can find the answers from Google if they want, but they also love to follow someone.

    We all need someone to show us the way.

    Sharing your knowledge through content online will immediately position you as a leader in that space and you can begin to grow your tribe. 

    Seth Godin says we are all leaders in today’s digital world.

    The minute you start sharing your thoughts and ideas on the internet, you slowly start carving out your own little country of people who look to you to guide them and support them. 

    You don’t need to be an expert either. You just need to be one step ahead of us and lead us through what you have done to get to where you are now.

    The good part is the more you share and teach the stuff you already know, the better you know and the more your audience grows. It’s a win-win however you look at it.

    Choose any two platforms and start spreading your message!

    STEP 3: Invite Your Audience, Grow Your Community

    Now you have a nice little group of people following you on your platform.

    You are creating content consistently just sharing your ideas, knowledge, and opinions on your topic of choice. More people are beginning to listen to you. They are leaving questions in your comments and DMs, they have begun to ask you for more. 

    Your following on social media is growing and you are having fun with it. This step is very crucial. You have to begin to invite your audience into your private communities. 

    This means asking them to join your email list, your Whatsapp groups, Telegram channels, Discord, or wherever else you want to serve your audience privately. 

    Think of it this way, social media gives you the platform to reach a lot of people. When this people notice you, you have to take them off social media and grow your platforms.

    This is yours, no one can take it away from you. 

    You want to continue to use your content to generate leads for your business. Let’s get to the business.

    STEP 4:  Ask Your Audience, Give them What They Want

    Business is really simple. Find a problem in a hungry market, provide the solution and ask to get paid. 

    Problem + Market + Solution = Money

    You already have a passion and acquired knowledge in a specific market, but people do not necessarily just throw money at what you know. They throw money at the solutions your knowledge can provide for them.

    Now you have an audience listening to you and engaging with your content. You want to start paying attention to the questions they are asking and the content they are interacting with the most. 

    You also want to consistently ask your audience directly what they need help with so you can uncover the most profitable ideas for your offers and digital products. 

    Don’t make the mistake of assuming you know what your audience wants. This is the fastest way to create digital products and offers no one wants to buy.

    Start finding out how people need your help.

    STEP 5: Get Paid For Helping 1:1

    You make money when you ask to get paid.

    Do not let fear stop you from putting a price on your knowledge and expertise. This is where a lot of people get hung up, the money part.

    Once you are clear on what people most need help with, it doesn’t matter how basic it is, offer help and get paid. You’ll be surprised to find out that what your audience need help with are the simplest things.

    I used to make the mistake of sitting in my ego, knowing too much, and wanting to show that I knew a lot. 

    I got my audience overwhelmed and confused and it cost me money.

    No matter how far ahead you get in your journey, you must always come back to the basics and provide help where it is most needed.

    The easiest way to make money with your knowledge is to offer one-to-one support. Start with one person, then two, and grow from there. 

    Once you encounter a problem that comes up a lot for most people, then you know you have a potential winning digital product in your hands.

    STEP 6: Create a Digital Product, Get Paid While You Sleep

    I love digital products because they help you reach people at scale. There is only one of you and you can only go so far with helping people one-to-one. 

    The goal is to eventually create a digital product that many people can buy at once. 

    My first digital product was a comprehensive eBook guide teaching people how to use Hashtags to get more followers on Instagram. I only created this eBook after solving hashtag-related problems for several people. 

    Doing this one-to-one soon got increasingly frustrating because I was answering the same questions to different people. 

    So I did what any smarty pants would do and I created an eBook. That eBook earned me my first $5,000 on Instagram.

    If many people are asking you for help with the same problem, then it may be time to expand by creating a digital product to solve that problem.

    Making money with what you already know and have is as simple as following these six steps. If you already have step one which I am sure you do, all you have to do is follow through. 

    Do not get hung up on any step either. 

    Don’t wait to get to 10,000 followers before you start asking to get paid for your knowledge and support.

    You can start right now even with 200 followers.

    If people are already following you, it is a sign that they like you and want more of you. It is also proof that they need your help. 

    If you want to make money, you have to focus on generating Leads, no matter how small your audience is. I teach you the surefire way to generate high-quality leads here, using a lead generation funnel. 

    Watch the Funnel in a Day Masterclass now and start generating leads in your business all on autopilot!

    If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment and share it! Someone you know might need to see this today.

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  • DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY

    How I Did N17,000,000 in Only 1 Year from Monetizing My Knowledge Online

    The first time I tried to monetize by selling a digital product online, was probably sometime in 2008. It was an eBook that I put up for sale for $5.

    At that time, I was dabbling, trying my hands on just about anything to try to figure the Internet out.

    I had always known that information products were the future of eCommerce.

    As a writer, I dreamed of a future where I earned money selling digital products that I didn’t have to touch or ship and lived a life on the beach working from my laptop every day. 

    Get this wifi bread right?

    It wasn’t until the year 2020 that I decided I was going to turn my brain into a money maker. This was much earlier in January, before the lockdowns and quarantine. 

    I had just started a brand new Instagram page for my online business and I was determined to monetize on Instagram quickly by selling digital courses. 

    My driving principle was simple. 

    If I share enough valuable content, I’ll grow a niche audience. 

    If I grow a niche audience I can monetize by selling my digital courses and teaching what I know. 

    I believed in this so much that I jumped headfirst and committed myself to growing my Instagram page fast. 

    SEE ALSO: MASTER THE INSTAGRAM GAME – How to Grow from 0-5000 Followers Fast

    In the early days of my Instagram journey, I was teaching people how to create better content and grow on Instagram. It was what I knew a lot about and there was a big demand for it because everyone wanted to know how to create content. 

    One of the topics that kickstarted this for me was mobile videography.

    I was very well skilled with just about any mobile device and I enjoyed teaching tricks with video creation on a phone. 

    So very prematurely, and without really knowing what I was doing, I created my first course.

    It was a mobile videography course teaching people how to film and edit videos on a phone. 

    I spent a great deal of time putting this course together, compiling the video and content, and releasing it to my growing Instagram audience. I had no clue how to launch a course, how to make sales, or how to even validate a course. 

    I just believed that if I created it, the buyers will come. 

    WRONG.

    This is the mindset that wrecks a lot of course creators even before they begin. That course flopped terribly, I got only about two or three sales and I very quickly got tired of the process. 

    I was disappointed, lost my mojo, and was back to square one with figuring out how I was going to make money with my Instagram page.

    SEE ALSO: How to Sell in The DMs – Learn How to Chat for Cash and close Sales in the DMs

    So I put course selling on the back burner for a little bit and began to focus on selling services instead. I opted to help people one-on-one by auditing their Instagram pages, offering Instagram coaching, and even doing personalized hashtags research. 

    These services began to gain momentum and soon the reviews came pouring in. My services were billed anywhere from $50 to $200 and it was nice for a while to see this money coming in.

    Through my one-on-one interaction with my followers, I very quickly learned that the major problem for most people was understanding hashtags. 

    Most of my one-on-one clients wanted me to help them master hashtags or research their hashtags for Instagram.

    This feedback helped me realize that I had a potential winner for an eBook so I got to work and began to write an eBook all about Instagram Hashtags. 

    First, I created a Free eBook to answer the frequently asked questions on Hashtags. It did so well, got a lot of downloads and this was all I needed to know that my Hashtags ebook was going to be a hit. It became my first official digital product and I released it to my followers and email list. 

    I initially put this eBook out at a mere $9 and gradually increased the price over time.

    So far this one eBook on Mastering Hashtags brought in almost $5,000 in passive income sales. I was very happy with the result of this eBook, and because of the incredible reviews from students, I soon expanded it into a comprehensive digital course on Mastering Instagram Hashtags!

    I also decided to try my hands on more in-depth one-on-one coaching experiences.

    To start, I was offering hourly coaching and had people pay $100 – $300 per hour to coach with me via Zoom. 

    This quickly became hectic and I wasn’t having fun anymore. 

    I had more fun teaching group classes and workshops and was consistently doing more of those because it connected me with more people at a time. 

    So instead of hourly coaching, I decided to take on more immersive one-on-one coaching clients.

    I billed between $1500 to $3000 monthly depending on the requirements for that specific client. 

    This single move helped me quickly increase my revenue that year as I was able to sign on four paid clients in a very short time!

    One-on-one coaching is also a fantastic way to get real results for real people before making a move to create a digital course. 

    Again, I am not a big one-on-one coaching girl, and as much as I adore my clients and always have a good time coaching people, I still wanted to grow a business that did not require my presence. 

    This meant committing time to create better digital courses that I could sell on autopilot.

    So I went back to the drawing board, researched my audience some more to understand what they needed, and pulled out the best results. 

    I found out that most people wanted to learn how to create and sell eBooks. Interesting right? But not surprising. Most people who start out trying to sell digital courses usually start with eBooks.

    I took this feedback and like the first time, I first created an eBook for this topic.

    As a writer, I always tend to create an eBook first before I make a course.

    It helps me get my ideas down on the page and expand on them quickly. 

    Ebooks are also generally less expensive than courses and easier to deliver. They also provide your audience with a tiny valuable offer that they can easily pay for.

    My new eBook guide on creating and selling eBooks sold well and I used this as a sign to create a comprehensive digital course on the topic.

    Are Online Courses Still Profitable in 2022?

    The first time I sold this course, I sold it as a group coaching Live course for $597 per student and signed on nine students on the first day. 

    Not bad for the first time!

    Remember, my very first course which was on Mobile Videography had sold for $45 per student and I could barely make five sales.

    Over time, I had grown my business, my impact, and influence and could now command higher prices, and sell better.

    I had also learned how to test my ideas, validate my courses and even make sales before my course was created. 

    From the very beginning, my biggest driving force has been to create an online business that required less and less of my physical presence and input. 

    This means less one-on-one coaching and more courses. 

    I have also opened up a Membership community for Digital Creators and this has quickly become one of my favorite income streams. I can serve my students and clients at scale, build a community, and have an immersive coaching experience with them.

    They will grow with me over time and I can oversee their progress. 

    It is like having courses and coaching on steroids. 

    It also means I can earn monthly recurring revenue from my Membership, reduces the workload, and helps me serve more people at a time. 

    When I began selling digital courses, I fell in love fast with the process and created an eBook or Course on just about everything I was learning online. 

    However, the biggest problem with having so many courses is you become overwhelmed with having to sell this and that course and soon you stop having fun. 

    So now, I have just my Membership, which houses all of the courses I have created for digital creators who want to monetize online, and my main course on Sales Funnels.

    Focusing on serving my membership and having only one main course was the best decision I could have ever made as it eases the overwhelm of having too many products out.

    In all this time, I have learned how to create and sell different types of digital offers, services, eBooks, Courses, Coaching, and Memberships. 

    Each of these requires a different approach to marketing, delivery, and sales. But doing them all has taught me more than I could have ever learned from doing just one of these methods. 

    This is how I was able to earn over N17,000,000 ($30,000) in my very first year with my online business and it is how I continue to earn money today.

    How to Create an Online Course That Sells – 5 Mistakes You Must Avoid at ALL Costs

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  • DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY, Online Courses

    Are Online Courses Still Profitable in 2022?

    The straight answer to this is Yes!

    Even more so now than ever before. 

    The world has changed drastically in the last couple of years due to the unfortunate outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. It is no surprise that more and more people are online now, as the pandemic forced us to be quarantined and work from home.

    Many more people are embracing the work from home, learn from home attitude, and as such, there is a huge increase in the number of people searching for solutions online. 

    If you are yet to create an online course, now is the perfect time as people have become more accepting of the digital world, transacting business, connecting with friends and family, improving themselves, and getting an education, all online!

    As you can see from this Google Trend search below, the search for the keyword “Online Course” has only continued to rise in the past five years. 

    How to Make Your Online Course More Profitable

    So many course creators are faced with the daunting feeling that perhaps their online course is not valuable enough, and they need to improve the information or add more modules to make it appear fuller. 

    SEE ALSO: How to Make Money Online With No Money using Kobocourse.com

    But simply adding more and more modules into a course is not what makes it valuable. A valuable online course is one that does what it says it would do for the student.

    Not everyone who begins an online course actually goes through the entire content and finishes up. It is estimated that only 20% of the students go through the complete course material.

    So your task is not merely to add more modules to make the course appear valuable, you should instead be focusing on helping your students go through the material easily and achieve results faster.

    How do you make an online course Profitable?

    Have you created an online course already or thinking of creating one? Simply increasing the price of a course without increasing its value to your students is not what will make your online course profitable. You need to follow proven tactics and strategies which I will share with you below. 

    Once you have one or a combination of these in place, you can bet your next Dollar that the perceived value of your course will increase dramatically.

    Here are 7 Ways to Make Your Online Course More Profitable

    Your course is only as valuable as it can get results for your students. Here are 7 simple things to do to Increase the Value of your course and even potentially increase the price.

    • Add Worksheets, Templates, and corresponding documents that will help students practice what you teach: This is a great way to really make your course come alive. By adding templates and such documents, you give your students more resources to help them achieve their goals faster. Watch this quick tutorial to learn how to add worksheets and templates to your course.
    Step by Step How to Add Worksheets and Templates to your Course on Kobocourse.com
    • Include hands-on training or one-on-one coaching access: Some creators and coaches are available to work one-on-one with their students. Adding this simple offer can exponentially increase the perceived value so you can raise the price of your course. People love access, and most times are more than willing to pay for it. Simply adding two Live group coaching to your course can prove profitable. Create a simple Coaching gig directly from your dashboard on Kobocourse.
    • Create a Community for the students: People like to be around like-minded people. This is why social media gets all the attention and why people still spend time in Facebook groups and Discord communities. Humans are generally community-driven and having a community in your course can be the difference between a course that thrives and is successful and one that isn’t. You can set this up easily with Facebook groups or with the powerful Membership feature on Kobocourse.
    • Add Exercises and Homework for students: Adding homework or things to do is the perfect way to ensure your students are practicing the information in your course. You can add compulsory work-to-do assignments to each module of your course and force your students not to move to the next module without finishing the first. Your students will be glad for this because it encourages them to do the work and leads them closer to their own goals. Remember, your course is only as profitable as it can get results for your students.
    • Offer direct QnA portals or Forums: If your students know that they can send in questions anytime and get answers directly from you or your team, this alone can trigger a sense of support which is what everyone needs. Your students don’t only need the information in your online course, they also want to know that they will be supported if they ever need help. Kobocourse makes this a seamless process with a Questions box that is displayed with all of your courses and you can easily respond to questions from your students on your Kobocourse dashboard.
    • Offer Challenges and Prices for completion: Just like your work-to-do or homework for your students, you can offer group challenges that everyone participates in from time to time and add prices for winners. These types of added bonuses deepen that sense of community with your students and help them feel motivated to actually implement your course. 
    • Set your Courses to Expire at a certain time: A very effective, yet not so common strategy is to set your courses to be accessed for just a limited time. Some coaches set their courses to expire after a year and because students know that they will have to pay again to access the material, they are usually forced to finish the course. You can do this easily with the Membership feature on Kobocourse and you can create a Membership course site that is set to monthly, quarterly, or yearly access. 

    Remember, the more you help your students get what they want, the easier it is for you to get what you want. If your students are successful from taking your online course, they are more likely to leave Testimonials and this in turn will give you leverage to sell more courses.

    Ready to sell your own profitable online courses?

    Make sure you are using the best, most affordable course hosting platform with the right tools for more sales. Sign up now for a Free Kobocourse account to start selling your own courses the smart way.

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  • DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY, Marketing, Online Courses

    How to Create an Online Course That Sells – 5 Mistakes You Must Avoid at ALL Costs

    Don’t create yet another course that nobody wants to buy.

    how to create an online course that sells
    Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

    My first Online Course flopped big time. I look back and wish someone shared this information with me when I started.

    I always considered myself the creative one. The one who had the answers and could help people with my knowledge. I also believed strongly that with the right strategy, I could turn my knowledge into an income online with digital products and courses.

    So when I started a brand new Instagram page to grow a niche community of content creators, my monetization plan was stupid simple.

    Monetize with my courses and eBooks.

    I knew I could earn money online from coaching and selling my own online courses.

    At the time, I also really believed that all I had to do was create the damn course, slap a price on it, and throw it at my followers.

    My plan was to sit back and watch the sales trickle in then I could claim passive income victory. 

    It didn’t quite happen that way. 

    I needed to eat a big humble pie and my first online course served me that with a side of disappointment.

    Here’s the deal.

    People on the internet are looking for answers and they need help. 

    This is true. 

    However, their first step to getting answers online starts with a simple search on Google or down the endless hallways of Youtube University.

    Think about yourself and how you use the Internet. When you need help with something, do you search for a course or do you trust a Google search to help you? 

    I bet my narcissistic ex’s left leg, it’s Google to the rescue for you. 

    That’s the same with the majority of the millions of people who use the Internet daily. 

    I have invested hundreds of hours into creating eBooks and Courses in the past few years. I have even blown past my own comfort zone and built the first most intuitive, all-in-one Course hosting platform for Africans. So hear me when I say, I have enough trial and error in my history to know more than a thing about selling online courses. 

    Here are 5 Mistakes you want to absolutely avoid at all costs when creating and selling your own Online Courses

    Never create the full course until you have sold it first  

    Perhaps the most important thing I tell anyone who wants to sell courses online. Sell the course, then create it. 

    Hear me, I had to learn this one the hard way. 

    My first course was a mini-program teaching content creators how to film and edit videos on their mobile phones. 

    It was just something I did for myself in creating my own content. A nice comment or two on my Instagram praising my video editing skills and I suddenly believed that I needed to create a course.

    So I dedicated a full couple of weeks to see it through and ended up with only two sales!

    Two sales, which quite frankly, I had to sweat my armpits for.

    I felt like a decorated failure.

    What to do instead:

    Over time I have learned to pre-sell my courses. This means, to present the idea to a small group of people even before I ever create the first module of the course, and to get a payment in. 

    What I’d do is host a Live class or Paid Workshop on a subtopic for my main course. This will ensure I have the audience of my ideal students and buyers. 

    Then I present my ‘not-yet-created’ course to them as an offer and see if anyone raises their hand to buy.

    To do this successfully, make sure your buyers know they are paying for something that’s not yet available to access. 

    Alternatively, you can opt to host a Live, weekly version of your course first. This way you are creating the course week by week with actual students who already paid for the material.

    Your Course is NOT For All Your Followers

    As you create more and more digital products, you will come to learn a simple fact about your followers. 

    Your followers follow you for your content. They are paying you with their time and attention. 

    Your customers are people who actually buy from you. They are followers who know, like, and trust you and they pay you with their money.

    My mistake was thinking that because I had a great idea for a course, then all my followers would be interested. 

    I even estimated my profits based on how many followers I had at the time. Big mistake. I had more than 10,000 followers yet made only two sales of a $39 course.

    What to do instead :

    Instead of trying to sell your course to everyone who follows you, harvest your list first. Harvesting your list/fanbase simply means you fish out those who are likely going to need your course from those who wouldn’t. 

    There are three easy ways to do this.

    • Grow a Waitlist for your course: Long before your course is ready, start growing a Waitlist. This is as simple as creating an opt-in page and telling your followers to sign up so they are the first to know when the course is open for enrollment. Most people gladly sign up for Waitlists because it gives them a tiny sense of accomplishment toward their goals. What it does for you is even more significant. It helps you grow a true list of people who are likely to buy from you when you are ready.

    • Offer a related Lead magnet in your course topic: Everyone who runs an online business has some type of lead magnet /freebie. At least the serious ones. What you want to do is create a valuable Free offer /download your followers can opt-in for in exchange for their email addresses. This is something you have to do very early in your online content journey to take your followers off the internet and into your private fold.

    • Start hosting paid Workshops to gate paying customers: One of the easiest ways to test your course idea before it is ready is to teach a piece of your course Live. Hosting paid Workshops will also give you an alternate stream of income as a course creator. If people sign up to your Workshop then you are able to validate that you have a profitable digital product with your course.

    People want accountability and Results, not another course with just information

    If you think people want more information, think again. 

    We are tired. There is information everywhere we turn. We literally live in the information age and there is excess information than we can possibly have use for. 

    There are hundreds of millions of blogs, endless podcasts, billions of hours of Youtube videos, and even more, added every day on the Internet.

    People do not want more information. They want solutions. They want solutions to the core problems that they really have. 

    People with core problems all have one thing in common– they want a unique, straightforward solution, and usually, they want it with accountability. 

    Meaning they want to know that they will have support in accomplishing their objectives.

    This is where your course comes in. 

    What to do instead :

    Create your course in a way that not only provides information but it pushes your students into action and achieves results. You can do this by:

    • Including Worksheets that forces students to implement the material
    • Offering Templates that help students achieve certain milestones faster and save them time
    • Offering optional direct access coaching so they can connect with you directly and get support. This can also come as an add-on offer at a different price.
    • Creating a community group site along with your course. This can be as simple as having a dedicated Facebook group for your students to share ideas. Or even better, create a Membership type course offering.

    You need to prove authority in your topic

    It doesn’t matter how great your information is, if you do not have a proven track record for your offer, it will be difficult to sell. 

    Understand that when you tell people you have a course, what you are really saying is: I have the answers. I know how this works. I can fix your problem.

    If someone is interested in buying your course, they want to know and see that it will do what you promise. 

    You can achieve this by showing the results you created for yourself in the past, showing your work, showing testimonials from past clients you have worked with, or even taking your audience behind the scenes. 

    If you do not have testimonials from others, it will help to offer your solution to a beta group before you launch the full course. This way you can get real-time feedback and potential testimonials to help sell your course.

    Often times in the beginning, simply showing your own results can be just as beneficial.

    Never Create Your Online Course in Isolation

    If you are serious about selling more courses and getting a rave about your products, never create in isolation. Most creators are lonesome geniuses who want to hide away in their creative den for long periods of time. They want to finish the product, be happy with it, and make sure it is perfect before announcing it to the world.

    While this is reasonable in context, it is a poor use of the opportunity we have in the digital economy. Things have changed drastically in the past ten years and we now live in a very see-it-all, nosy world. 

    For Creators, this is a good thing. We are in the show business and it is important for people to see your process, not just your perfectly finished works.

    You should strive to take your audience along with you on your journey. Take them through the process of creating your course, let them see you working on it, tell them about your creative process, the challenges you have faced, the plans you have, and what your course is all about.

    You want to do this in a documentary style. You don’t have to create new content, you only have to document what’s happening, all the while saying –” I am creating this course and it is coming soon.”

    This can also be a great strategy to help build awareness and fill up your Waitlist with potential buyers of your course. 

    Your Next Steps

    If you are creating and selling digital products and online courses, you cannot afford to continue to try to sell each course on your own or connect with your buyers one-to-one.

    Remember, your online course is created so you can enjoy passive income streams.

    Watch this Free Training to learn how.

    Ready to sell your own profitable online courses? Make sure you are using the best, most affordable course hosting platform with the right tools for more sales. Start now with a Free Kobocourse account. 

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  • DIGITAL PRODUCTS & SALES STRATEGY, Marketing

    How Much Should You Sell Your Online Course?

    One of the most common questions I get asked is the question of price.


    How much should I price my coaching?

    How much should I price my online course or eBook?

    So many people are daunted by having to set a price on their intellectual property.

    I understand, cause I have been there.
    It can be very frustrating especially in the beginning, but the more products you sell and the more you create over time, you’ll finally get a feel for your own value as a creator and you will begin to get a hang of pricing.

    But to begin, I offer you a few simple strategies to setting your price that will get you off to a great start!

    Listen to this episode now for my best tiny tips on pricing your digital products and offers.

    Subscribe and tune in now from fresh episodes every single week!

    LISTEN ON:

    APPLE | SPOTIFY

    What digital product are you currently offering?

    SIGN UP for a Free Kobocourse account now on http://kobocourse.com to sell all of your digital products, eBooks, Courses, Coaching and Membership sites!

    Kobocourse is the easiest and most robust course hosting platform for creators and coaches from  Africa. Get started now – http://kobocourse.com

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