I feel like it’s time for a big picture overview of how to launch your online course business.
Often I’m giving you the details… the “in the weeds” kind of information that you can use if you know where you’re going and what you want from your business.
But what if you’re still trying to figure it all out? What if you’re trying to piece together what it takes to run an online products business, create an offer suite and sell that long term?
Then this is your big picture.
Let me walk you through it with my relaunch of my business in 2022 as the example.
In 2022 I decide to come back to teaching online marketing.
Here’s what I knew I would do, almost intuitively as I’ve done it so many time:
My plan was to create an offer suite of courses. The courses were going to teach my customers how to launch and run an online course business – piece by piece.
I decided to break my courses up for a few reasons:
- It would be a huge course to teach an entire business at once.
- If I taught you my entire business start to finish it wouldn’t be that useful to you… because you need to custom create your business, not copy mine entirely. You want to launch your online course business in a way that works entirely for YOU and your customers – this is sooo key!
- Many of my customers have experience and are looking for only one piece (like how to build a website or how to do affiliate marketing). This allows those customers to pick and choose what they need.
So I created a mindmap of all the courses I knew I would want to create.
Then I started launching them one by one.
To do this I need a shopping cart (ThriveCart) and an email list (ConvertKit). I also did set up my website so that I have a “home base” for my business to create blog posts, send people to to see my courses and opt-in to my emails.
Creating my Offer Suite:
I started with Launched in 3 Hours and this took me only a few hours to get ready for sale (following the model I teach there).
Then one by one I added new offers.
You can see all of the offers on this page (and I’m also linking to many of them in this email).
Starting my Membership:
Now, I’m a BIG fan of running membership sites.
At the point that I started my current membership was about three months into creating my offer suite. This gave me time to ramp up customer sales again AND decide on a membership that I knew I could run for 5-10 years!
YES a membership is a big commitment but the recurring income is so valuable! This is why I’ll never be without one again.
Adding in Coaching:
Do you see what’s happening here? Bit by bit I continued to grow my offer suite not only of courses but also the membership (which I also sold classes of the membership topics outside the membership). Then I layered on a membership. Then I layered on one on one coaching.
By structuring my business this way I give myself maximum flexiblity to move from different offers and business models and things shift and change in business as they ALWAYS do.
This kind of business also gives my distractable mind and creative brain the opportunity to shift projects without dumping my whole business to go start another (been there, done that, got souvenirs and do not recommend).
So to add in coaching I mostly work with my customers. My biggest “fans” as you might say. I will often outreach to those people who are loving my products and connecting with me. The people who I think would benefit the most and want my coaching. NEVER any pressure.
This is how I added on coaching. AND I don’t do calls so I keep my schedule free and clear. I am doing a live training on this coming up April 23rd (starting). See if it’s for you, here: Coaching Without Calls
This is a summary of how I run my business and create my offers. Of course I teach many things around this like planning, organizing, marketing and more, through my courses.
I can and always do say that MOST of my sales come from email marketing. I also have an affiliate program where my amazing affiliates also send sales to my products.
Finally: Making it Evergreen
I initially released most of my courses as group coaching. I decided when looking at the long-term that I didn’t want to release new courses indefinitely so I would be repeating promotions on my signature and popular programs.
This meant I got to work on making all my courses and classes evergreen. Evergreen means people can take them at any time – they are not time dependent. Like Netflix for courses.
This entire process from thinking of my offers to making them evergreen and now into maintenance mode and tweaking of my business for scale took about two years – Almost exactly actually!
Recap of this entire business model strategy:
Here’s the recap of this method, that I invite you to model right from this email if you like, or get more details in Lifestyle Freedom Business, which I will be updating with very detailed step by step of creating the same business model as me (so you can model, adjust to you and customize of course).
- Step 1: Set up your tech – your shopping cart, website, email software, etc.
- Step 2: Decide on your offers – courses, membership, coaching, etc (you can start with one and add more later if that’s all you know at the moment).
- Step 3: Decide on your product suite and start creating it/releasing it.
- Step 4: Layer in your other offers
- Step 5: Maintain your business with evergreen offers
