What if I told you...

... that YOU could get paid first, before creating your online digital course!

'In this blog I am going to reveal:

'How You Can Pre-Sell Your Online Digital Course & Scale It To 6-Figures and Beyond Without Having a Huge Following'

Sounds crazy, right? Strap yourself because I am spilling all the beans!

🚨 WARNING: This is not some get rich quick scheme! 

ARE YOU:

... an online coach, consultant, service provider, or other 'trading time for money' business? IF SO, THIS IS FOR YOU! 

DO YOU:

... have a gift, passion, skills, and an expertise that YOU know can help others achieve amazing results with what to you can teach? "YES! That's me!"

Sit back because I am about to reveal how YOU can take your knowledge and package it up into a profitable digital program that generates monthly consistent revenue income stream for your business.

Because what I have for you in this value-packed-blogpost is going to give you everything that you need to feel confident, connecting the missing pieces in your business, gain more clarity on what works, and what doesn't, and how you can hit the ground running with an online digital course that your audience will go crazy for.

Are you ready?

Before I dive into the juicy stuff...

... I want to quickly share my FAILED attempt when I first tried to sell an online course several years ago!

It was 2016, and I was still working full time at Warner Bros. film studios where I had been working for almost a whole decade. As much as I enjoyed working in the film industry, I absolutely hated TWO things about working for an employer:

1️⃣ - I was missing out on quality and important times with my children due to long commuting in and out of the city.

2️⃣ - I loved my job as head coach for Europe, but I always wanted to be my own boss and my passion was to one day have my own business.

So I worked hard... every lunch break, every evening after work, and even at weekends sometimes - because I was determined to become an Entrepreneur and be more free to do what I want!

My First attempt at launching a BETA Course - Which I call 'Founding Members Program', Was a TOTAL Disaster:

When I first started out, I was doing all this on my own. Reading books, attending free webinars, watching YouTube videos. I was trying every strategy, shiny object, new tool, new tech...

... you name it, I was desperate to try everything and to make it a success.

And I was trying this for 3 years on my own, experiencing failure, after failure and so on...

Whichever way you look at it, even when you fail and learn from your mistakes, it still really hurts deep inside 💔

You have this excitement that you have built something with nothing but PURE passion, LOVE, knowledge, years of skills, crafting your own formula or mechanism that you could only wished you had when you first started out.

😭 And when you fail to make any sales, its a real kick in the teeth.. you attach your emotions to that course you pour your energy into. You convince yourself it is going to be a winner. But it totally destroys you when you discover that your audience don't want what you have!

It leaves you confused, it leaves you embarrassed too. What did I do wrong? What did I miss? So many emotions to deal with. 😵

That is what happened to me.

I spent 6 months creating the perfect online course. 6 months recording lessons, webinar slides, sale pages, bonuses... you name it, I did it.

But the outcome was ZERO sales. 

And it's not just about the money either. I remember my emotions were more towards how frustrating it was that I had so much to give and share with others... but no one wanted me as their go-to expert!

I won't bore you with all the details...

Let's just skip straight to HOW I went terribly wrong:

💲 Was it my pricing that was off?

👩‍💻 Did I not have enough of an audience to sell to?

💔 Maybe people didn't think that I was good enough to teach them?

📢 Did I not run Facebook ads or something?

👆 It was neither of those things.

My audience DIDN'T want I was trying to sell them. They didn't NEED my course. They didn't have any desire to buy a course with the topic I had created.

So where did I go wrong?

I Didn't Understand My Audience Properly

I assumed I knew my audience. I assumed I knew what they wanted. I assumed that the course I wanted to create was what they wanted.

😭 And Because of Assuming = I Sold ZERO Units. 

Assuming I knew what my audience wanted COST me a lot of wasted time and money.

I had spent OVER 20 years in my industry, so I assumed I knew everything there was to know about my audience... and I was wrong!

I dusted off the dirt, and I wanted to give myself 'ONE.LAST.SHOT'

I knew that my only path to success now was to invest in a coach who had been there themselves. And that is exactly what I did. I invested $10,000 in mentor who showed me the only way to sell online courses for the first time!

8 Weeks later, and I launch my second attempt at a Webinar event and we hit it OUT the park making $22,382 from online course sales.

And that was from a $497 course.

And here's the magic:

📹 I recorded ZERO video lessons for that first time course sales.

💻 I didn't waste months creating webinar slides.

⏰ I didn't spend hours of wasted time posting on social media not knowing if it was going to work.

Instead, I simply focused on THREE fundamentals:

1) Attracting the Right AUDIENCE!

2) Selling Them What THEY Wanted!

3) Created an Irresistible Offer That Gave Them What They NEEDED!

45 NEW students later and I thought I had just won the lottery. That was a life-changing moment for me.

So much so... I handed in my notice to Warner Bros. so that I could fulfil the dream of running my own business.

And as the saying goes. The rest is history! Now I am privileged to coach online entrepreneurs, course creators, service providers and coaches how to take their skills and knowledge to successfully launch a profitable online course and kick start their online digital business empire. 

And over the years since I learnt this unique method, I have adapted and simplified the process to fit in todays online marketing strategies.

AND THAT'S HOW I DID IT: 

I simply 'Pre-Sold' my online digital program.

I invited my audience to join me as 'Founding Members'.

And in return, THEY got to help me build and craft my signature program. 

If you're still skeptical on 'pre-selling' a digital product before making any lessons before hand, check out my FIVE massive benefits as to WHY you should consider this strategy 👇

WEEK 1 - WEEK 3: PLAN & VALIDATE YOUR COURSE IDEA

Brainstorm Your Ideas

The first step to creating an online course is to get clarity on what you're going to teach. If you're not sure what to teach the good news is that people really only want one of three things:

More money, more happiness, or more relationship success.

There is a 4th category that we call 'passion'... this is for skill based courses like teaching a musical instrument, art classes, how to play golf etc!

So ask yourself which of these categories would be relevant to your current expertise or desire to teach. To give you some specific examples, here are some topics you could consider for each of these (4) categories:

MORE MONEY

• How to get clients on Instagram

• How to run a successful eCommerce business

• How to scale your brick-and-mortar

   

MORE HAPPINESS/HEALTH

• Quit Sugar For Life

• Meditation Programs

• Life Coaching/Goal Setting Programs

BETTER RELATIONSHIPS

• Marital Support

• Parenting Courses

• Finding A Partner (Dating Courses)

PASSION DRIVEN TOPICS

• Teaching Musical / Art Courses
• How To Become a Better Gamer
• Photography Course For Your Leisure

Now, any of these ideas can WORK, however you want to make sure that there is market demand for the specific angle that you want to take.

Which means we're going to tap into your email list /or head over to your social media community to validate your idea to your current audience.

Survey Your Audience

Imagine if you had a crystal 🔮 ball that told you everything you needed to know about your audience!

What frustrates them?

What keeps them awake at night?

What do they think about themselves every day?

What internal emotions do they carry around with them?

What are their BIGGEST problems?

What is their ideal SOLUTION?

Before you can bear the fruits of your labor, you have to go fishing and you have to ASK questions!

Before I ever publish a product, or start to sell one, I take the time to go to survey my audience. I ask them 6 very specific questions, I hang out in Facebook Groups they are also part of, and I spend time LISTENING / ASKING / READING / OBSERVING...

... and collecting DATA!

And by doing this and taking the time to learn about THEM, and their language, and what makes them tick! I discover WHAT they need and WHAT they want as a course topic to help them get the results THEY need to solve their most frustrating problems!

Nail Your Niche

If you’re like me, the first thing I do when hiring someone or buying a product trying to find someone to hire or a business to buy from is go to read their bio or About Me section.

• I want to know whose work I'm looking at.
• I want to see the product or service through their eyes.
• I want to know they are an authority in my area of need. 

In order for you to stick out in a saturated market, you have to become an authority based on personality, purpose, and promise of what you're going to deliver to the customer.

When it comes to identifying your niche, ask yourself:

• What problem do you specifically solve?
• Who do you specifically serve? 
• How specifically do you serve them?
• Why you? Why you over another business?  

>>Your niche doesn't define you and it doesn't put you in a box.<<

You have infinite potential with multiple zones of genius. A niche refers to ONE of your courses, services, or products.

Niching down isn’t going to limit yourself and it’s not going to lose you customers or sales.  People buy from specialists. In fact I’m going to go bold here and say they will buy faster and with less resistance when you niche down.

From my experience, every time I created a niche, people started to DM me demanding to work with me, invest earlier in a service I offered, and are less resistant and asked for way less refunds. 

I can't stress enough how important it is to Niche Down!

Course Layout

This is one of my favourite steps in selling an online course for the first time, and this is where you build out the perfect online course.

Now that you have identified what type of course your audience needs, you can now confidently build out the structure of your lessons and modules.

However, this is where most people get stuck.

The technology..
Recording videos..
How to host an online course..
How to edit content..
Where.. how... what...

Without a clear course creation process, you’ll spend far too long learning the tech and how to record, how to edit...
... and you will soon start to hit dead ends much faster than you think.

A message that we preach inside my signature program 'Digital Course Revolution':

Perfectionism is your enemy.. 'Done, is better than perfect'.

Keep this simple, you don't have to create a Hollywood style online course. One of my monthly clients who has sold over $1million in course sales started their online course journey by simply recording their course content using Zoom!

WEEK 3: PLAN YOUR LAUNCH & SET A DATE 4-5 WEEKS OUT

In the first two weeks of this process, you've taken the time to validate your idea, and identify exactly what your audience wants.

NOW it is time to start creating some "authority" around it with content that you will create leading up to your launch:

Content That You Will Create:

High quality promotional blog post (just like this one).

Social media posts / IG Stories / Reels.

Lead Magnet that ties in with your course.

Building your email list / growing a 'waitlist' for your launch

Sending emails that sets you as the authority.

Record a video with the intention to DISRUPT and influence people in your market to think differently and to challenge the beliefs and the status quo in your niche market.

If everything's adding up positively - you're getting traffic, opt-ins, creating big buzz and engagement, and people are possibly asking for more... Now it's time to start planning the launch of your digital course.

Planning out a launch can feel very complicated, but the good news is that this post is walking you through my 8-week launch plan - you're already 25% there!

This week is all about planning HOW you're going to launch - and I recommend that you plan the content of your launch this week, then focus on the promotion content next week.

SET A DATE & SET YOUR GOALS:

It is absolutely vital that you 'Lock In' your date for the live webinar event! If you don't, how will you ever plan and create a successful launch. 

And the other reason WHY this is so important!

Every time you put off locking the date, you will never get round to doing it! It's that old human DNA sketched in all of us. It is so much easier to keep putting something off than it is to decide you're all in.

But actually, it is also just as easy to dip your toe in the water and test your audience. Running a 'Founding Members Launch' and Pre-Selling your course first is SOOOOO much easier than actually planning a normal webinar event.

WHY?

Because you don't need to put on a huge show when you're first starting out. And we have developed a really easy 3-Step method for launching courses for first time course creators.

SET YOUR GOALS:

Once you've locked in your date. Now it is time to LOCK IN your goals!

We always tell our students to start planning their launches with the end in mind!

There are THREE metrics you need to have locked in, written on post-it note, and sketch as your 'must hit goals'.

If you focus on hitting these three metrics, then you will achieve smash your dream launch.

Your Three Metrics That Matter:

1.   The # of Founding Members You'll Accept

(we normally stick with 25): 

__________________________________

2.   The "Founding Member" Price Point You'll Sell Your Course At

(roughly 50% discount of future price): 

___________________________________

3.   The # People Needed in Your Launch List (webinar registrants)

(Answer #1 x 10)  ex: 5 Founding Members x 10 = 50): 

__________________________________

Make sure you that you actually do this! NOW! Otherwise you'll never launch that online course you have dreamt of releasing.

WEEK 4: CREATE YOUR WEBINAR SLIDES & TEST WEBINAR SOFTWARE

There are lots of various ways to launch an online course:

5 Day Challenges

LIVE Facebook Event

Video Series

Email Promotions... to name a few!

>> But Webinars are by far the best option for first time course creators! They also the easiest too!

Webinars create authority-building 45-minute LIVE experiences that attracts real buyers!

You can literally create a whole entire webinar slide deck in under 4 hours! And with online platforms like Canva.com, it has never been easier to create a professional looking presentation.

And the other benefit of webinars is that you don't have to show your face live, instead you can present step-by-step content that is laid out in a specific order, with presenter notes and bullet points to help you effortlessly present and WOW your audience!

And if you're worried about the tech, you need to STOP there!

Webinar fears can be paralyzing but have less effect on your webinar success than your showstopping presentation and an irresistible offer!

TRUST ME! When you have your slides ready to go, and an irresistible offer ready to present to your audience knowing that YOUR audience are going to go crazy for what you have (because you did your research & survey from Week 1)... you literally have nothing fear!

As for tech, I always say, "fish where the fish are" which frees you up from obsessing about which webinar tech to use: Zoom, Facebook Lives, WebinarJam are all amazing.

WEEK 5: LAUNCH RUNWAY

In the 4-6 weeks leading up to your launch, you will also want to create INSPIRATIONAL content that speaks to the outcomes and results that your audience wants. This is best done through case studies and incredible stories.

You can do this by showcasing a number of different stories:

YOUR own journey in how you got to where you are today. 

Clients who have got amazing results from your service or coaching.

1:1 students who you have taught through your unique step-by-step method.

And finally, as you get closer to your launch date, you want to start actually invite people to JOIN your launch. There are several strategies to help you do that, one of those I suggest you have a waitlist for people to add themselves to showing interest in what you have coming up.

WEEK 6: FACEBOOK ADS + ORGANIC PROMO OF YOUR LAUNCH

By week 5, you would have already started a buzz and anticipation around your launch event, but it is also a good idea to use other tools like ads or other organic promotions because the aim of the game is to get as many people registered for your webinar as possible.

Your first action will be to start inviting people to your webinar via the emails, social media posts, and other content that you built last week.

If you did your job right, you should also have a waitlist of eager peeps waiting ready for your announcement!

And then judging by how many people sign up to your webinar through organic reach, you can then make an executive decision whether you should run ads to fill the rest of the registrant number you need.

The most important thing to remember is that you DO NOT want to promote your launch more than 10 days out from the live webinar.

Why?

I find that if you promote more than 10 days out, it hurts the "engagement rate" of your webinar launch. You want as many people showing up live as possible, so here's what to do for the first couple days of the week:

✅ Connect and test everything (email, webinar platform etc).

✅ Set up FB ads 2-3 days in advance before they go live (you can schedule ads).

✅ Catch up on everything and run over all your action items to make sure nothing has been missed off your 'to-do' list.

WEEK 7: WEBINAR LAUNCH

The Webinar itself shouldn't be TOO hard because you've already created all the content for it - all that's left to do is to show up live and deliver your amazing content, create an exciting experience for your audience, engage with your attendees, and watch the moolah rolling in.

I don't wanna get too "heavy" on you - but there is truth to the fact that how you show up for people is how they will show up for you.

When you go LIVE, give it everything you have.

Hosting your live webinar is about GIVING IT ALL YOU’VE GOT so that people can see your expertise, your abilities, and that you care.

If you show up tired, exhausted, and "just for the money" people will sense that.  So get your sleep, don't skip meals (it's totally common when you're launching), and serve first.

You'll be amazed at the results.

WEEK 8: POST-WEBINAR SALES & EMAIL

The final week of the process really shouldn't be too complicated. You already wrote the sales emails, you've already delivered an amazing Webinar, some of your audience would have watched the Replay webinar, so now your focus should bringing in 'on the fence' sales.

To make life easier, I do recommend that you action the TWO following strategies below:

1 - Schedule Your Sales Emails

If you haven't yet, schedule all your sales emails to send out automatically through your autoresponder.  I recommend that you not send in real time, during a launch 'anything can happen' which can result in you panicking and rushing trying to fix something, and before you know it you've forgotten to send one of your crucial emails for the day

So take some time to schedule the sales emails you wrote in week 6, if you haven't already.

What emails do you send:

Firstly, I advise to send a minimum of 6 sales emails during your cart open - cart close period.

If you run your live Webinar on Wednesday & Thursday (two live webinars work really well), you're going to want to send sales emails over the weekend:

FRIDAY (day after the 2nd Webinar) - Send 1 Sales Email in the afternoon + webinar replay page.

SATURDAY - Send 2 Sales Emails (AM & PM) - reminding replay page comes down in 24 hours.

SUNDAY - Send 1 Sales Emails (Evening) - final warning before replay page closes for good.

MONDAY - Send 1 Sales Email (Morning)

TUESDAY - Send 3-5 Sales Emails (AM & PM) - final push.

You can also just run a 48 hour cart open - cart close period where the cart opens on the Friday after the 2nd webinar, and Cart close is the Sunday - this works well for absolute beginner launchers.

Post Your Offer On Social Media

I recommend for the 2-4 days that your cart is open, you do a DAILY post on AT LEAST one social media platform inviting people to buy it.

It's Not Over Til It's Over

I've had clients that end up in what we call "launch freefall" - it's a period of time between when the cart opens, and the sales start to pick up.

This is normal in most launches. You may have a quick win on day 1 of cart open, then things get quiet.

You start to wonder "Is this it, did I make a mistake? What's going to happen?!"

I tell all my clients in this position this, IT'S NOT OVER TIL IT'S OVER....

The key takeaway - things can change in a moment. So, from the time you say "my course is for sale" to the time you say ”enrollment is closed”, there is ZERO ROOM TO QUIT.

Get scrappy, get focused, go all in - but never quit. Promise?

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

So, there you have it - an 8-week (roughly 60 day) plan to go from course idea, to launched course....

If you're thinking - dang, this is awesome, but I wish someone would hold my hand through all of this - then I have two options for you.

OPTION #1:

If you are already inside a coaching program that lays out the launch strategy for you to go from ZERO --> Identifying Your Course Topic --> Launching Your Course (with profits), and you're confident you can follow the lessons in that program on your own without support and accountability...

... but would like the speed the process:

> You might want to check out my Launch Organisers Toolkit <