204: How to Create and Sell Your First Online Course
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Genecia Alluora: This episode is brought to you by Instantpodcastleader.com, the leading platform to launch your podcast in 48 hours and make it profitable. Get your free audiobook and free web class at instantpodcastleader.com/webclass.
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Genecia Alluora: Hi, I'm Genecia Alluora, founder of Soul Rich Woman. Number one leading female entrepreneur network in Southeast Asia, supporting 1 million women to own and love the F word. Fabulous, freedom, financial independence and happy family. Alone you are strong, together we are unstoppable. Welcome to my show.
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Genecia Alluora: Hi and welcome to another episode of Soul Why secrets of the Soul Rich Woman Blueprint. I'm honored to spend this time with you. No matter where you're listening, whether it's on your way to work or you're sitting in your office working on your business dreams, or even if you are driving around in the car with your kids, sleeping at the back of the backseat, I have been there many times. So I love seeing a pictures and videos of where you're listening to my podcast. Send those things to me. I love seeing it and I love hearing from you and your ahas. Today I want to talk about how to create and sell your first online course. I started going online in 2012, 2013 and I never looked back creating online courses back in those days, I was an image consultant working my time.
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Genecia Alluora: I work, I get paid, I work, I get paid, I don't work, I don't get paid. So when I decided to move into the online space, creating online courses, getting recurring income, passive income, I think that really completely changed my perspective of classroom teaching. Standing there in a class of 10, 20 people and then spending hours standing there and only be able to serve that 20 people. Creating online course allow me to serve and support 1 million women across the network of Soul Rich Woman. And that to me is the key freedom of time. So, hey gorgeous, are you thinking about creating an online course? If that is, that is a great choice. So I've got some tried and tested secrets to share with you on creating a profitable course from scratch. Now, there has never been a better time to be an online entrepreneur. The tools that we have available to us right now today are pretty amazing. And the prices are now much more affordable and cheap. And making online business is so achievable, especially the time is now.
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Genecia Alluora: You can teach what you know to people all around the world and get paid well for it, too. But before you jump in, I have got some advice and some stories that I want to share with you because, trust me, it's going to be an interesting journey. This is a very low barrier entry point to create an online course, but it's not effortless. It's not that you do not need to put in effort, but it will take somewhat hard work, or I would say a lot of work and also a lot of courage. Okay? Now, creating passive income into a million dollar business. Obviously I'm a huge advocate because courses form the bulk of my million dollar business. There's nothing more satisfying than being able to reach and support a global audience without leaving the house, just rolling out of your bed, and sometimes you forget that you don't need to wear your bra.
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Genecia Alluora: Creating my Money Mindset course and of course, my Soul Rich Woman Blueprint program was a game changer for my business. Years ago, I was having six figures from private coaching one on one, and I knew that I had hit a platoon with my time and energy. I mean, how many 24 hours do I have? So maybe you could be feeling the same. Back then. I was coaching from morning to night to accommodate global time zones. I've got clients from Australia, from Malaysia, from Philippines, from Vietnam, from Singapore, from Thailand, from Cambodia. I've got some clients from Africa, from Spain, and many other different countries, even Canada. And I'm like, oh my God, how am I going to cope with all these time zones, right? And my energy is limited. Plus, I was starting a family. So all that kind of thing, does it resonate with you, my dear? Have you reached the limit of your personal capacity and you want to start leveraging your time?
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Genecia Alluora: And I just want to say this you can do it. It's time to create passive income in your business. For me, when I found myself coaching clients in my dreams, I knew I'd reach a crucial need for upgrade. It was a time to create a course and get some of the sweet passive income action. Plus I figured if I ever wanted to take a holiday, I'll need another way to make money that doesn't require my personal time and attention. Dealing with resistance and money blocks around passive income I was rapidly turning into a workaholic, I'll be honest. But I had a lot of resistance in creating an online course where there is a discipline sitting down, making time and always saying I've no time, I've got no mood, I have no creative juice. And maybe you have too.
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Genecia Alluora: It's really common to feel a mix of longing, desire and yet apprehensive about that looming creation of an online course. Creating a course seems to bring up a lot of stuff. For entrepreneurs, including myself. Creating a passive income stream will probably bring up all your own money blocks because it's related to both creating an online course and that resistance towards making money off passive income. Literally, you'll take procrastination to new heights. Lots of people start out creating a course, but few literally take out to market or even some don't even complete their online course. So here's the good news. Now, your first course doesn't have to be a masterpiece. It doesn't have to be perfect. You just need to launch it.
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Genecia Alluora: Nobody starts out with thousands of followers or participants or even chorus buying people buying from you. And trust me, it would create chaos if you did. Now, here's the reason why most of us experience gradual growth, organic growth that helps us to up level our mindset and systems at each stage of the journey. In course creation, there's definitely a lot of tech stuff. The knowhouse, the automation, the processes that you need to learn, the setup cost and the planning. Not to mention the learning curve while delivering it. And don't forget customer service. You receive emails about password resets often multiple times from the same people. Tech issues. That why the course wasn't delivered even though you have already set it up to be automated.
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Genecia Alluora: Or even when people will message you about hey, I cannot watch the videos or I cannot download the PDF, I cannot download that something properly. So if you don't have the capacity for that, for example an assistant, then it can quickly become a nightmare and you will feel really overwhelmed and you ask yourself why did I do this even in the first place? So believe me, it doesn't matter how many times you have checked and rechecked everything. People will find typo, errors will find your English is not perfect or your Mandarin is not spoken correctly or in the language that you are teaching. They will just let you know. I mean people sometimes are quite anal or perfectionism in their own way. But you know what? As a course creator for your passive income, hey, that's just part and parcel of your journey. And of course being able to receive criticisms and feedback from your customers. I mean hey, if they give you feedback, you grow, isn't it?
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Genecia Alluora: So it's okay to start small and grow from there as long as you start. My very first group course had twelve people in it. We had audio and PDF assignments every single week, live coaching calls, and even a Facebook group. And that was a huge learning curve to the point now where I have hundreds and thousands of people in my various courses. And remember, that doesn't happen overnight. Creating your own passive income from Scratch now this is a part where I feel that you should focus on creating one course first to start with. Now, there is always a common question thrown at me or given to me by my clients when they are doing an online course. Should I do one on one? Should I do just an online course? Which one is better for which climate?
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Genecia Alluora: I would say you can do a hybrid format if you are. But I would say my advice will vary depending on which stage of the business you are in right now. So you may select the stage that you are at. The first one is for new entrepreneurs who is creating an online course. Now, if you have a really small list and you are not really making any money yet from your online courses or from your very small list or email list or your database, then it can be tricky to create a course and make money immediately out of it. Of course you can work an online course, but who are you going to sell it to? It's disheartening for new entrepreneurs to realize that a normal sales page conversion is just only 1%. You could spend lots of time and energy creating an online course but then feel like quitting because nobody buys it. There's nothing more tragic than feeling like a failure when it's not you that is your problem.
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Genecia Alluora: It's the reality that sales is a number game. Yeah, it's a reality of playing a numbers game. I'm not saying that your clients are numbers, okay? It's just that it's not personal and people are not buying yet. So you can't overcome statistics with passion. I mean, that's just one part of it. When people tell me that they have poured their heart and soul into something and then they are devastated that it failed, I know that they've missed a fundamental part of being in business. An amazing product is paramount, but you have to have people to sell it too. Honestly. It's not just the list size or not the size of your database. You might not have a good viable idea yet or really in a practice business where you are trying to figure out your true calling.
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Genecia Alluora: And don't ask me what is your true calling. It's not a conference call, okay? You will definitely take time to run through it and run by it. Sometimes that idea when you are creating online course may not be really solving the problem that your clients want. Maybe you don't have any idea what your clients really want and you haven't even nailed down your niche and the learning curve is super high. So you keep getting stumble over, stumble over on little small tech things because you're learning it all by yourself. For example, your email marketing software, the funnels and then the membership area and you're like okay, how do I connect all these dots together? How do I deliver? How do I follow up? And I have been there, trust me. Googling code like what code for what? Is really not fun at all. Not fun at all. And I'm not tech trained. I am an occupational therapist by profession.
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Genecia Alluora: I'm in a medical healthcare professional. So to me that is something out of my area. So should you create a course if your business is really just starting? Well, I'm not saying no, I'm just saying that you have to set realistic expectations amount of the work it will take at first and then when it actually will start to make you money. Now, this is not a get rich quick project. Sure, I mean there are people in business who have done it really super quick and usually because they have moved through the stage of procrastination and resistance quickly and have been willing to invest money. For example, like Facebook ads or TikTok ads or finding other affiliates to even sell for them before they reap the reward. So be honest, do you have a big enough network to sell it to? When you are starting out in business? Focus on list building, growing your database.
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Genecia Alluora: Because focusing on list building, low hanging fruit, getting experience is key. At this stage you are better off creating a few free resources so that you can grow your list. These people are your future course participants. For example, run free webinars on topics that interest your potential audience. You can always repurpose them later for free. optins. Honestly, it doesn't matter if hardly anyone attends these live. The purpose is to practice. There is no such thing as one time gets it perfect. So get used to the technical hurdles. Get used to talking about your topic. Get used to nailing a few talking points. Get used to the camera. Get used to fumbling. Also getting more clients even though if they are free of charge or in exchange for testimonials.
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Genecia Alluora: Hey, get more clients. In that aspect. Give yourself a boundary maybe you do 1-020 butter trading or 10-20 pro bono before charging. That's fine. Whatever the number of clients may be, just get started. Start building your tools and techniques with real people because this will form a basis for your paid course in the future. And you have a better idea of understanding their problemsand also frequently asked questions. The second type of entrepreneurs that I would say, whether creating a course or doing one on one coaching or a hybrid is more suitable for you. Well, this is my advice for you. By now, your listsize is growing. And you probably have a solid idea about your strengths and offerings as an entrepreneur. Now, you don't have to be perfect niche, okay? You don't have to be perfect, but at least you must be pretty clear who or what you can help people with.
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Genecia Alluora: Now, it can be hard to find the time to create a course when you are busy in your business, servicing your clients, or doing done for you. But this is a short time to sacrifice for potentially large rewards and this is the time when I see more experienced entrepreneurs having issues with setting time aside to create an online course because the schedule is always busy and they are always busy. So if you're running out of time because you're getting booked out or you're hitting a natural income, a plateau income ceiling, you're already earning a million, you're earning quite a lot of money, but just that you don't have enough time, then you have two choices. Number one, drastically raise your price. Number two, create passive income sources. So if you opt for number one but feel scared about raising prices, don't worry, I've got some advice for you in my other episodes.
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Genecia Alluora: If you know that doing one on one work isn't necessarily your zone of work, of genius long term, then passive income is the way to go. Start planning your online course. So start planning out your online course now. You're never going to have the spare time unless you pull up your big girl panties and pull up your socks and create it for the future. Then as your course income increases, then you can cut back on the one on one work or raise your prices without worrying that you'll lose all your clients. You might be tempted to write a book as a passive income source, but trust me, it's probably quicker to create a course than to write a whole book. Unless you're a super fast writer. Trust me, after written three books, writing a book really takes a damn long time. Or maybe you have a ghost writer and that's maybe something very different for you. Let me put up a candy for you, why you can create an online course better than writing a book for the time being, because you can charge a lot more for a course versus a book.
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Genecia Alluora: So for example, it took me about nine months to a year to write each of my books, and I can only charge around $10 to $15, sometimes even $20 for a book with a workbook and the freebies that comes with it. You can create a course in much less a time and charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. So when you are ready, I recommend you checking out Sim card. I recommend you to check out Keep or even Click funnels for an easy use tech solution to host your business and course. So when you are more experienced in your industry and business, then you move on to focus on capturing your knowledge, leveraging your current resources, and carving out time to make it happen. You know what? If it's not scheduled, it's not real. Dip your feet in by creating a small course. It doesn't have to be heavily involved or complicated. Just whip up your phone and just record somethingand make it into different episodes.
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Genecia Alluora: Lots of people freak out about that, but as long as you have an outline with very clear outcomes, you are confident in your material, you can tweak things in real time as your participants go through it. You can add on additional videos, additional resources, and only do this if you are willing to completely to clear your calendar and potentially have a few late nights. An alternative is to run a group coaching course, teaching a small medium sized group with the tools and techniques you usually share with your one on one clients. And if you add a lot of interactive elements like live group coaching, Q&A sessions, you can repurpose all these for later, like your master classes, for example, or additional bonuses when your course is more involved.
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Genecia Alluora: Another question I get when I coach clients to start their own online course is should you run a beta course first? Now, a beta course means that you do a trial, something like a trial, but it can be free or it can be charged. I don't usually recommend running a beta course. For one, the name itself implies that you don't know what you're doing and it seems like you're lost and your customers are usually in critic mode rather than participant mode, rather than they are fully in it. Most people don't set up a really stringent process for getting testimonials. So in the end, I see my clients running a beta course, spending their time, not making really a lot of money, and then testimonials are not really provided in a way that was beneficial for them to run the next run. I recommend offering a first course at an introductory rate instead of running a beta version. And you don't tell them it's a beta version, just tell them that this is a course that you're going to give them at a special price so that you can real clients, but at a cheaper intro rate so that you can take off the pressure of covering some of your cost.
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Genecia Alluora: So each time you run your course, you can improve it using the feedback you gain from your participants. You'll learn more about the problems your clients are facing, and you'll be able to build a bank of resources like FAQ and tools to improve the course further. My Soulrich Woman Blueprint has been through major renovations every two years, and it keeps getting better. My biggest advice is not to start new courses all the time, which a lot of us have a tendency to do so, especially we get bored easily and we always find that thing to do and make it into new courses. Instead of doing that, add them into your master classes, record them into a podcast. Do it in a book, or do it into a blog post instead of creating new courses.
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Genecia Alluora: Add into the current online course that you already have. So all paths lead to Rome. All paths lead to one outcome. Everything that you do go to one place to solve one problem immediately for your customers. The focus can be a really hard discipline for creative entrepreneurs, and I totally get you. But you can innovate around the core programand keep it interesting and fresh for your brain and for your customers. Now, take the first steps in creating an online course. When I first started in 2012, 2013, converting my image consultancy courses into online, plus adding the fact of how do you start a business, how do you do online, has created passive income streams for me. In fact, I made $100,000 in three months and a million dollars within a single year. So you need to really do an inventory of all your knowledge, your tools, your techniques, and your resources. Get it all down. Then sort this out into a 6 to 8 weeks curriculum. Don't jam too much information into one learning or one module. Otherwise, you will overwhelm your participants or overwhelm your customers.
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Genecia Alluora: Then figure out how are you going to present it. Is it audio? Is it video? Is it live classes? Is it webinar? Is it Master classes? Map everything that you need to create and take it off. You also need a marketing launch plan. The five steps to creating an online course. Here's each here's the five stages of creating your own passive income streams. I know procrastination is something that's going to hold you back, but trust me, when you get started, there is no looking back. Number one, do an inventory of everything you know and teach. Number two, sort this knowledge into a 6 to 8 weeks curriculum. Number three, decide on presentation method. Number four, plan a marketing launch campaign. Number five, deal with the money blocks that are going to come up around creating passive income. Obviously, that's a lot to think about, and I'd really recommend finding a mentor to help.
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Genecia Alluora: Now if mindset pricing and giving you the permission yourself to succeed, then come and join me in the soul rich woman blueprint. And that is my ultimate advice is to just do it. Now affirm yourself today. Within this year I will get all the valuable information out of my head and into the hands of the people who need it and want it. My potential customers, this is your time. And you are ready for the next step.
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Genecia Alluora: Hey, gorgeous. I can help you to build your dreams. Now you can work with me in my Money Mindset coaching program and mastermind community, Soul Rich Woman. The more you surround yourself with inspiring, successful and supportive people, the more you'll feel safe to dream. Let's clear all the old stories, beliefs and sabotages that are stopping you, holding you back and making you go round and round in circles and not allowing you to create your soul rich life, fabulous freedom, financial independence, and a happy family. It's fun and practical. That is soulrichwoman.com. Or simply email us at hello@soulrichwoman.com. So come and join us.