The Reality Check: Building A Business With Online Courses

Over the last five weeks I've been coaching a free business group made up, primarily of natural healthcare professionals. There have been more questions about eBooks and online programs, than any other topic. 

There is a perception that has reached far and wide that online courses and group programs are your ticket to riches. Even better, is an online course or program that coaches coaches, on how to be coaches. 

Online programs and digital products in general have become wildly popular. Everyone seems to now have, at the very least, an eBook. Everyone is trying to figure out how to best put them together, how to best serve the content, the best platforms to use for courses and all those details. That stuff is all just details. None of that will determine whether anyone will buy what you are selling, or more importantly, participate in your community and tell all their friends to come play along too.

Here's what most people with online courses and products are not admitting: very, very, very few will ever sell in the numbers you may be lead to believe.

Anyone who tells you that scaling your business and making passive revenue off digital products is easy, is likely selling a course on how to scale your business and make passive revenue off digital products.

I put out my first eBook in 2009, 1 year after I started my business and it was a 3-day green smoothie cleanse. It was $10, I sold about 200, and at the time had an email list of about 2,000 people. That kind of conversion today is nearly impossible and I have never experienced that level of conversion since. The whole idea of online programs in 2009 was brand new and few and far between.

I have read plenty about how online programs piqued in 2014, there was a surge in educational platform development in 2015, and it's possible we may soon see the decline begin, or at least, the riffraff will decline and the stars will shine brighter, as the reality of what it takes to make online products work, comes to light.

No one is talking about this as most people are working on appearing successful and rhyming off the number of 'figures' they earn per month- whether it's real or pretend.

A girlfriend of mine, with over 125,000 'fans' on her Facebook page called me in a panic late last January when her course, that she'd spent 10K filming and launching, had sold two spots the day before it was to debut (she was calling to gauge my opinion on whether she should run it anyway for those two people or call it off). She followed all of the launch strategies recommended by online course 'experts'. It just shows that there is no sure thing in this area.

Creating products, and putting them on your website, does not mean they will sell. People still want you, or maybe still want to get to know you if you're new. The most powerful audience and community grows over time and is often helped with live, in-person events. Putting in the time and effort, in most cases is necessary to gain a following that will feel confident in buying what you are selling online.

There are so many more important things that need to come first- establishing your brand, gaining confidence in your knowledge, establishing yourself as an expert, cultivating a community, participating in events (online or in-person), connecting with other complementary experts, working with clients, and building a reputation for being awesome.

And the reality is that when it is time and you are ready to launch those online products, it will never be as simple as hitting publish and watching the money roll in. There's a lot more to it than that.

The reason I am telling you this is not to discourage you. Not at all. It's very much the opposite.

If you are passionate about your work, and truly care about serving people with your knowledge, then continue to lead you.

My concern is that if everyone continues following a model that rarely actually works for new businesses, but is promoted as the secret sauce to success, too many of talented, wise and inspiring people will be discouraged and quit, because they've been led to believe things should unfold in a certain way.

You're way too good to fall into that.

Keep being awesome. And keep working. Work hard when things are going well and work hard when it gets tough- especially when it gets tough.