Before you ever create an online course, it’s a good idea to prove the concept before spending time and money to build it.
It’s important to note that even though people saying, “Yeah, I’d totally buy that!” is completely validating to your psyche, it doesn’t actually validate the course idea.
The only way to prove that a course will actually sell is to sell it!
Once you’ve pre-sold it, you can use that money to actually dump into the creation of the course itself.
Here’s how to do it:
Establish your expertise.
Determine what you’re an expert in (or just a little bit better than everyone else). You’ll use that as the basis for your course.
Research.
Do some research to ensure that this concept is already proven (you don’t want to ever be the absolute first to sell something to someone). If you can’t find anyone who has ever sold a course on your idea before, then you may want to consider how to re-package your idea (or even a completely new idea).
Create a course outline.
After doing research, make a complete and detailed outline of what you’d like for your course to include.
Announce the beta-version of your course.
Announce this course to your following (and cold audiences via Facebook Lives or a webinar), and ask them to opt-in to a beta-version of the course. Tell them what date the course will be available (give yourself a few weeks to a couple of months). You can do this by creating an actual sales page for your course and having people purchase access to your soon-to-be-made course.
Accept pre-sales for a limited amount of time.
Communicate a period of time for when you will be accepting beta-users. If you’ve had sufficient pre-sales, you can move forward in creating the course. If not, you can either re-frame the course and try another round of pre-sales, or you can refund anyone who has given you money and go back to the drawing board.
Going through this process will allow you to validate your idea before wasting a significant amount of time and money on a product that won’t sell. If successful, it also allows you to use the money made to create and advertise your course even further.
Do not create a course before proving it’s concept first.
