If you’re newer to the online business world then you have likely heard a gazillion mentors tell you about needing to add passive income to your business. They have likely also told you that you need to do this in the form of an online course. Sounds great right? Record a course once and keep earning money from it… it seems like a great way to earn cash without needing to do as much. So, when is the best time to think of launching an Online Course?

I will be diving into the truth behind “online courses” today and I will honestly tell you when I think is the ONLY good time to launch a course. But before we start with that, I want to give you some truths to keep in mind when you think of building your “one-to-many” business. I want dive too deep into them here but I will link to separate articles which I recommend you read.

1. People always tell you that you HAVE to do things one way or another because that is what they SELL

The first thing I need to be honest with you about is that no one on the internet is creating content without the intent to sell you something off the back of that content. This is marketing.

I talk about something, you find it interesting, you want that, I will sell it to you.

There is nothing wrong with this, it’s how marketing works. It’s how you buy make up. It’s how you buy your car. It’s how you get sold on anything and everything.

Create desire, and then make an offer.

So, when person A talks about how they made millions with webinars, it’s because that’s what they want to sell you on. If you don’t believe that it’s possible to do that, you will not buy.

Person B tells you that they made millions running ads, because that’s what they want to sell you on.

So you are not getting any unbiased information on the internet, because we all had different paths and we all had success with different methods.

The beauty of this is that you can now see that it doesn’t matter what strategy you choose. Because they ALL can lead to success for you – so you just pick what you LIKE, what you resonate with, what feels easy and fun to you.

And you can stop worrying.

You’re welcome.

2. Most online business groups are scarily close to qualifying as a cult

I didn’t realise this until a couple of years ago, because I had never really investigated what makes a cult a cult. I thought always of extremist groups etc. and not of those people that surround me every day. The people that I am working for.

Many business groups in the online business space come scarily close to being nothing more than a cult.

They do not operate in your best interest, but only in the interest of lining their own pockets.

And they tell you that you will need to put out a course, just like they did and if you do that, you will make millions.

And if you succeed, it’s all on them for giving you this information. And if you don’t, it’s all your fault.

I don’t want to take this post too off-topic so I have a separate post here on warning signs that you’re favourite online business group is closer to a cult than anything else.

Read More: When your online business group is more like a cult.

So, what I’m trying to tell you, is to just be careful WHO you take advice from and what their intentions are.

3. The hay day of “record one course and make millions” is over (for most people)

A few years ago the pattern was simple. Start your online business. Offer a service to 3 customers and get some moderate results. Package that into a course and employ some marketing tactics and make a lot of money. Keep increasing the price. Build your cult and get rich.

Many people are now becoming more and more aware of this tactic and it’s no longer working.

That’s why we’re seeing more and more online business leaders pivot from their usual tactics to now telling people how “honest” they are and how they “had a change of heart around their pricing” and how they “want to be more affordable” – they are not saying this because that’s what they feel but because they don’t want to be seen as “one of them”.

Again, it’s marketing.

Now this to me is a bit like that boyfriend that tells you all sorts of things to keep you there, while equally treating you like a pile of doggy-doo-doo. There we call it gaslighting, in the online business space for some reason we don’t.

Fact is, things are changing. Courses are still selling but not in the way they used to. And not in the format they used to. And more potential customers are observing longer before buying, because they want to make sure they actual do get a return on their investment – and they’re not joining a cult.

Most of the big business honchos are relying on getting more people into their cult, so their “1000 true fans” can keep buying more expensive products from them. It’s not in their interest to sell you a solution because you won’t buy another thing if the first thing solved all of your problems.

So, if you’re thinking of developing a course, please make sure you’re not just learning from people who are relying on building a cult, that you understand how to market in a way that is genuine and that you’re not building a mediocre course as a get rick quick scheme, because it won’t work.

So, When is The Best Time to Think of Launching an Online Course then?

The easiest way to start a business is to offer a service one-on-one. Focus on actually helping people solve a problem. Do this consistently. Make your service better. Build your base team.

You do not need to add a course into your business for a LOOOONG time.

Most people can get to mid-six/seven figures annually with just a really solid service offering. If you cannot find customers for a one-on-one service, or if that service doesn’t get people results consistently you do not HAVE a replicable system that you can package into a course.

Get better at doing the thing. Or pay someone else to do this thing better for your customers.

You will reach the point of developing one-to-many offers when you’re at the point that your one-on-one offer is solidly working. You know how to market it, you know how to sell it, you know how to deliver and get results and you’re now maxed out on how many more people you can help.

[You see how I said “how many more people you can help” instead of “how much more money you can earn”? That’s because if you only have money as your end goal, you’ll develop a cult. I’ve seen good people turned bad by the bucket load over the last 7 years.]

Now, a course is NOT the only way you can scale up your offer. An ethical person who I recommend following who explains this very clearly is Breanne Dyck from the VisionaryCEO Academy. You are better off retaining as much of a one on one component in your programme as you possibly can while also scaling it up. This is proven to get better results for your clients and running a business isn’t about exploiting low paid labour while you are sipping cocktails on the beach (although Tim Ferris of course will have you believe that this is okay).

You could add group sessions TO your one-on-one component, you can work with other experts to deliver SOME parts of your offer, there are many ways in which you can help more people, and a course isn’t just one of them.

But let’s say you DO want to add a course to your line up because you have something that will help people get a baseline in place and a course is the best format for you to deliver this. When is The Best Time to Think of Launching an Online Course?

Then my criteria for this is:

• you have developed a replicable system that you can clearly distil into lessons for a course
• you have used this system on a wide variety of customers and it works and gets results for the people that do the work
• you can clearly communicate WHO it is for and WHO it is NOT for
• you can clearly communicate the specific measurable outcome this course generates AND you’d be happy to provide a guarantee of this outcome (and the outcome is not “you will feel happier”)
• you have a large enough audience that at a conversion rate of only 1% the effort is worth it
• you are willing to invest into building your email list via ads to be able to regularly offer this program AND you’re still profitable even when you’re now PAYING for those leads. Or you accept that you will maybe sell one or two of these courses per month.
• you are able to invest in team members (for ads, for tech support, for customer support etc.) and STILL be heavily profitable on this offer
• you are not going to rely solely on fake marketing (like fake countdown timers and fake limitations on an evergreen course) to sell this course time and time again
• your pricing matches what people actually get from the course (and by that I don’t mean the number of videos but how much input people are getting from an expert into THEIR business which will directly influence the results they get from said course)

Now you see a lot goes into producing, marketing, selling and supporting just ONE online course. All of this effort takes focus away from your core offer that pays the bills. And from what I have observed most of the time this isn’t worth the effort and stress.

A note for the multi-passionate business owners like me

Now, we have those of us that may be blessed with a brain that just wants to die thinking of delivering the same offer and saying the same in your marketing for 2+ years. We are multi-faceted and we have many interests that we need to serve in our business, that’s why we love our business.

In this case, I’d employ a strategy that works for you (back to point one, DO what lights you up).

The important thing that I will still say is that I DO NOT suggest trying to run 8 entirely different businesses. It will kill you (I tried!).

Combine these offers into the business of you.

Make sure people know that you are the amazingly weird person that combines talking about A and F through a filter of K. A truly unique approach.

There are many people that do this VERY well (Dame Jue and Elizabeth Goddard come to mind), but you need to unite as much of this as possible and be okay with being known as the lady that talks about these 3 (or more) things.

And you need to live with the fact that you need to find a way to sell all of this stuff, and that you will likely NOT end up with a very simple business if you’re not careful.

I worked for a client for the last 4 years with 50 different offers and all of them were selling okay, but none of them were selling REALLY WELL. Because we always had to promote so many different things at different times of the year that we as a team of 18 were too busy to optimise any of the offers.

That is an entirely different business model and takes a different kind of person to pull off.

Right, I hope this gave you some perspective and some food for thought around When is The Best Time to Think of Launching an Online Course and the online business world in general, when is the best time to think of launching an online course and why you would even want to do that.