in this video I'm going to show you
seven different ways that you can sell
your online courses this has been one of
the most requested topics that I've been
getting in the comments so this video is
going to be the first in a series of
tutorials that I'm going to be putting
together over the next couple of weeks
so here is my plan this video is going
to walk through seven ideas or
strategies that I've either used myself
to sell online courses or that I'm
seeing other successful online course
instructors using and I'm going to show
you examples of each one in this video
to help explain each idea and so that
you can actually see how it works then
in future videos I'm going to put
together some step-by-step tutorials
that will walk you through how to
actually set up these systems so that
you can actually use them to sell your
courses so if that's something that
sounds interesting to you make sure that
you subscribe and turn on the
notifications for this channel now
before I dive into the sales strategies
one thing that I want to touch on first
is that in order for any of these things
to actually work in your business you
need to have a couple things figured out
first so for example you need to have an
online course that solves a specific
problem that at least some group of
people have the more people who have the
problem that your course solves the more
successful your course could potentially
be you can also think about this in
terms of a transformation if you don't
like the word problem but you should
have a clear idea of where your target
student is starting from and be able to
explain where they will be or the
specific benefits that they will get
from working through your online course
if you aren't clear on that yet you'll
want to spend some time clarifying and
refining your message so that you are
able to communicate the value of your
online course to your potential students
through the strategies that I'm going to
be showing you in this
video once you have your messaging
dialed in then you can start thinking
about your sales strategy so this is the
actual process that you will use to get
people into your online course and I
have seven ideas with examples that you
could potentially use these ideas range
from really simple things that you could
set up in a day or two to more complex
and a little bit more time-consuming but
potentially more effective strategy
number one is to create an email course
that leads into an email sale sequence
that sells your online course over a
period of about seven to ten days now
let me explain what this is and I'm
going to show you a couple of examples
because I think that this is one of
those things that sounds a lot more
complicated than it actually is an email
course is just a series of emails that
you write in advance
that give your potential student more
information about the topic that your
course covers here's a great example by
a woman named Meera cohan's Meera has
courses and books that teach people how
to use email marketing to sell digital
products and online courses she is
actually someone who I've learned an
absolute ton from about how to use email
courses to sell your online course so
this is a little bit of a meta example
but I want to show you exactly how she
does it because she is an expert at this
stuff so who better to learn from right
alright so here Amira's course is
unteachable and here is Mira's main
website she actually offers a couple of
different free email courses and each
one leads into the sale of one of her
products so if you only have one course
you would only need one of these to
start you wouldn't need four or five or
however many different email courses she
offers here so let's take a look at an
example of how this actually works now
right here she tells you who she is and
what she does and this is the first
thing that
you see on her homepage a right below
that it says join 10,000 plus biz owners
who have taken my free email marketing
course
let's make email finally work for you so
here she's telling you exactly what you
can expect if you sign up for her free
email course this is really important to
do we don't want to just say hey sign up
for my free email course we need to
explain the benefit that someone would
get if they sign up even if that thing
that they're signing up for is free then
if you click here where it says get the
first lesson you get this nice little
pop-up that reiterates the benefits of
signing up and lets you put your email
address in here now once you click on
the button she actually sends you to
what's called an upsell page and I think
that this is something that you should
pay attention to because this is
something that can help you generate
some additional revenue so here she's
not selling her online course right away
because in all likelihood this is
probably the first time that you or
someone else is visiting her site and
they might not be ready to buy a higher
priced product yet like an online course
because they need time to build a
relationship with her and get to know
her first and understand what it is that
she offers and see if they like her
teaching style but a really smart thing
that Mira has done here is to offer
people who are clearly interested in
email marketing a low-priced
template pack this is just a simple
digital product that probably only took
her a couple of hours to put together
and it complements the online course
that she sells it's important to notice
that this first offer doesn't take the
place of her online course so it doesn't
cannibalize it but it could still offer
a lot of value to someone who's looking
for a template or for a quick solution
so that they can set up an email
marketing sequence to sell their online
course or other digital product very
quickly and she's selling this product
for $17 for a lot of people that's not a
very big risk
that's something that's kind of like an
impulse purchase and studies show that
if someone purchased a low-cost product
from you and they're happy with their
purchase and that's a big part of it
this can't be something that as someone
doesn't like once they get it or they
feel scant if they like the purchase
they'll be more likely to purchase
something else from you in the future so
you could theoretically do the same
thing by pulling a template or a
worksheet or some other smaller piece of
content from your online course and
creating a small complimentary digital
product that you put into your email
sales funnel so let's get back to the
email course itself here at the top it
says thanks for signing up your first
lesson is on its way to your inbox so
let's go take a look at what she sends
so the first email is just a
confirmation email and having people
confirm their email is a really good
practice if you choose to use this
strategy you're going to need to get an
automated email software program to send
out your email course and you generally
pay for this kind of software based on
how many subscribers you have so you
want to make sure that all of your
subscribers are legit and that they
didn't just put in a random email
address so that they could get access to
your thing for free without having to
give their real email and you want to
have people on your list who are going
to open your emails and engage with your
content anyone else is just dead weight
and you don't want to have to pay for
those people so having people confirm
their email address takes care of that
so here we see that she wrote just a
simple message asking me to click the
button in the email to confirm that I
want to get the free email course from
her and it looks like she's set this up
using convertkit that's the same email
software that I use and I
happy to show you how to set all of this
up in a future video
so I'm going to click the button and
then I'm going to get a confirmation
page letting me know that I have
successfully signed up to receive her
email course now the only thing that I
might change about this page is that I
might actually tell people when they can
expect to receive the first email lesson
or I would direct them to go back to
their email right away and look for it
because I know that she does send it
right away
I think it's always a good practice as
both an online course instructor and
someone who is guiding potential
students through a process that will
eventually end in a sale to always be
super clear about next steps we never
want to like leave that open we want to
tell people exactly what to do and what
they can expect and where to go so what
does an email course actually look like
so it's basically five emails that just
answer questions concerns or objections
that your ideal student or a customer
might have
so you're basically educating them about
the benefits of solving the problem that
they already have in this case email one
is an introduction here you would want
to tell people a little bit more about
who you are what your experience is and
what you offer or how you help people
then you would briefly talk about what
they can expect to get from you in the
email course over the next couple of
days then you would move into the first
lesson which should consist of valuable
content that is interesting to the
reader this lesson just answers a
question that your student probably has
about your course topic now you don't
want to be pushing your online course
just yet not at this point you just want
to focus on delivering as much valuable
content as you
and at this point the juicer you can
make this content especially this first
piece the better because that's what's
going to make people want to continue
opening your emails and learning more
from you and this helps build a
relationship with your potential
students which makes it more likely that
they'll want to enroll in your full
course once you offer it to them so
you're going to write five to seven
emails that answer questions or provide
information that is directly related to
your online course you could also use
storytelling in these emails and you're
going to want to upload these into an
email autoresponder system like
convertkit or whatever you happen to be
using so that they can be sent out in
order each day automatically so no
matter when someone signs up they'll get
all of these emails in order over a
seven to ten day period or whatever
schedule you set for these to go out now
the next step is to write between three
and five sales emails so the first set
was educational the second set is sales
emails once the email course add-ins now
we're transitioning into actually
offering our course as a way for them to
continue learning with us and actually
asking for the sale Mira's email sales
sequence for her product and seven
course is actually very very simple it's
only three emails so the first email
introduces the course it tells you what
problem the course solves and what you
get when you enroll the second email
answers common questions concerns or
objections that someone might have about
the course so here we're talking
specifically about the paid version of
your online course some things that you
might include here could be how long you
have access to the course what is the
format of the course is there any
support provided by the instructor how
much time will the student need to go
through the course that's a big one a
lot of people are concerned about how
much time it's going to take and so on
you have
think about the questions that your
students might have and answer them here
so that's the FAQ email now there's a
third email that she sends out and it
lets people know that the special
discounted price that she offers is
expiring and that if you want to take
advantage of that discount this is the
time to enroll because it's going away
soon so this is one of those scarcity
tactics that kind of push people to make
a decision on whether or not to join
your course I don't think that there's
anything ethically wrong with doing this
in fact I would encourage you to try
using scarcity of some kind when selling
your online course because from my own
experience it will result in more sales
here's something else that I want to
show you so if we go to Mira's course
sales page here on teachable you can see
that she has this timer up here at the
top that says this special offer or
price is going away in X number of days
now what will happen is that when this
timer reaches 0 if I were to click on
the course link from the email that she
sent I would be redirected to a
different sales page that has the
regular price of the course and not the
discounted price so you can set
something like this up so that the
discount actually does expire
automatically after a certain period of
time from when someone either clicked on
the link for your sales page or from the
time that they opted in to get your
email course and you can set this up
using a tool called deadline funnel this
is something that I use in all of my
evergreen online course funnels and I'll
put a link for that tool in the
description below all right so that is a
basic email course funnel that leads
into the sale of an online course and
you can get more sophisticated with your
sale sequence her sequence was very
simple it only had three sales emails in
it but that's really all she needs
because this course is only $97 so it's
not a very high priced course and course
pricing is always relative and I
understand that $97 might be a lot to
some people but not a lot to others but
generally courses that are priced at
this
point aren't going to need a very
complicated funnel to sell you could
easily sell a $97 course using a simple
email sales funnel like this if you plan
to sell your course at a higher price
point you may want to include additional
emails in your sales sequence for
example you might want to include
student testimonials in your email sales
sequence and/or have a longer OpenCart
period you can also add in some of the
more sophisticated strategies that are
coming up
so just to recap the things that you
will need to set this up are an email
autoresponder program I recommend
convertkit I've been using it for years
I think that it's the perfect email
system for online course creators you
can actually try it out for a month for
free to set something like this up right
away and see if you like it before they
start charging you and you can find my
affiliate link for convertkit below if
you decide to sign up for a paid
subscription with convertkit I'll get a
little commission and it doesn't cost
you anything extra and I know that this
is something that everyone says but my
promise to you is that I will only ever
recommend things that I personally use
in my own business and that I have had
positive experiences with you will also
need to write five to seven educational
emails and then another three to five
sales emails then you would upload those
into your email system and add a link to
either your website a blog post a
youtube video or a social media post so
that people can sign up and actually go
through your email funnel and hopefully
purchase your course the second strategy
on my list is to run a challenge that
leads into a sale sequence at the end of
it now you may have seen these before it
seems like five day and seven day
challenge --is have become really
popular in the last year or two and this
is actually one of my favorite ways to
sell online courses there are a couple
of days to run a five day challenge you
can do this alive or you can pre record
the content now I'm going to tell you
how I did it using pre-recorded video
and then I'll tell you about an
alternative way that people are using to
run their challenges live now I am
someone who likes to plan everything out
I like to use script my videos or at the
very least have a detailed outline I am
NOT a fly by the seat of my pants kind
of girl I like to be prepared
honestly speaking in front of people
live is something that I find to be
horrific but I've managed to figure out
how to be okay on camera because when
I'm a filming content it's just me in
the room and I tell myself that I can
always edit things out and redo things
if I need to and so I feel okay about
that so my five day challenge consisted
of five pre-recorded videos that I'd
ripped out over the course of five days
and I hosted the videos inside of my
teachable account and then I would send
the links to the challenge videos each
day to the participants via email so
that they could watch the videos so the
challenge would officially start on a
Monday and that's when I would send out
the first video and then I would send
out a new video each day during the week
and the last video would go out on
Friday now what makes a challenge
special is two things one it's a
scheduled or time limited event so
people understand that this is special
content that isn't always available the
second thing is that this format helps
motivate people to actually take action
to achieve a specific result in a
relatively short amount of time now one
important sales or psychological
principle that you should be aware of is
that if you can get someone to take
action and you can get them a quick win
if they can see real tangible results
from working with you and it doesn't
have to be some massive transformation
it could just be taking the first step
toward a bigger goal that they have but
if you can help someone take action and
get a result they will be much more
likely to want to continue
learning from you by taking your online
course now why is that you've just
proven that one you know what you're
talking about
- you are someone that they can trust
three you just got them a result so
they're pretty happy with you and four
you've just given them momentum and a
certain percentage of people are going
to feel excited about the idea of
continuing on with you because they
don't want to lose that momentum they
want to keep going and taking action and
getting closer to their goal now I have
to say that a five day challenge might
not be right for every online course
business or it may not be the best tool
to use to sell your course for example
if you're trying to sell you know
serious training to larger businesses or
corporations that tend to be more
conservative they may not be super into
this so you really need to think about
who your audience is and who you're
selling to and whether or not they would
be receptive to this type of thing all
right so at this point I want to give
credit where credit is due
I actually learned about five day a
challenges from a guy named Zack
Spuckler and you can google him if you
want he used to sell an online course on
how to run five-day challenges I don't
know if he offers that course anymore
the last time I checked it didn't look
like he was doing that and to be clear I
never took his course but what I did do
is I studied how he ran his five-day
challenges to sell his courses and then
I took pieces from that that made sense
to me and I created my own five day
challenge system now he taught this five
day challenge process a little bit
differently than how I setup mine and I
kept a lot of notes from going through
his challenge so I'll share some of the
highlights that I learned from him with
you here so first when coming up with
the topic for your challenge or the
tagline I guess he used a very specific
formula and that formula went something
like this how did you blank in five days
without having to do blank in other
words this is what you're going to
accomplish
in five days and we're going to do it
without you having to do something that
is really unappealing in order to get
that result a more concrete example
might be how to launch an online course
in five days without an email list or
how to lose two pounds in five days
without a gym membership you're
essentially appealing to a result that
someone wants to get while easing their
mind about something that could turn
them off to taking action so that was
his formula for titling your challenge
in a nutshell I didn't personally use
that formula but it's a good formula for
most of the things that we're talking
about here so you could use that same
formula to title your email course or
webinar which we'll be talking about
next you could even use that formula to
come up with the title for your actual
course now you should never feel like
you have to follow someone else's rules
or processes to the tee you should
always do what makes sense for you and
sometimes that just means taking a
popular idea or strategy and tweaking it
a little bit to make it your own now the
second thing that Zack did a little
differently than I did when running his
five-day challenges was that he did a
live video on Facebook each day during
his challenge so for example every day
he would send out an email with that
day's lesson or action item and then he
would go live on Facebook at the same
time each day and he'd give a little
mini lesson and then answer questions
live for about an hour now like I said
going live on Facebook is not something
I was up for I'm actually extremely shy
and introverted and I would have been
read like a tomato if I had tried to do
that
I actually remember when periscope first
came out if anybody remembers that and I
thought I was just the coolest thing and
I wanted to do live streams so bad
because there's topics like this that I
really want to talk about and so one day
I tried it I remember I turned on the
camera
as soon as I went live I literally
turned purple like my skin changed color
and I couldn't speak my mind totally
went blank and then to make things worse
I dropped the phone so I couldn't even
turn the broadcast off right away and
luckily they're only like three people
watching but I was just so mortified and
I thought I was never going to be able
to do a video but eventually I got more
comfortable with pre-recorded video and
I'm still not 100% there but mentally
I've been able to convince myself that
if I record a video and it's terrible
and sometimes it is I can just delete it
and then move on with my life and forget
that it ever happened but anyway back to
the point there are different ways that
you can achieve the same objective if
going live on Facebook or Instagram or
YouTube is something that you are
comfortable with then go for it
you'll definitely benefit from having
more engagement with your subscribers or
potential students but if you are like
me and that sounds absolutely horrifying
to you you can pre record your videos
and then deliver them through a
teachable or some other platform that
supports video content you could embed
the videos into something like a lead
page that's just another software
program that you can use to create sales
pages and landing pages you could even
embed the video into your own website
and I'll include the links for all of
these tools that I'm kind of tossing out
here in the description so if you want
to check those out you can do that so
just to recap on the things that you
would need to set up a challenge at a
minimum you will need email software to
collect opt-ins or people who register
for the challenge you'll need their
emails you'll need five pieces of
content ideally in video format but it
could be text-based each daily lesson
should include an action item that moves
people one step closer to the end goal
of the challenge and you'll need a place
to host your challenge videos this could
be Facebook if you want to do live video
I uploaded my videos to teachable and
then released one each day during the
challenge
that's also an option if you want to
pre-record your content and then you
want to have an email sales sequence
just like we had with the email course
that I described earlier so between 3 &
5 sales emails that are actually selling
your course one last thing that I want
to mention about selling after a
challenge is that you can use the last
day of the challenge to transition into
your sales sequence so for example I
would always open the cart to my course
on the last day of the challenge and I
would leave it open for like four to
five days and then during that sales
period I would send out emails about the
course and then on the fifth day I would
close the cart so no more sales were
made after that time and if you haven't
heard about this before I want to let
you know that when you use this kind of
open and closed cart process you'll
typically make most of your sales on the
last day right before your enrollment
closes so that's just something to keep
in mind the third way to sell online
courses is one that you've probably
heard about before and that's webinars
you may have even sat through a webinar
presentation or to yourself personally I
love to watch and study other people's
webinars especially when it comes time
for them to actually pitch their course
I really don't care about what they're
selling usually I never buy anything I
just like to see their process it might
be only one who watches webinars for fun
I also really like to watch QVC for the
same reason even though I never buy
anything you can learn so much about
sales just by watching other people okay
so let's talk about what webinars are
and how they work so a webinar is either
a live or pre-recorded video that is a
combination of educational content with
a sales pitch at the end some people
will call their webinars master classes
or live trainings or online workshops
there's about a million different things
that you can call it but basically it's
just a slide presentation that's 1/3
educational content 1/3 sales pitch and
1/3 Q&A session at the end some people
vary those percentages up a little bit
but it's essentially a three-part deal
most webinars are just slide
presentations with a voiceover so if
you're someone who doesn't like to do
face to camera style videos this could
be a nice option for you a lot of people
use webinars to sell higher priced
courses however you can certainly sell
lower priced courses with a webinar as
well Amy Porterfield is a great example
of someone who uses webinars to sell
higher ticket courses effectively
according to Hurley this webinar she's
generated more than 15 million in online
course sales using webinars so she's
clearly doing something right however
her webinars aren't these over-the-top
productions she films them in her home
and they're usually just slides with her
doing a voiceover in the background now
what she does a really good job of is
keeping her audience engaged delivering
actual value during the education
portion and then transitioning
seamlessly into the sales pitch
Amy usually does live webinars that
coincide with her lunches and those only
happen a couple of times each year so if
you get a chance to watch one of her
webinars pay close attention to the
format that she uses how she interacts
with her viewers and how she delivers
the pitch for her online course
all right so amy was an example of
someone who uses live webinars to sell
an online course now I want to show you
an example of a pre-recorded webinar so
this is a David Siteman Garland web site
and just so you know I'm not an
affiliate for David or Amy
I haven't taken their paid courses so
while I am using them as an example this
is not an endorsement for the programs
that they teach that doesn't mean that
their programs are good or bad I just
can't endorse them because I haven't
used them I don't have experience with
them
can see here that he has what he calls a
free training this is for all intents
and purposes a webinar if I click on the
button that says to grab your seat that
will take me to the webinar registration
page where I can click register now then
I'll get this pop-up that lets me pick
the time and the D that I want to watch
this is actually referred to as a
just-in-time webinar because as you can
see here I can choose a time that's just
a few minutes from now
so this is meant to look like this is a
special event that's starting in a few
minutes and it just so happened that I
found this just in time to watch the
next session now David's site doesn't
say that this is a live presentation
which is a good thing because I'm pretty
sure of it it's not so I just registered
this page is going to give me a link to
watch his webinar presentation now you
can see down here that this webinar is
set up using a software called webinar
Jam so if you wanted to set something
like this up for yourself you could use
the same webinar gem software to do that
and I'll put a link to that for you
below next let's talk about format or
the different segments that make up a
webinar presentation now I've watched a
lot of webinars so I can tell you that
this is the basic format that everyone
seems to use for their webinar
presentations the first 3 to 5 minutes
are usually just an introduction if the
webinar is live you'll usually see the
presenter ask where people are calling
in from or a bill asks some other
question to get the audience engaged
then the presenter will read off you
know where people are calling in from
this is supposed to prove that the
presenter is actually alive and it taps
into people's desire to be recognized or
acknowledged so for example if I were to
call out your name on a live video you
might feel an instant can
Chintu me and that would get your
attention and make you want to stick
around that's the theory anyway and
that's why you'll see presenters doing
this all the time now for the next five
to ten minutes the presenter will
usually talk about their background and
why they're qualified to teach on this
topic essentially why you should listen
to them then for the next 30 to 40
minutes they'll present educational
content now the most popular format that
I keep seeing over and over and over
again is the template that Russell
Brunson teaches in his book experts
secrets and I'll link to that book below
it's a very interesting read I have to
say but my concern is that everyone I've
been watching is now following this
format and if you're someone like me who
watches a lot of webinars for fun it
really stands out and not in the best
way because you get the feeling that
someone is just following a template and
that they aren't really there to deliver
super valuable information or content it
feels really kind of prepackaged and
manufactured so take this video for
example I'm doing my best to share as
much value with you as I can and while
I'm trying to keep this information
organized so that I'm not all over the
place I think that you're hopefully
getting the impression that what I'm
offering you has real value because
that's where my intention lies I don't
have anything to sell you at the end of
this and I don't make courses about how
to make courses so you shouldn't
hopefully be feeling like I have some
ulterior motive other than to share what
I know with you and I certainly didn't
make this video based on some kind of
template now if I started each of my
videos by saying I'm gonna share the
three secrets to selling online courses
with you or I'm going to share the three
secrets to doing X Y & Z and then I
always follow that up with a pitch for
some product you are going to learn very
quickly but these
videos aren't about me providing value
or about you learning something valuable
rather they're primarily about me trying
to sell you something and that's kind of
the feeling that you get from this type
of webinar format now I know that that
format does work and I know that some
people use it really successfully and if
you want to learn all about this format
and the psychology that goes into it
you should read expert secrets for
yourself but I would caution you and
recommend making sure that your
presentations always contain real value
and a little bit of your own personality
and ingenuity
I wouldn't necessarily follow someone
else's template to the tee I think the
general concept of the expert secrets
webinar template is useful but it's so
overused at this point that I think
people really need to be doing more to
differentiate themselves especially if
you're in a niche that is bigger and
more crowded or where your competitors
are using the same template to sell
their courses because then your stuff
will just to blend in with the noise all
right back to the format out once the
education segment is over you'll
transition into a sales pitch for the
next 10 to 15 minutes this is where you
introduce your course you want to
clearly explain the problem that your
course Salt's as well as the benefits
that the student is going to gain by
going through it one tactic that I see
often during webinar sales pitches is
that the presenter will wrap up the
education component and see something
like this at this point you have three
actions action one is that you can do
nothing and your situation will not
improve option two is that you can take
what you learned here today in this
training and try to implement it on your
own and figure out the rest of the
process which is going to take you a ton
of time and you might not even be
stressful or option three you can enroll
in my course today and have me take your
hands in mine and guide you to the
result that you're after in a fraction
of the time beyond that cheesy
transition I told you I've watched way
too many webinars but you want to be
really specific about what is in your
course a lot of people will give an
overview of the course content and and
describe what you will actually learn in
each module you want to highlight any
workbooks group coaching calls support
groups or anything extra that does come
with the course a lot of course creators
will offer bonuses with the course I've
seen bonuses used as a scarcity tool for
example the presenter might say you know
if you enroll in the webinar or if you
enroll in the course before the webinar
ends you'll get this bonus some people
have multiple bonuses so they might have
a fast action bonus for enrolling before
the webinar ends they might have another
bonus if you enroll by a certain date
and then they might have another bonus
for people who pay in full instead of
using a payment plan and then there's
usually a slide that has an image of the
course and it lists everything that you
are getting along with these like blown
out of proportion values next to it so
some people are like all of these
combined add up to a ten thousand dollar
value but I'm not gonna charge you ten
thousand dollars for all of this you're
getting all of this today for the low
price of 1997 I personally hate this but
I guess that it works for some people
because everybody does it so you know
you can try it I would rather just be
upfront about the price and what you
know what I'm getting and not use all
these cheesy tactics but the fact of the
matter is that these tactics exist for a
reason and that's because for some
people they actually still work so I
would just say use your best judgement
if something seems cheesy or doesn't
feel authentic to you or good to you
don't do it I
authenticity is making a big comeback
right now because people are just tired
of the cheesy sales tactics so don't be
afraid to be yourself and definitely
convey the value of your course but that
doesn't necessarily mean that you have
to use all of these tactics that you see
other people using on their webinars but
it is fun to know what other people are
doing next after the pitch is made most
webinar presenters will do a Q&A session
for like another fifteen to thirty
minutes where they'll answer questions
from viewers and they'll welcome new
members who just enrolled in their
course and then it's over and once it's
over the presenter will usually send out
the recording to everyone who registered
because a lot of people don't actually
attend webinars live but some people
like me will always watch the recordings
so I do think that there is value in
sending out the recording so that people
can watch on their own time usually the
recording is only available for a
limited amount of time this encourages
people to actually watch it it usually
expires once the course closes the
fourth strategy that you can use to sell
your online course is the four-part
video series I've also seen people do a
three-part video series and I'll show
you an example of that in this section
now this is a strategy that was made
famous by Jeff Walker he's a well-known
online marketer and he actually wrote a
book about how to do this called launch
and I'll link to that in the description
below
the basic premise here is that you
create a series of videos that are
designed to build interest trust and
authority over a short period of time
this is kind of similar to my version of
the five day challenge with the
exception that there's no actual
challenge in this strategy the goal is
to use stories examples and information
to get people interested in your online
course or digital product he meaning
jeff recommends using open loop
at the end of each video now if you
haven't heard of an open-loop before
it's just an information gap or
cliffhanger this is the same tactic that
most television shows use so if you've
ever found yourself binging on a Netflix
series there's a reason why they end
each episode with an open loop or a
cliffhanger and it keeps your brain
thinking I need to know what happens
next
our brains naturally want to fill in
those information gaps so when we're
left with an open question or told a
story that's cut short we feel compelled
to find out what happened next
so we'll keep coming back for more each
and every single time a video series is
designed to capitalize on this
psychological principle Jeff Walker is
actually in the middle of launching his
course product launch formula so if we
go to his website we can actually see
what the four-part video series looks
like in action so here he shows you what
trainings are coming up over the next
couple of days and you can enter your
email address here to get access to all
of this information for free now at the
end of the fourth training he'll
transition into a pitch for his paid
course so if you are really interested
in learning how to use this method
I'd recommend starting with his book
launch to learn some of the psychology
behind this and get a good idea of you
know his whole process and then if you
have a chance to go through his video
series while it's live I would do that
just to see how he puts all of this
together again this is not an
endorsement for his course or product I
haven't taken his course I have read his
book and I did pick up some interesting
nuggets from it but I think that the
best way to learn how these things
actually work is to put yourself into
someone's online course sales funnel and
actually go through it study the videos
you know pay attention to the format
think critically about the relationship
between the free content that they're
giving away and what they're actually
selling or promising in there
course russell brunson the author of
expert secrets which i mentioned earlier
and the creator of clickfunnels
coined the term funnel hacking and
that's exactly what i'm suggesting you
do here analyze the emails pay attention
to how they're formatted you know what
type of language do they use how long
are you know are the sales emails study
the copy look at the sales page look at
how everything is structured now I never
recommend copying someone else of
verbatim or stealing anyone's content
that is not what this is about but what
we can do is study the general elements
and principles that they're using and
then apply them using our own content
and putting our own personal spin on it
in our own businesses you know Gary
Vaynerchuk has a saying look at what I'm
doing not at what I'm saying don't
listen to what I'm saying watch what I'm
doing and I think that that is the most
valuable piece of advice that I have
ever heard and that's exactly what I do
when it comes to this kind of stuff now
the reason why I don't personally enroll
or endorse many online courses that
teach people how to make courses is
because a lot of these people don't
actually teach what they are doing they
teach a watered-down version because the
things that they're actually doing to
make these massive amounts of money are
actually more advanced than what their
target market can really handle their
target market being mostly beginners now
I can't say for sure that everyone does
this but I have noticed it a lot in the
online course space and there's one
person out there in particular and I
won't name the name of this person but
they claim to have made millions with
their online course which literally
teaches people how to create online
courses but I can tell from hacking this
person's funnel from going through it
and analyzing what they're doing and
looking at their marketing but they're
using an advanced ad retargeting
strategy to make the majority of their
sales but that person doesn't teach how
to do that in their course they teach
really basic stuff like how to use
organic
Instagram traffic to fill up your course
and there's nothing wrong with using
Instagram to get people into your course
but it's just that that's not how this
person made millions of dollars in
course sales it's just a little bit
misleading in my opinion I wish people
would be more upfront about what they're
actually doing to achieve the success
that they're telling people they can
achieve but then not actually giving
them the solution to achieve that result
it's crazy
anyways so I always like to look at what
people are doing
I'm literally an internet stalker of
people who make online courses not in a
scary I'm gonna show up at your house
kind of way but I like to look at what
people are doing because that's going to
tell me way more than taking their
watered-down online course alright so I
just showed you an example of how Jeff
Walker uses this format for his online
course launches that happen once or
twice a year next I want to show you an
example of someone who uses a variation
of the four-part video series to sell
their online course in an evergreen
sales funnel and if you don't know what
that means an evergreen sales funnel is
just an online sales process that is
completely automated the funnel runs
24/7 if you set it up right you
shouldn't really have to touch it you
just have to monitor it and make sure
that it continues to make you sales and
if things start to go wrong then you can
start to tweak stuff but otherwise you
kind of set it and let it go so this is
Nick Stevenson's website he has an
online course that teaches
self-published authors how to sell and
market their books he uses a three-part
video series instead of a four-part
video series but the concept is pretty
much the same here so when you sign up
to get his free training he'll send you
video one via email then a couple of
days later you'll get video 2 in your
inbox and then a couple of days after
that you'll get video 3 I've been
through his funnel before so I know that
after video 3 is sent out you'll get a
series of sales emails for his online
course which is called your first 10
readers now here's what his sales email
sequence looks like the first email
introduces the course the second email
answers the question are you a good fit
for the course the third email
highlights a few of his students and the
results that they have gotten from going
through the course the fourth email lets
you preview the first module of his
course the fifth email announces that he
has just added a brand new bonus to
sweeten the deal but also to remind you
that enrollment is closing in the next
48 hours the sixth email is an FAQ that
is meant to overcome common objections
that students may have to joining his
program the seventh email highlights
more student success stories and also
reminds you that enrollment is closing
today and the EP email is the last
chance email reminding people that there
are only a few hours left to enroll so
his full sequence here is the three-part
video series followed by an automated
sales sequence that has eight emails
sent over the course of five days and he
also appears to be using the deadline
funnel software to create pages and
offers that expire automatically so he's
able to run this entire sales funnel on
autopilot without touching it if you
would like to go through his automated
online course sales funnel I'll put the
link in the description below so you can
check it out the fifth strategy that I
have for you is a free mini course that
promotes your full course at the end or
suggests your full course as the next
step this is a strategy that I've used
in the past and have had a good deal of
success with but I want to let you know
how I've used this because this isn't my
main online course sales funnel if you
haven't finished your course yet or even
started building it yet and you don't
have much of an email list I would
suggest thinking about creating a very
short version of your full course or in
other words a mini course and by short I
mean half hour to 45 minutes of
content it doesn't need to be any more
than that I generally like to take
either the summary approach where I'm
summarizing some of the main ideas that
I teach in my full course or I'll teach
something that is foundational to my
course in other words it's something
that my students should know or would
need to know in order to be ready for my
class or I'll teach something that is
complementary or closely related the
idea here is that this is a list builder
you're giving people something juicy to
consume while you are still building
your course to get them ready to work
with you further then once you're ready
to release your online course you'll
have a targeted list of potential
students to launch to who are already
familiar with your content and your
teaching style now you can increase the
effectiveness of a mini course by
allowing comments and questions on your
course lessons you can easily set this
up in most online course platforms then
you can email the answers to any
questions that you get to all of the
students who are enrolled in the free
mini course to create your email course
as you go along I usually like to
include a wait list forum at the end of
my mini courses that people can sign up
for this lets me gauge interest as I'm
creating my premium course and then I
might give people on the wait list a
certain percentage off the regular price
of the course or offer some kind of
early bird pricing for the first day or
two that I open the enrollment period
it's just an idea it's not something
that you have to do you could use a mini
course funnel to sell your online course
once it's launched but this is much more
of a pre-launch list building strategy
than like a long term evergreen strategy
now after your course does launch I
might still use this as a lead magnet
but I'll add on one of the other
strategies that we already mentioned
like a webinar or some other you know
video sequence to this to make it more
effective all right
I have two strategies left for you the
sixth strategy that I'm starting to see
more and more online course creators use
is a free consultation call so here's
how this works
the company or creator of the course
will put out a video or a PDF explaining
a little bit about the process that they
teach in their online course these are
usually higher ticket courses that come
with some amount of coaching or
done-for-you services at the end of the
video or PDF but there is a call to
action to set up a time to speak with
the creator or someone on their team so
that they can help you create a
customized plan for implementing their
strategy in your online course business
so here's an example from a site called
coerced clients calm I've been seeing
their heads everywhere so I had to take
a look at their funnel when you click on
their ad it takes you to this page where
you can download a PDF that allegedly
contains their new proven system for
getting course sales consistently and
effortlessly using a simple two-step
funnel
I'm not gonna comment on that but I
downloaded the PDF already and the
simple two-step funnel that they're
talking about is essentially this send
traffic to a landing page possibly like
this and then have a screening
methodology possibly like this now when
you download the PDF you get a video
from the creators on the Thank You page
so thank you page is just the page that
pops up after you opt-in for something
so the video introduces the creators and
tells you that the PDF that you
requested is on its way to your inbox
but they say how many times have you
downloaded a PDF or a video and never
watched it we want you to actually read
our PDF and then we want to go one step
further and help you implement the ideas
and strategies that you just learn and
you can do that by clicking and booking
a free call to get a custom game plan to
sell your course oh and also if they
feel like you would be a good fit for
their program you can talk about that on
the call so essentially this strategy
consists of a PDF download that leads
you to a landing page
you can sign up for a free consulting
session where they will then upsell you
into their online course and/or coaching
program whatever it is that they offer
now here's what you would mean to set
something like this up for your own
course so you're gonna need a PDF which
you could easily create in canva for
free you're gonna need landing page
software like leadpages or you could
just embed all of this into a page on
your own website
you're gonna need automated email
software I would use convertkit
and you would need a way for people to
schedule calls with you and you can do
that using a tool like calendly and
there's others like it that actually let
people schedule specific times to set up
a call with you and then of course you'd
need a place to actually host your
course and take payments like teachable
so if you're comfortable selling over
the phone and you want to be able to
screen your potential students before
you let them into your online course
this could be the strategy for you and
finally last but not least is the Amazon
book funnel and no this is not the free
book with shipping strategy that you may
have seen floating around online with
the click funnels people this is not
that I absolutely love this strategy but
I'm probably a little bit biased because
this is actually what I started out with
before I knew anything about selling I
kind of stumbled into this so before I
had an online course I self-published a
short book on Amazon it had the same
topic that I eventually created my first
course about and at the time I wasn't
even thinking about creating a course I
just really wanted to put all the
information that I had in my head into a
book that other people could use as a
reference guide after I self-published
my book on Amazon I started getting
questions from readers asking if I had
additional tutorials or an online course
on how to implement the ideas that I had
outlined in my book and that is how my
first online course came to be so the
next question would be how do you get
people who buy your book on Amazon
or download it for free to actually
enroll in your course what does that
look like so the way this works is you
include some kind of opt-in or bonus
material with the book so in my case I
started recording some tutorials that
people could download by following a
link that I put in the book but you
could offer an audio version for free or
create a mini course offer a template or
a worksheet that is a good complement to
the book anything that adds value to
what the what the reader is already
looking for is a good option now the key
here is that the reader has to give you
their email address in order to get this
bonus content now from there I had
people in my email system so I could
actually message them and let them know
that I also had an online course that
went even deeper on the topic of the
book and a certain percentage of the
people who had already purchased or read
my book would also enroll in the full
course now the reason why I love this
book funnel idea so much is because
Amazon is a giant search engine in and
of itself people go to Amazon because
they are looking to buy something either
now or at some point in the future
people aren't on Amazon to look at cat
pictures or to be entertained they're
there to buy and they're specifically
willing to purchase information which is
important for you as a course creator
another thing to note about having a
book on Amazon is that you can take
advantage of Amazon's advertising
platform now Amazon are kind of weird
because it's actually really difficult
to get Amazon to spend your ad budget at
least that's been my experience I do run
Amazon ads to my books and they are all
profitable so the ads themselves are
actually making me money through book
sales now I only make like two to three
hundred dollars a month in Amazon book
sales but I make a lot more than that on
the back end because I'm essentially
funneling people from Amazon to my core
is in tutorials so anything we make on
the book is just you know the cherry on
top so that's an additional income
stream that you might want to consider
that can pay off in a big way
on the back end also think about the
fact that when you have a book that has
good reviews that social proof almost
automatically increases your authority
in your niche this can be really helpful
if you're in a more competitive niche
because I can guarantee that your
students are probably going to do a
google search on you before they
purchase your course at least a good
percentage of them will and if you have
a book that's on Amazon that's going to
show up higher in the search results
usually than most other things because
of Amazon's website ranking Authority
now if the choice is between buying a
course from someone who has a book even
if it's a short book and someone who
doesn't you may have more perceived
Authority just because you have a book
on Amazon and that may win you more
sales okay I think that's a good place
to end like I said in the very beginning
of the video I'm going to be putting
together some additional step by step
tutorials based on you know whatever
feedback and interest I get from this
video and I actually want to show you
how to set up some of these systems so
that you can start trying them out with
your own online courses so we'll
actually dig into like the tech setup of
some of these things so if there are one
or two strategies that you are
particularly interested in let me know
in the comments and I will do my best to
get to those first I'm really enjoying
making these videos so please keep
letting me know what you're interested
in hearing more about and we'll go from
there thanks so much for watching I will
see you in the next video