#2 - What’s the BEST - A course, membership or mastermind?

Really important and something that I really encourage people to think about at the start, even if you don't plan on doing any paid ads yet you will later, is that it allows a margin for marketing, which means it allows a little bit of extra buffer within your product price to be able to run some paid ads.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd, Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking, nerdy and sharing that things that actually work to help you do what you do online, but better, easier, and with a ton more profit, too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hey. Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode number two of the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host, Kate McKibben, and today we are going to be diving into one of the big questions that people ask around creating their first digital product or even creating the next digital product. And that is what is the best type of offer to actually create? Because there's so many different offers out there, so many different ways to structure things, ways to set things up. There's courses as memberships, as masterminds. There's a whole bunch of hybrids in between. Which one is actually going to be best? And by best I mean most enjoyable for you to run, the easiest for you to sell, and the most profitable at the end of the day as well. So which one is going to be the best? That is what today's episode is all about. So let's dive on in first of all, before we start going through them individually. And I'm going to break them down, the pros, the cons, and some extra tips for how to add a little bit of extra profit to each of the different types of offer types. I wanted to just add a quick little caveat because I personally believe that every business needs to be created deliberately and strategically to suit the wants, the needs, and the dreams of the actual business owner. Otherwise, what is the point right now? I know this because I didn't do this first time around. I'm actually on business number three now, guys. And it took this turn around. It took me getting it very, very wrong the first two times and learning each time as I went to finally have that, you know, that happy mixture of doing something that I love, delivering it in a way that still allows me the time and the freedom to do for the rest of my life and the rest of the things that I want to do and that is profitable as well. Um, I managed to get two out of three Both times with the other ones. Uh, but this time round I got three out of three and I can tell you that it is definitely a better and a more enjoyable and as I said, more profitable place to be in. So that's, you know, what I want you to think about first before we sort of start diving into, you know, running a course, running a membership, it well worth you actually sitting down, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen and thinking about what is it that you actually want from your business? What is your. Not just the dream business, which, you know, the shiny big numbers and things like that, but at the end of the day, also at the start of the day, imagine yourself, you know, waking up in the morning and feeling really excited about your day ahead. And then what does that day look like? Like where are you working, who are you working with, how much are you working? Are you working, are you working directly with clients or are you doing behind seen stuff? Do you have a team they really think about, like what kind of business do you want to have? And because you need to know that before you can then, you know, create the offers, create the structure, create systems, create the team to help you grow that and create that. But you need to have that bigger vision first. So there's a whole other podcast topic and we will definitely do an episode on that, but I just need to touch on that first, that if you need to stop now for a second and hit pause and sort of refresh your memory on what it is that you're actually building before we start going through these pros and cons and the more tactical stuff, it's going to help you to be able to see which one is going to be the right one for you. Because at the end of the day there is actually no best, you know, model or best business model. Just universally for something to be the best, it has to be the best for you, for your situation, for your unique talents, gifts, your wants, your needs, your dreams, your, you know, that's, that's what really kind comes down to defining the best. Um, so having said that, let's dive on in to the pros and cons because, you know, I, as I said, I have done all of them and often more than once. And so I've definitely seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and I'm going to share it with you all now. So first off, I want to start with good old fashioned courses or programs. This is basically where you sit down, you think about one ideal client, you think about one result that they want you map out how to get them from where they are to where they want to go. And you break it down usually into some step by step modules which are usually released either daily, weekly or monthly, depending on how chunky they are and how you sort of structure things out. Now, creating a course, this is actually where I recommend everybody starts. So if you've, and particularly if you've already done some one on one work and you know, you definitely before you go in and create a course, you have to have, you know, walked the walk a little bit and you have to go on out there and mastered your craft and know enough about the subject that you're teaching to feel comfortable to then go and teach it to other people. That's obviously step one. But I think that a course, if you are currently thinking I need to create some kind of offer or program or something that is more leveraged or that just gives me another revenue stream, I think the course is definitely the one to test things out on. And there's a few reasons for that. So first of all, courses I've found traditionally are actually easier to sell than the other options. And that's because as long as you do it right, there should be a really clear client in mind and a really clear outcome from that course. Like the course is usually it's, it's a container, it's a, you know, it's four weeks or it's eight weeks or it's, you know, sometimes it's 12 months. But it's normally like you'll start here, you'll learn this, this, this, you'll do this, this, this and you'll come out here. So it's really easy to then communicate the benefits and communicate to who this is for and who it's not for and you know, show them exactly what they're going to get. So for something that is, you know, fairly intangible, which are you. And any kind of sort of digital learning usually is the course is the most tangible of that because it's usually you'll do step one, step two, step three, step four, and then you'll be here also. Usually they're easier to run as well because again they have that structure. So whether you're running them evergreen, so all year round, or whether you're doing them with live launches so a couple of times a year and everyone goes through them together again because you have that structure, it's much easier to say, okay, you start here, then you do this, you do this, you do this. It's easier to map out support to go with it. And that just makes it easier for you to then plan out your year, plan out launches, plan out holidays, things like that as well, rather than something that is running constantly, all the time like a membership or a mastermind does. Profit wise, you know, dollars and cents wise courses do pretty well as well. Again, it depends on your market. And I've seen people create super profitable courses that were $197 and also ones that were $2,000. So usually your course price is somewhere in between there. I think the sweet spot is between 500 and $1,000, usually, particularly if you're going to go evergreen. But again, depends on the outcome, depends on the market, depends on your level of expertise. So, but you know, that's still, you know, it can be a really profitable price when I'm working with people to, you know, to figure out their offers and to make their offers what I call funnel friend, which just means that they're, you know, they're easy and fun to deliver, they're really easy to sell, and they're profitable. That price point, as I said, that sweet spot between 500, $1,000 is sort of where most people kind of end up. And it. And the reason it's such a sweet spot is it's a doable investment, obviously, you know, depending on different target markets, things like that. But it also is enough of an investment that it's going to encourage people to actually take action, to actually go in and at least start and work their way through the, through the program, start getting results, which is very. And thirdly, and this is really important and something that I really encourage people to think about at the start, even if you don't plan on doing any paid ads yet you will later, is that it allows a margin for marketing, which means it allows a little bit of extra buffer within your product price to be able to run some paid ads. And if you're wanting to be able to grow, you want to be able to scale at some point, not right away, but at some point you are going to want to do that. So allowing a margin for marketing is definitely going to make your life easier down the track. Now, my best tips when it comes to creating and running an online course is that I would recommend a strategy of both regular launches and a constant Evergreen funnel in the background. So you can do this for the same, you know, have the same course running on Evergreen as well as doing some live launches a couple of times a year. The goal really, and this is what I, one of the things I work with my clients on is Having the goal is that the evergreen funnel should cover off your bread and butter expenses like the cost of running your business, the cost of paying yourself, and preferably a little like 20 to 30% buffer, then your launches should be the icing on the cake. They should be the extra profit. So that's, you know, that is a model that I've seen work really well again and again. And focusing on doing that for the first couple of years, it allows you to, even if your list is small and your budget is small, it allows you to be getting enough sales regularly enough that you know you're going to have that confidence, you're going to have that reliability and you're also going to have that chance to be testing and tweaking and perfecting, you know, everything you're doing in your launches, everything that you're doing in your funnel so that they're really, really solid. And you will be amazed at after, you know, six months, 12 months of doing this and, and focusing on selling one course multiple times over that kind of six 12 month period, you'll be amazed at how far you can come and how you know easily that you can then scale after that. So that would be my tip number one is having that combo of both never green funnel and a, you know, a mixture of regular or semi regular launches. Plus the other way to increase your profit with an online course is to have a simple upsell or downsell or both sequence. Don't recommend you do this the first time around, but once you have your course up and running, once you've maybe launched it a couple of times, that can be some of the little tweaks you can look to add. And again, I'm going to do a podcast episode on this soon on exactly what goes into each of those because they're not as complicated as they sound and they can add an extra like 20 to 30% to a launch or to a funnel. So they're really, really powerful. And the final piece of advice I would have anyone thinking about creating a course right now is to make sure that you don't get so wrapped up in the marketing and the cool tactics and the what's next and how can I grow it that you don't spend the time making sure that your program is amazing and making sure that the people in your program are getting fantastic results. I'm not saying I want you to take responsibility for every single one of them actually showing up and doing the work, because you can't do that. You have to acknowledge that, you know, you've Done your bit. You've provided great information, you've provided great support. You're there to help them, but they've got to come and, you know, they've got to actually do the work themselves. But you still want to make sure that you have spent the time listening to the feedback, going through, perfecting and updating and just making sure that your program is the best it possibly can be, that it is delivering the best results it possibly can. Quite often for a lot of people, the first course they create has got way too much stuff in it. I call it the kitchen sink course. It's where you basically feel like to be able to justify having any kind of profitable price, you have to teach people absolutely everything you've ever learned ever about a topic. And usually what happens is you just kind of overwhelm people and freak them out. So normally this is really common. People do this kitchen sink course first up, run it a couple of times. People aren't completing it. The feedback they're getting is, oh, my gosh, there's so much great stuff in here. But. And then people sit down, go through and go, well, okay, what do they actually need? What's actually the minimum that they need to get the result.

The best result they can, the easiest. And then you go through and you pull a whole lot of stuff out, and then all of a sudden people are going through and completing more and getting better results. So extra bonus tip is to make sure that your program is amazing because the testimonials that you get, like, the more amazing testimonials you have, the easier it is to sell your program. So it is worth making sure it's amazing, not just because it, you know, it's the right thing to do and it's going to make you feel good, it's going to make your clients happy, but because also it makes your marketing much easier down the track as well. All right, guys, on to product type number two. And that is a membership. Now, how a membership is different from a course or a mastermind is a membership is usually something where people pay a recurring monthly subscription or membership, funnily enough, like joining a gym. And every month they will. That will give them access to, you know, to something. The most common models will be a. There'll be some new content that comes out every month, and then maybe there's like a Facebook group and some group support and things like that included as well. There are a lot of pros and cons about running a membership. I know some people who run amazing memberships and they Love it. And they're really, really profitable. But to be honest, the membership model is one of my least favorites, particularly for people who are just starting out. And, you know, I've run three of them in slightly different models for each time. Uh, so, you know, I can, I can say this hand on my heart that I know all the cons and the pros to this particular model. And one of the things that I find that happens with membership model is that people think at the start they're like, oh, this will be easy, right? They think it'll be the easier one. They think it's gonna be easier to sell because it's cheaper and they think it's going to be easier to deliver because I just have to create this one piece of thing and, you know, content every month rather than sitting down and having to map out an entire course. Unfortunately, that's, you know, quite a short sighted view of easy. I would say that memberships are actually far harder and far more work than a, either a course or a mastermind. And they also can be far less profitable. And the reasons for that is this. So when work wise, yes, it's easier to get started to just have to down and create one thing and then go out and be able to sell it and say, he's got this first month's content. But you then kind of become a slave to creating content all the time. And I tell you what, creating content for most people is one of the things that they end up dreading the most. And it's like looming there every month and it just seems to come around again and again faster and faster. And you know, very rarely do people, especially after like 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, are people looking forward to creating that content. So yes, you can outsource that, you can get guest experts to do it for you, but then you have to actually then manage them, make sure they're doing it, check it, things like that. Like, it's just, there's a lot of admin, there's a lot of time. It also isn't easier to sell just because it's cheaper. This is one thing again, I've, I've tested this extensively and I find that it is pretty much just as difficult. And that is it requires just as much persuasiveness and just as much effort from your end as far as like creating emails and launch stuff and all of that behind the scenes jazz. To sell something that's like five hundred to a thousand dollars as it is to sell something that's $37 a month or $27 a month or whatever. It's only marginally like the difference of your conversion rates is going to be really small. And sometimes actually the more expensive thing converts better because people, because with a course it has that clear, you know, container of what exactly is expected in it and what's going to happen and what they're going to get out of it. Often with a membership, people struggle to be able to articulate well exactly what the benefit of the membership is other than, hey, you're going to have access to all this ton of stuff. And to be honest, most people these days are on information overload and having access to a ton of stuff isn't that desirable. So you need, need to, and I'm not saying that you can't do it and can't do it well and can't sell the hell out of it, but you just need to make sure when you're thinking about what is the purpose of this membership, what is the benefit to the people in it, that you really actually stop and think about that really clearly. So you know that it's not just about pumping out quick, easy content for you and having a recurring revenue stream. You have to think about a really clear benefit for your community and for the people in that membership. So tips wise, as far as making your membership as amazing as possible, if you do choose to go down that route, is that I would recommend a couple of things. First of all is there's a mantra in the membership community and that is that people will buy for the content. So they basically they will sign up for the promise or for what this problem is that you're promising to solve, but they stay for the community that you create. So you need to both have amazing and specific content and you need to spend the time, the energy, cultivating a community that is engaged. That is something that people want to stay in even and would want to stay in even if they never actually checked out a module or a new training.

One of the ways that works really well to do that is, and this also will help to increase your profits and cash flow as well. So it's just a winner all around is to really focus on, make really focus on selling your annual plans. So annual or lifetime plans, because when people sign up for one month, they may jump in once and then get distracted and then you've kind of lost them. If people have signed up for a year, they've paid for a year, you bet that just the psychology wise that they are going to be more committed, that they're like hey, I'm going to be in here and making the most of it because I've said I'll do this for a whole year. So they're going to, even for the first few weeks and when you run a launch and get a bunch of people coming in who've committed for a year and they're in and they're excited and they're wanting to engage, that is a really good kickstart to your community versus people who are like, I'm just here to check it out, see if it's for me, see if I like it. That which is kind of like the headspace of someone who's going month to month. So that would be my probably number one tip when it comes to membership is really, really focus on selling your either annual plans or even lifetime plans and make sure that they have got some extra great bonuses. It's not just about being a money saver. It's about, you know, having some awesome extra bonuses that are really going to make it super desirable for people to invest that extra time and money. The second tip I would have for making your membership as amazing as possible is, and this is just to save yourself from being a slave to creating content day after day after day, or at least month after month after month. And that is sit down at the start and just like you were creating a course, sit down and think about what is that end result that you want people to have that you know that people want and you're going to help them through the information that you're going to provide, the training to provide, the tools, whatever it is you're putting into your membership and work out what the steps or the phases or whatever it is are like. You want to have a roadmap for these people and also for yourself for the content you're going to create. And if there's any way that you can figure out a way of not of basically being able to run trainings more than once. So I've seen some fantastic memberships which are in the fitness and health space where, you know, they have every month a training comes up and it's a, you know, it's a new meal plan or it's a new workout plan or whatever and it's available for that month and everyone's excited and they do it together and then it goes away and the next one comes out the next month. And the beauty of this is that they only had to have 12 and that people didn't care that they were getting that same thing again next June because it had been 12 months since they'd done it. Everyone was doing it together and it was just the fact that, you know, they were cycling through these 12 things like they, they didn't have any other way to access it, so they weren't feeling like it was being repeated, if that makes sense.

So if there's some way that you can figure out, you know, how to do that. And I've seen people do this over, you know, they, there might be like 24 things that everyone in your target market needs to do to get from A to B. And you're going to just have this running loop of two years of going through each month. You're all going to do one together. And you know, something like that, it will just. If you can figure out a way, only if it makes sense, don't try and force it. But if you can figure out a way of doing that, it'll make your life so much easier. It means you can just create the content once and then you can run it, you know, again and again. And if you do it right, people will be happy to even cycle through it because maybe the first time, you know, it's two years later, things have changed for them and you know, they've been benefit for them to do it again and to improve again. So just a little extra, you know, sort of tip for making your memberships amazing. Hey guys, it's just Kate here. So first of all, I just had to quickly stop by and say thank you so, so much for listening to and supporting my brand new podcast. It really means the world to me. Thank you. And to help kick this puppy off with a real bang, I actually have an amazing free bonus just for you guys, which is I'm giving away access to my 5 day mini business accelerator workshop worth $97 totally for free to everyone who leaves a 5 star review of the Doing it online podcast on itunes right now. This five day workshop walks you through creating your own killer online business plan for your online course business. One that is scalable, profitable and enjoyable too. It's chock full of my very best lessons and strategies from over 13 years online. And today it's yours for free. All you have to do is step one, open up iTunes, click on this podcast, click, write, review and then click those little five stars and share what you love most about the show. Step two, head to katesbonus.com that's K A T E S B O N U S.com Kate's bonus and pop in your contact details and itunes account name so we can know the review is from you and we can send you your login details for your bonus. It's that simple. Step one, leave a five star review. Step two, head to Kate's Bonus.com and send us your details. And that's it. As an extra little thank you, I'll be choosing my favorite reviews every week and sending that lucky reviewer an exclusive I do it online mug so you can sip along in style while you listen to your favorite show. So what are you waiting for? Hit pause, go leave that review, then head over to katesbonus.com, pop in your details and claim this amazing five day workshop for yourself. I'll see you inside. Okay, guys, lucky last offer type is the mastermind, or I call the higher touch hybrid, which is something that's becoming a bit more common. So what is this? Well, basically this is a higher price program. This is normally between 500 to $2,000 a month where people are coming into a small intimate group. There's usually a lot less structure of training depending on sort of where you're sitting with that price point. You may have some in person or even virtual retreats. There may be some monthly or quarterly one on one. There's probably definitely at least monthly, if not weekly group hot seat kind of sessions. And this really is for when people are, you know, this is really suited for people who have done a lot of one on one work, who are more of that sort of coach type of background or expertise, but who want to be able to scale up the number of people that they are able to work with, that they're able to help and do it in a leveraged way that still feel, still gives you that one on one connection, still feels quite high touch masterminds are amazing. I've been in a lot of them myself. I think in the right niches with the right, you know, coaches. They can be really transformational and they can make a really big difference and. But they definitely require the right type of person and the right setup for them to run well.

So for me personally I prefer more of that, what I call a high touch hybrid because I'm a super introvert. I prefer to not have to do a lot of one on one or do a lot of in person stuff. So I've got a program which is called Ecourse Empire, which is a high touch hybrid program. What that means is it's all virtual but we have a lot of support. We also have actually a built in curriculum. So it's kind of hybrid between a course and a mastermind. So you still get great access. We have week, we have twice weekly actually hot seat calls with myself and with guest experts. And we also have an amazing Facebook group. People can ask questions in between. We also have literally a step by step curriculum to get people from, you know, point A to point B. And for my case, the point A to point B was course creators. Getting them to having, scaling up and creating an automated six figure funnel for their courses. So, you know, that's what I call high touch hybrid. It's that it's a blend of curriculum and more support than what you would get from a standard course. Whereas your traditional mastermind there'd be usually there isn't much of a curriculum. It's more about having these amazing in person retreats. But you know, you kind of got to sit down and figure out if you're considering doing something like this, which is going to work the best for how you like to work. As I said, I went the high touch hybrid because I'm super introverted and also because I have a small child and trying to organize in person stuff is just, just, you know, it's just a nightmare. And I'm kind of glad that that's the way that I went given that the current, you know, COVID 19 stuff that's going on right now and you just can't do in person events. However, I know some people who, they get up in front of a room of people and they just light up and they love it and they love nothing, nothing more than that. So a mastermind with in person retreats is brilliant for them. So again, it's really, as I said at the start, sitting down, figuring out what is going to work best for you. Now the people who I think that a mastermind works really well for is as I said, people who are a coach already who already have a really great track record of working one on one with people and helping people make amazing transformations and they just want to be able to leverage that a bit more. It also works really well for people who want to be able to jump up a couple of income levels and have that reliable regular revenue coming through, but only have a small list or a small following. Because with a mastermind you probably need, you know, to get started maybe 10 people and then usually between 10 and 20. If you're doing the traditional mastermind model is about the number of people sit on and if you have, you've got 20 people paying you $1,000 a month, that's, you know, that's a pretty good baseline to, you know, to jump to Pretty quickly. So.

And you can do that, I said with a really small list, like making 20 sales from a small list is really doable versus in comparison, if you were trying to make similar money from say a membership site which is $20 a month, you'd need a thousand people. And if you're. Even if your conversion rates would double with the Mastermind offering, you would still need tens of thousands of people on your list to get to that, if not more. So again, that's why I think it's really important, important to, you know, when you're thinking about what offers are going to work best for you, think about how you like to work and also think about just realistically, where are you now? What's, what's going to work for your business? As far as advice for how to make the Mastermind or the High Touch hybrid work, I really loved, and I think my clients have really loved having that sort of step by step kind of curriculum running as the backbone and having that, you know, HQ of trainings there that they can access at any time. They don't have to wait till the next call. So we've got these calls, we've got lots of calls. We have them at different time zones, so they get lots of support. But they know they have access to, you know, trainings to help them with all the different phases and all the different tasks that they're going through inside the HQ as well. I think that kind of adds a little bit of extra.

Yeah, it just adds that extra support, adds that extra tangibility. And also it made it much easier to market because we were talking about a really specific, you know, start here, end here. Whereas a Mastermind, a traditional mastermind, a lot of the marketing has to revolve around people just wanting to be in the room with other great people. And that's kind of an unknown because they don't know who's in the room or people just wanting to have that extra High Touch support. And some people kind of go, well, wouldn't I just work with you one on one? So having, you know, adding that sort of structure or curriculum as a backbone can be a great value add can be really great for your clients and it can be really great for your marketing as well. And my final piece of advice around the Mastermind is I know a lot of people, they kind of go, I just want to get to 20 or I just want to get to 10 and then I'll be great. And they kind of, they get to that number and they stop launching or they turn off Anything that's evergreen. Even if you're wanting to keep the numbers small, I think you still need to have a plan for how you keep and maintain it. So I would still encourage you to map out regular launches in your calendar to even have some kind of evergreen sequence running, even if it's pushing people to a wait list. Because I've seen it happen. Quite commonly with people who do run masterminds is that they kind of go, yeah, I just want to get the 10, I want to get the 10 and they get their 10 and then all those 10 or most of them finish around the same time and they have to struggle, oh God, I've got to get that 10 again. And it's sort of, it keeps them stuck on that sort of real like starting from scratch over and over again kind of loop. And that's not fun for anybody. So that's it guys. That is my advice. I think I've talked way longer than I intended, but I hope you found it useful. Gone through the pros, the cons, and a little bit of extra advice for how to make the most of, you know, the three most common types of leverage offers. So that is a course, a membership, and a mastermind. I'd love to know which one, if you have one already, if you found this useful, if you're thinking about creating one, if, if that has sparked something in you, any aha's, please tag me at Kate McKibben or DM me over on Instagram, let me know. And if you found this use episode useful or if you know someone you think would please share it, please, you know, leave us a review. We love to see what you think of this podcast. Um, I've obviously been talking so long I've got to the point that I'm now losing my voice. So I want to go let you guys get on with the rest of your day. But thank you so much for joining me and I can't wait to share what we've got for you in our next episode next week. Alrighty guys, I'll talk to you then. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today@Stealmyfunnel.com.