Mary Schiller built an audience for her online course "Let's Make Money Honey" by self-publishing a free book called "How to Price Like a Girl" and using it as a lead magnet. She validated her course idea through a private Facebook group and conversations with her email list, rather than doing extensive one-on-one coaching.
Hello there. This is Mary Schiller of MarySchiller.com and PriceLikeAGirl.com. And I am really happy to be talking with you today because I'm going to be revealing in a series of videos the process that I went through to create and sell an online course. And I think this is probably of interest to you because an online course is a wonderful way to package up what you do as a coach or other entrepreneur and a way for you to reach more people, make a bigger impact, and of course, make a bigger income, which is part of what we want to do too, right? So in this first video, I'm going to walk you through the beginning part of my creation of a a class I released recently called Let's Make Money Honey. Now what was interesting about this process is this is a new niche for me. So I had only been talking about money and business development specifically in my business since about the end of June 2017. And I decided that one way to establish my credibility in that field, which is something that I felt really strongly about and knew that I could help people in, was to write and self-publish a book. So I did that fairly quickly. I called it How to Price Like a Girl, and I made it available for free on Amazon and all of the other major online real retailers. And what was interesting about that was that I created, at first I had one lead magnet, as they call it, a way for you to get people to sign on to your list that I wasn't totally happy with. So I redid it and I made it a really nice PDF download. And I've gotten quite a few subscribers fairly quickly to that list. Based on the fact that the book is free. And I think because the, what I'm offering when people sign up looks really valuable to them. So why am I mentioning this in terms of creating an online course? Well, in order to sell your course, you need to have an audience for it. And you also need to be able to offer them something that will really resonate with them. And something that will speak to them. And so when I started to move into this niche, I really wanted to get to know the people who were interested in this topic. So I also started a private Facebook group related to pricing and offering services and, and trying to help women in this case with that. And I also knew that a lot of people on my original email list were trying to create coaching practices, successful coaching practices. So I had had many conversations with them over the last year and a half, 2 years about their frustrations in that area. So by the time it came for me to make the decision to move into business development, coaching, and offering courses on that topic, I had a pretty good sense of what people wanted and what they needed. I think a lot of times what helps people move quicker in terms of getting a product created is when they definitely have the knowledge and the confidence about what people want. I think what trips people up, entrepreneurs, that is, when they're trying to create an online course or maybe any other kind of product is that they are unsure of what people are really looking for. So for me, it's been really helpful to have some conversations with people who are looking for help related to business development and making more money. And also just listening in general to what people are talking about. And somebody asked me on a Facebook Live I did whether it was really important to have lots and lots of one-to-one coaching conversations with people in order to create a product or an online course. And I don't believe that it is. I simply think that it's helpful to listen, to people in whatever way that you can do that. It doesn't have to be one-to-one coaching sessions. It can simply be paying attention to what people are saying in other groups, maybe offering to chat with people for free for 30 minutes or something, just so you can get even more of a sense of what people are looking for. And then testing a few things. So with the book that I produced and put on Amazon, etc., for free. It was really kind of a test run to see if the way that I was talking about money, the way that I was talking about pricing, was that really going to resonate with people as potential clients and customers down the line. And I found out pretty quickly that it was resonating with them, that my approach to it was something new and refreshing, and they valued that. So that was a nice test that didn't take a ton of effort. I did not spend weeks and weeks writing that book. I wrote it in about a week and got it online very quickly and shared it everywhere. I didn't pay for any advertising or anything like that. So that was a good test. So if you are unsure of your idea for an online course, if you're unsure of what people are really looking for and how they like to be talked to, if you will, then it pays to do a little research ahead of time. It pays to test your ideas in a fairly simple way. You can do that in lots of ways. You can, you know, really your imagination has no limits there on how you can gather this information. But I do recommend that you don't skip that step because it will save you a lot of time. And in the end, you have a much greater chance of success with your online course if you have a really good sense of what people are looking for and how to talk to them about what you're offering. So that is it for this first video. And I hope this is helpful to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them here. And I'm happy to answer. So for now, that's it, and I'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.
