MBA1422 Why Online Courses Fail + Free Ride Friday

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Welcome to the $100 MBA Show Business Truths for those who want to make a difference in business every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's episode you will learn why online courses fail. I've built and sold online courses several times in my entrepreneurial career. But more importantly, it's what I did professionally for 13 years. Teach. Yes, I was a high school and university teacher for 13 years. It's what I studied, it's what I know teaching and instruction and comprehension is what I do best. This is why this podcast is a daily lesson based podcast. So I'm fortunate enough to have that kind of advantage. And I've seen a lot of people launch online courses, even friends of mine that just don't do well, they fail. And I want to outline what those things are, what those reasons are so you can avoid them. It's a real shame when you put in so much time and effort and work and money in building your online course, launching it to the world, and then hearing nothing but crickets. There's concrete reasons why, and they're very common. And the reason why they're common is because, hey, not everybody studied to become a teacher and understand how education works, understand what people are willing to buy when it comes to education. When you're selling an online course, you're selling a solution, a product to solve a pain, a problem. And if you don't solve it in the correct way and then sell it in the right way, you're going to be wasting a lot of your time and money building this course. So let's make sure you don't make these mistakes and you don't fail. This is why I've put together today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. All right, let's get into it. The first reason why online courses fail is that their online course topic is not specific enough. Let me give you an example. Have you ever taken an online course or even watched a YouTube video trying to learn something and by the end of the video, like, I didn't get what I wanted. This was just a really airy fairy and very general. And it's frustrating because you either paid for the course and you wasted all that time or even watched, you know, maybe a 10 minute YouTube video and like, ugh, I gotta keep hunting for another video. The reason why that happens is because whoever created that content was not being specific. They're trying to cover too much and it was just too general. Now, a lot of us make this mistake. It's a very common mistake because we feel like if it's a broader topic, then we're gonna, one, attract a bigger audience, and two, it'll be more attractive because it sounds like I'm covering more. Both are deadly. Both are actually going to result in, in negative results when you have a broad topic. Let's say I am a snowboard instructor and I have a course called Carve up the Mountain. And I pitch this course as like, you're going to be the snowboarding expert. One, I'm setting up the expectation that this course is going to deliver an incredible amount of value and that I'm going to be an expert snowboarder by the time I finish the course and implement everything that the course says. Of course this is not true. There's no way I can be an expert at snowboarding in the amount of time of an online course. Let's say it takes me two weeks to finish it. A month, two months. Still, I'm not going to be an expert even if I'm snowboarding every single day. Number two, as the creator of the course, you're going to be scrambling to try to cram so much information into the course because, hey, you promises, big promises, grand promise. This course is going to cover everything under the sun. And this really waters down your content because you're trying to touch on all the topics and you don't really go deep. It's very shallow. This gives people buyers remorse. They buy the product, they're like, o, this is not as good as I thought it was. This is actually not as insightful as I need it to be. Let's take the opposite approach. You have a very specific topic, a very niche topic. So instead of me saying be an expert snowboarder or carve up the mountain, my course says be a master at the green runs and go from beginner to proficient in 60 days. Something of that nature. I'm getting very specific. This course is only for people who want to be able to go down a green run nice in, control smoothly and feel like, hey, I'm a snowboarder now. By doing this, I can already see my course ally get laser focused. I can go deep on technique, I can go deep on conditioning. I can make sure that my students are successful because I can actually cover the areas to make them successful. Because again, it's very specific. I don't have to cover the terrain park. I don't have to cover going down in a 90 degree angle or whatever other expert skills. I'm going to need to go down, you know, a triple black diamond because I set myself up with a very specific topic and I can deliver. And what happens is that when the students take that course, they feel satisfied because, hey, they came for that reason. That's the expectation that was set up and you've met and sometimes even exceeded that expectation. It's very hard for you to meet that expectation if it's too broad. All right. The second reason why online courses fail is you don't have a Prescribed outcome. This has a lot to do with sales. If I'm going to sign up for something, pay good money, whatever, it's 500, 1,000, $2,000 for a course. I want to make sure I can actually do something afterward. I can point at something and say, I did that. It's very hard to sell a theoretical course. It's very hard to sell a course that is an introduction or a generalist course, because you really are not making any outcome promises. There's no outcome. For example, remember back in the day when you had to take a driving school course so that you can get your learner's permit so you can start driving? That's the outcome. You learn how to drive on the road, you take six hours of training, you get that little tick mark and you get the card which allows you to drive with somebody else. It's the outcome. We have a webinar challenge called the Automated Webinar Challenge. You can check it out@webinarninja.com AWC an hour outcome. At the end of 30 days, you'll have a complete automated webinar system. So at the end of 30 days, that's what you're gonna have. You will have possession of an asset. It's a whole lot easier to sell something when you have an outcome at the end of the actual course. I was selling a programming course, let's say, how to program your own mobile app. I wanna have an outcome create app. Even some courses have like a clone, like create your own Twitter clone that operates just like Twitter and you've created yourself by the end of the course. That's an outcome. People get excited about that. They're willing to put money down on something that they're going to get at the end. The third reason why online courses fail is because they believe in if you build it, they will come field the dreams. Just like in any business or any product, you can't just build something and expect people just to find you and, and to buy it and to rave about it. No, you have to have a marketing plan for any product launch, including a course. How are you going to market this course? How are you going to sell that course? So first of all, how do you market, how do you get awareness so people can get to your course page where they buy the course, your website, and then once they get to the website, how do you sell them on the course? What kind of copy do you write? Do you have a video that explains the outcomes of this course? If you want an example of that, again, check out our automated webinar challenge webinar. Ninja.com AWC. I have a video there. You can check it out. The point here is, is that you have to market and sell your product. People need to be explained why they need something, what pains your product solves, what issues does it conquer? This is a business. You're selling a product. You have to market and sell. Are you going to be running Facebook ads? Are you publishing blog posts? Are you doing guest posts? Are you running webinars? What are you doing to sell this thing? To capture leads, to create interest, and to explain to them the value of your product, of your course. Fourth reason why a course fails. And this is a modern issue. And I say modern last three or four years. If you don't have this in your course, then it's really hard to have some success stories, to have people say, I've completed the course, I got an outcome, and you have some viral marketing. It's also hard for people to sign up because they feel like they might fail without this component. And this component is accountability. Some sort of community, some sort of Facebook group, a forum, something for people to be able to ask questions, make sure they're on track, for you to rah rah them, to cheer them on, to motivate them, to push them to the next week, to the next module, to the next course. Four or five years ago, you could probably run an online course as a standalone course. They just watch the course, there's no questions, they just consume it. But now people demand that element. They need to have some sort of community, whether it's a Slack group or a Facebook group, like I mentioned. And this is to your advantage. This allows you to get some momentum for your customers, for your students, allows them to share their wins, talk about their challenges, so you can improve your course itself, give you testimonials. It's fantastic. You really, really should have some easy way for people to communicate, to take your course. But remember, if you're going to have this component, you have to make the time or have somebody on your team to be the community manager, who's going to answer the post, who's going to be able to go back and forth with them, who's going to motivate them, remind them of the next new video that you just got unlocked. If you're doing a drip sequence, a community aspect is going to enhance your course. Okay, does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy, cute PC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's, then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now so you do what you want. Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer ClickUp just solved AI's biggest problem and it's saving 4 million teams from productivity loss every day. Unlike ChatGPT and other AI tools, ClickUp converges all your work into one platform so your AI super agents have full context to prioritize tasks, execute workflows and draft documents instantly. Teams using ClickUp finish work 30% faster and cut meetings in half. Try ClickUp for free today and get 15% off AI upgrades@ClickUp.com podcast that's C L I C K-U P.com podcast to wrap up today's lesson. You might notice that none of the reasons I mentioned today that cause online programs or online courses to fail are tech related are website related. Why? Because there's so many tools out there now that make it super simple for you. I mean we mentioned Podia is one of our sponsors today we use them. Super simple, super affordable. So a lot of people think that the technology is going to be their biggest obstacle. No, that's not the obstacle. The delivery of your course is actually quite easy. What you really need to focus on and make sure you nail is the value of your course. The marketing, the sales, the and making sure your customers are successful. Because after your first batch of customers actually take your course and get some results. Those testimonials, those pieces of feedback you're going to get, it's going to go viral. People are going to start talking about it. People love something, they talk. That's what you need to focus on. The technology. It will take care of itself. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 VA show that wraps up today's lesson. But today's episode is not over because it's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is RPointJ. RPointJ says one of the best no nonsense business podcasts out there. I've been listening to this podcast for three years now. Omar's insights are always valuable and actionable. It's the first podcast I recommend when my friends ask me what do I listen to. Thank you so much R pointj. I love that. I love the review and I love the fact you're spreading the word. Thank you so much. You are a free Ride Friday winner. Just email me over at omar100mba.net and we'll hook you up with with the lifetime value, the lifetime Access to easy course. Our $500 course over at easycourse co. It's that simple guys. If you want to win, just leave us an itunes rating and review and you enter a weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday to see if you won. Just like today's winner. That simple. Thanks so much for listening to the show. Hit subscribe so you don't miss the next episode on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Don't forget to hit subscribe. And of course, just like our winner today, R Point J, go ahead and share the show with your friends. Share it on social. Share one on one. But you can share it on social right now as we're wrapping up today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you on Monday's episode. Have a fantastic weekend. I'll see you then. Take care. At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.