Why you WON’T launch your online course

Today's episode is going to be a doozy. This is for anyone who is dabbling around trying to make something be perfect before they officially launch it, whether that's an online course or a higher ticket coaching program of some kind. Now I know that this is a problem. That's why I'm making an episode about it because I deal with this myself when I'm building online courses. I'm thinking like, I just need to make sure that it's perfect before I officially launch it. Or when I'm working with people, this happens all the time. They're like, no, it's not good enough yet. I just need to refine it a bit more. And this is just so common. And again, like I deal with this too, even still after building 8 courses at this point, it's something that comes up all the time that keeps us stuck. And that's why I'm going to address it today in today's episode and coach you through how to just launch your online course and why you don't need to have it be the most perfect thing just to get it out there, just to get the ball rolling, or if you're just thinking about starting your business, period, this is going to be beneficial for you as well. So let's dive into how to crush this failure to launch problem that you're facing. Welcome to episode number 13 of the Profit Your Knowledge podcast. I'm your host, James Allen here to help you turn your knowledge, passions, and skills into an online business so that you can be your own boss, make a difference in the world, and ultimately build yourself a life of freedom. Today is going to be good. This is going to be the episode. I really hope that this is the episode where if you've been feeling like I just need to keep making it perfect before I can officially launch it, this is the episode that gives you the kick in the pants to just get it going, get it good enough, and just get out there. Okay. If you're someone who's thinking about starting an online business or you've been working towards this and you just are kind of guessing your way to success, there's a lot of different ways that you can build an online business. In the last episode, I talked about 6 proven ways to build an online business, coaching people, teaching things in the online space. So definitely check that episode out. But if you're someone who's like lacking clarity, the lack of direction department in terms of sharing what you know, what you love, what you're good at online, then I highly recommend you pick up my 5-step action plan. This is 5 steps. I basically laid out the entire method that I use in my own business to create passive income and then to work with people one-on-one as well to sell low-ticket and high-ticket programs. I really broke down a scalable business model that you can use that is proven, and it's not just proven by me. I learned it from my own mentors and realized that people use this everywhere. It is a matter of being discovered, bringing people to your website, and then having your website do the heavy lifting for you so that it can convert these casual viewers into buyers. So they buy your digital products or sign up to do coaching with you one-on-one or a group or a mastermind or a membership site, whatever it is that you really want, you can add whatever offer you want to it, but to understand the method, that's the biggest thing. So if you want to get some clarity around that, definitely pick up the 5-step action guide. I walk you through step by step and give you tangible action steps. I even link to some lessons and videos inside of there that I've done that show you more hands-on of what to do where. Okay, so it's kind of like a mini course. It's my gift to you, totally free. Just go to profityourknowledge.com/guide. Pick it up, check it out, run through it. Most importantly, use it and start building your online business and having the confidence that the work you're putting in is going to pay off because building a business takes time. Okay. Again, profityourknowledge.com/guide, link in the description. So let's talk about this failure to launch challenge that people have. Me having conversations with people that I actually work with or doing research as well. This is a really common thing. And I know this too, because like I said, I even building my own courses, I'm like, oh, I can make it so much better. Well, I'll come back to it, I'll fix it up. And it's like, I think the biggest thing that I want you to realize is to understand if you're just dragging the updating and optimizing, quote unquote, if you're dragging that out and when you're dragging it out compared to when it's good enough to just get it out there. And then you can make updates down the road. That's where people get it all mixed up. They think that once a course is built the first time around, then it's done. It's going to be that way for the rest of their life, for the rest of eternity. Not true. One of the most beautiful things about online courses and products in general, even like a coaching program where you're working with people one-on-one, trading like your time for money, which is okay because you can charge a lot more money. Talk about that in the last episode as well. The beautiful thing is that as you take people through these things, you can update them really easily and you can make the program and the product better down the road. Okay. I don't think people realize that. So I hear things like, um, it's really just a case of not wanting to fail. And I think that that's a big problem that could be holding you back from just launching your course or putting your program out there, putting yourself out there. Um, if you're just kind of getting the ball rolling with your business. It's a case of not wanting to fail instead of welcoming it. Now, this came directly from customer research I've done, and I think this person, I don't know who it is or their name, I don't remember, but I really like how they added that instead of welcoming it. You do need to welcome the, the fact that it could fail. Your course could fail. Most courses do. I built 6 online courses before I ever made one that sold hands-off. I sold them through phone calls, but to make it like really sell hands-off and make the the whole system work, I failed over and over and over again, but I just kept doing it. And then, you know, the rest is history. So it's really just a case of not wanting to fail instead of welcoming it. Another thing someone said was overthinking failure to launch, like we're talking about, trying to overdefine before putting it out there, shiny objects, chasing the certifications and credentials before starting. This is a funny one. And I know because when I first, like, heard about coaching and realized I was like, I want to be legit, got to get a certification. Once I got my certification, I really started to get out there and start growing my business. I realized that people didn't care about my certification. I was a— I went to Brave Thinking Institute, which is a great school, by the way, and I highly recommend you invest in your education as a coach and as a mentor and build up your competencies. Because that's what's going to pay off. That is what pays. But the actual certification of me being called a DreamBuilder coach when I first started, or me being called a Life Mastery Consultant when I climbed the ranks, that didn't matter. People were like, I don't know what the heck that is. I don't really care, you know? But it was really just to give you more confidence. And that's the point. What people care about is, can you solve my problem and can you help me? And when you're confident that you can, people end up paying you. That's just a matter of fact. Okay. They will give you a shot because of your confidence. Okay. How do you build confidence? You get out there and help people. There's a difference with confidence and actual courage. Courage is you having— it's you developing confidence. Confidence is that you know you'll be okay. Courage is you not really knowing you'll be okay, but heading in the direction of the thing you want, like quitting your job. It takes courage to just take the leap and quit the job. Okay. Confidence is that I can leave any job I want and I'm going to be okay. You're confident in that. Okay. Same thing with getting your course out there, your business out there, but you don't need to chase credentials or certifications before getting started with anything, with an online course or with getting certified. But again, I'm grateful all those things I learned from my coaching certifications have helped me be a better coach and a better mentor and teacher for people. Another person said, I always had excuses and told myself it's not the right time. And I know that the time is never going to be right. I need to just stop talking about it and to do it. Okay. All of this stuff spills into what we're talking about today, which is the failure to launch. You just have to launch your course. Where people go wrong is they try to make every lesson and detail be perfect in their course before they launch it. Because yeah, it's like, in my own experience of what I've seen in working with people and coaching people through this is like, It's this idea that it's going to be the way it is as soon as you launch it and you can never relaunch it. You can never update it. An online course is so easy to update. If I got feedback from people that one lesson was total crap and people are like, dude, like everything is really good, but this lesson or this piece like didn't make sense at all or was totally unnecessary, I can go into my dashboard. I use Kajabi, but you can use any tool you want. I go into there and I can just delete it or I can reshoot the lesson and then upload it. It's so easy to just update it and make it eventually be the perfect program for your people. Okay? You need to just understand that people waste a ton of time because it quote unquote could be better. Of course it could be better. It can always get better. And people spend so much time trying to optimize things. It's a really big word. I know because I did performance and productivity coaching for a while. And it was like, optimize, optimize all this stuff. And it is important to like get things as good as they can possibly be, but really like get it good enough. As long as your sales copy is good enough to bring in sales, who cares if it's perfect? As long as your course is good enough or your program, it's good enough to get someone the result that they signed up for. Who cares? It doesn't need to be more perfect than that, okay? It has to just be good enough. I learned that from Ramit Sethi, and it was like, wow, so simple. Get it good enough. Get your opt-in copy good enough— excuse me— to where people opt in, to where the amount of traffic you have, you know, it makes sense that that many people would opt in. People are opting in. That's what really matters, okay? You can always adjust things from there. And you can get fancy with it, but just get things good enough. Get your course good enough. Can this lesson that you're building elicit the transformation that it's promising? Can it give that transformation? If yes, okay, cool. Get it out there. You can always refine down the road. People also think, yeah, that it can never change once it's been launched. Already touched on that. And yet forgetting that you can relaunch the course. My biggest piece of advice with a program or a course is that it's never going to be perfect. It's probably, it's probably never going to be perfect. Maybe you can get it perfect down the road, but like, don't, don't bank on that. You know, get it good enough to get people a result. And most importantly, get people to actually use it, whether that's free or for a smaller discounted beta test to improve on it from there. And then you can make it be something you know is a rock solid product. You can, you can, yeah, do a discounted rate where maybe it's like a $500 course, but you do $100 or $50. So people actually put some money in, they're interested, they get to keep the course, and if they don't like the course, they can ask for their money back. Cool. That's easy. $50 refund, like whatever. It's not that difficult for you to refund that. And when you— and then you can also get a ton of people to go in or a handful of people at least to give you some feedback, direct feedback. And then obviously what if you do that, collect testimonials for your sales page as well. Topic for a different day. But basically what I just want you to know is that I work with people a lot on building their courses all the time. I see this where I, what I like to do when I'm working with people is I have them like when we get to the point of actually building out the lesson, I say, go build out your lessons. You can use mine as a reference or just build them out. And then we go through and what I like to have them do is to teach me their lesson live on the coaching call. And then I coach them through. I ask them questions. What made you do this? What do you do like this? Do you not like this? And then they realize that like, okay, I can get into coaching this, but it happens all the time where like they feel good and then they go and then they're like, I got to make it better. I got to make it better. No, you don't. It's good enough to get going. And I will tell them that personally. But you kind of have to just make that own discernment. On your own, unless we're working together, you can always ask me. Make that discernment of, am I just procrastinating, wasting time because I'm afraid that it may not sell? Or does it actually need work? Like if your lessons aren't built, duh, build them, you know, but as long as it's good enough, you can always come back and refine it. I think that's the biggest thing that I really just needed to to just kind of tackle on this and let you know is that courses are so easy to update. Changing your sales copy is so easy. Getting feedback from people, that's what matters. Okay? Your course will develop after you've launched it into being the perfect program, but you can only really know that it's the perfect program when you actually take people through it. I wasted so much time on my courses, but even my one-on-one coaching trying to build this program It was so amazing. And I'm like, ooh, trying to like crush all these objections ahead of time. And it's good to do that stuff. It's great to do research and it's necessary to do research ahead of time. But as you take people through it, that's the best research you can do. It's the best feedback you can get. It's just direct feedback from people. What did you like? What didn't you like? What could we improve on? Um, yeah, that's it. Okay. So wherever your course is or your program, just start taking people through it, refine it as you go. As you learn more about your audience and the problems that they have, the better you're going to get at solving their problems. This is why it's so important to be specific about who you help, what you help them do, and how you help them. Because the more you understand that person, the better you can provide solutions to them. Okay. I think it's probably the shortest episode that I've ever done on this podcast. Honestly, I don't think I really need to say anymore. Um, let me know down in the comments if you struggle with, um, this failure to launch. If you're on YouTube, I'd love to know. And I'd love to know if this helped you, if, um, what it is that you think is causing that to be an issue for you. I'd love to know if you're on YouTube. Uh, you can always leave a review or reach out or go over to YouTube if you're on the podcast. Bottom line, just to sum everything up. Stop trying to get lost or getting lost into making every detail of your course be perfect before you launch it. Just launch it, get it good enough to get the transformation that you're promising people, and then launch it and focus on bringing people to it. As you take people through it, then you can update, then you can make the necessary changes, but get it good enough in the beginning. Okay? That's what I really want you to focus on. and that's all I think I really need to say, but it's never gonna be perfect. It just needs to be good enough. That's it. Okay? So if this was eye-opening to you, if this was valuable to you, uh, it's probably the shortest episode, like I said, ever that I've done, um, in terms of this podcast. If it was valuable to you, please share it. Please like this. Um, leave a comment, all that kind of stuff. The engagement, it really helps with growing this channel, which is what I would love. Uh, if you're on the podcast, please leave a review if this was valuable for you. One key takeaway. And again, if you haven't done it already, pick up the 5-step action plan. It is a clear-cut roadmap that's going to give you tangible action steps on a proven business model that you can use that as your audience and your revenue grows, your time can start to diminish. It takes time. It is a long game. But if you hop on, you pick up the guide, you'll be on my email list too, by the way. You can unsubscribe if you want, but I will also be giving you plenty of other great content that's going to help you make money faster on top of the long-term strategy, because I am a fan of the hybrid approach. So that's all I got for you. Take what you learned here, get out there, go work on your course, get it good enough, get the sales copy good enough, and just launch it.