You're creating online courses WRONG.

Look, the idea of online courses is sexy, but just having an online course doesn't mean that you're ever gonna make any money from it or make the kind of impact that you wanna make from it. When I have a client that wants to build an online course, they always come to me with so many ideas, tons of ideas. And the problem isn't that they don't have good ideas. The problem is that they're too focused on what they want and what they're interested in. And this is incredibly common. So what do we do? We just start building online courses in a vacuum because we saw somebody else build something similar, or we just think that this is a good idea. The truth is that you can spend all the time in the world creating your outline, perfecting your website, or filming your course like it's some motion picture. But if you don't have a good strategy, it doesn't matter if your course was shot in 4K or how many hours you put into it, or if it has really cool editing. Those things aren't going to dictate if your course is actually good or not. So I'm going to tell you which courses are worth your time to make, how to map out your course so it gets your students awesome results, how to film your course so it keeps people engaged and committed to finishing, and I'll also show you how to build your course the fastest way possible. So the first thing is something I alluded to earlier about how we just kind of come up with ideas and we just make something that we are interested in and that we feel like is going to be helpful for our audience or be a good course. There's nothing wrong with that because you should be interested in what you're talking about, but chances are you're interested in a lot of different things and you could probably build 100 courses on many different things. And I'm saying this from experience because I built 6 online courses that didn't make me any money. Because I was just building them in a vacuum. I was thinking, this is going to be helpful for my audience, or I saw somebody else build a similar course or even the same type of course, and I built it without really understanding what my audience wants. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, I really just want to buy an online course today. No, people want a transformation. They wake up in the morning and say, I just wish I didn't have so much belly fat. I wish that I had a 6-figure business so I could leave this job that's just killing me and making me so stressed, and I wanna provide for my family. Like, that's what people are thinking about. It wasn't until I did that that I finally made a course sale that was totally hands-off, completely passive, and it started to snowball and sell for me over and over and over again because I understood my audience and knew what it was that they wanted, and then I provided it to them. Find the demand and then supply that demand. So what's the transformation that your people want? Now, if you're the type of person who has hundreds of course ideas, then what I'd recommend is to pick 3, 2 or 3 of the ideas, and then send out a poll to your email list. Or you can always do a poll in a Facebook group that has your target audience and say, hey, I'm thinking of building a course. Which one of these seems more helpful for you right now? Which one would you be more interested in? Say 1, 2, 3. I recently just did this with my email list. I had 2 course ideas and I didn't know which one was gonna be the best for them. And I was thinking like, I don't know, they're both pretty interesting to me. But I emailed them a very simple email just saying, hey, I'm thinking about making a new course. These are my two ideas. Just reply back to this email with a 1 or a 2, and then I'll build that course. After I sent that, I started getting emails back and the majority of people wanted option number 2. So that's the course that I built. So polling your audience is great for finding that course idea, but let's take it even deeper by having real conversations. For example, if you do a poll in a Facebook group or some sort of community or your email list, reach out to those people and invite them onto a quick 15-minute call. It's not a sales call, and you're just gonna sit down and talk to 'em about why they chose that option and what it is about that that sounds so intriguing. And the goal here is to figure out where are they at, what's a struggle for them, what's challenging, what's frustrating, And then where do they want to be? What's the big dream that they have related to this? What's the outcome that they desire more than anything related to this topic? And the more conversations that you have with these people, the more you're gonna see trends. You're gonna notice pretty much everybody is struggling with this thing and pretty much everybody wants essentially the same outcome. There's always gonna be difference and nuance in specific situations, but with an online course that you're gonna be selling to the masses, you wanna focus on what the majority of people want. And whatever course idea you have an overwhelming response on from your audience, that's the course that you build. After you've found your perfect course idea, because it's the thing that your audience really wants, then we want to map out this course. Now people ask me all the time, James, what do you use to build your online courses with? And I use Kajabi. In fact, I run my entire business inside of Kajabi. This is the dashboard where we're actually going to map out what your course can look like inside of Kajabi. Now there's many different tools that you can use, but I love Kajabi because I can host my online courses and they look very clean and professional. But you can do so much more inside of this platform too. You can have coaching programs, you can have communities or paid memberships, you can host your podcast and even have a paid podcast as well. You can have your sales and checkout pages, upsells, order bumps, a bunch of crazy stuff. Your website, email marketing, you can store your email list in here and everything works together on one server, which is what makes Kajabi such a powerful platform. If you'd like to try out Kajabi yourself and you're thinking about building your online course and something cooler than just a Google Doc will say, I'd highly recommend you check out Kajabi. And right now you can get a free 30-day trial from me using my affiliate link. I just get a small commission if you end up signing up inside of Kajabi, but it's double the amount of time that you would get by just going to Kajabi's website. They usually give you a 14-day free trial, so 30 days. But on top of that, I'm also going to give you a free course from me where I'm gonna walk you through in my own online course how to set up your entire business in Kajabi for success in that first 30 days so that you can start making money way faster and be ready to go and you don't waste that 30-day trial. There's a lot of things that you can play with in Kajabi, and I show you the most important things to focus on and when. And on top of that, you also get a 1-to-1 coaching call with me where I'll sit down and answer any questions you have about Kajabi or your online business. To learn more details, just go to profityourknowledge.com/kajabi. Also make sure to link it down in the description. So when you build out your course, you want to map out the transformation. You have to remember what your audience really wants. Where are they at? Where do they want to be? Because that's what people pay for. They don't pay for an online course. They pay for an outcome, for a transformation. The course is just a vehicle to help them achieve that transformation. So in this example, this course is about learning piano. When you're mapping out a course outline, each lesson is going to become a mini transformation that leads to the big transformation, which is what your course is promising. So in this example, the first module or collection of lessons is understanding the basics. If someone's trying to learn piano, they need to understand the basics. An introduction to piano, understanding the instrument, some basic music theory, and then understanding the keyboard. These are all incredibly important to helping them learn the piano. Now this is just a really simple outline, but the idea here is that you understand the big transformation that your audience wants to achieve. You understand point A, point B. What are the fewest yet most important steps necessary to take them from point A to point B? Try and pinpoint it down to 5 to 10 steps. And then in a tool like Kajabi, or you can even do this in a Google Doc as well, you want to write out what those steps are, and they are the mini transformations that lead to the big transformation. And that's how simple making an outline really can be. And when I say 5 to 10 steps, you might be thinking, James, that's not enough. I need to teach people way more than that in order to get them this transformation. Well, that's where I challenge you to think simpler. Oftentimes when we build online courses, we have a tendency to give people nice-to-know information rather than need-to-know information. So the goal with your first draft or outline is to give this person the need-to-know information. You have to know this. This and this. And when you do that, you're gonna realize that there aren't as many steps as the nice to know. The nice to know are like sprinkles that you can add in. They're helpful, but it's not entirely necessary to achieve the result. And the thing is, with online courses, people think that they have to build this massive online course right off the bat. What I have learned and what I recommend to my students is to focus on a mini course. Those 5 to 10 lessons in your course will evolve over time when you get more students inside of the course, and then you can add things based on what they say they want rather than you thinking this could be helpful, I should just add it in there anyway. That's a waste of time. I only like to add things into my course when I know for a fact that real people want it, and that's what's going to make your course stellar. So when you map out your outline, you might be thinking, what am I going to say? How do I teach the lesson so that it is impactful and not me just talking to a camera? This is something I call the why, what, how script. So with Every lesson that you create, you always want to open up with why. Why is this lesson important and related to the overall transformation? Remember, your lessons are stepping stones, mini transformations that lead to the big transformation. So tell them right in the beginning why this is so important and keep hitting home and coming back to how it's going to help them get to the big transformation that they want. After you've got them invested and they understand why this is so important, Then we move into what. You're just gonna give them an overview of what they're going to learn and what you're gonna teach them to get them this mini transformation. So now that you understand why this is so important, here's what we're gonna cover. Boom, boom, boom. After you've told them what the 3 steps are, then you're gonna teach them how to do step 1. Then you're gonna teach them how to do step 2 and then how to do step 3. And then at the end of the lesson, it's always helpful to do a recap where you pretty much just summarize the main point or key takeaway from this lesson. And because you're hitting home why things are so important and keep going back to the overall transformation and desire that they had when they first signed up for your course, that's going to keep them emotionally invested in learning this lesson and the next one and the next one so that they can get the big result that they want. Now that you know how to build a great course, here's how you can build it fast. There's no doubt that in the world of coaching and teaching online, the fastest path to cash is in one-on-one private coaching. It's not in building an online course, it's in coaching. So what I always tell my students to do, and what I do myself, is I focus on enrolling clients into one-on-one coaching with me, and I take them through the process of the course that I want to build. I build the course for them as I'm going through the process. So rather than you taking 6 months to make an online course, you can take your clients through a 4 or 6 week process, and then every week you're building lessons for them and giving them access to the course. And then once the course is built, because you built it for them, you can just give them that course. Now the thing here is that you don't want to say, hey John, in this lesson I'm going to teach you this. You keep it generic and say, in this lesson I'm going to teach you this. That way it doesn't matter who's going through your program, you are just speaking to whoever is listening. You're not calling out a specific name of like your client, for example, because you need to build it for them. That's going to force you to actually do it, but keep it small. More content doesn't always equal more value. In fact, the shorter your course can be, the more valuable it's going to be to someone, as long as it's still getting them the transformation that they want. So start off with a mini program that you eventually sell for $50, maybe $100, or $200, and then that mini course will end up turning into a $400, $500, or $1,000 course down the road when you get people in the program and you get their feedback on what the course needs to an even better program. So me, for example, I have a course called Effortless Income. It's all about how to turn your knowledge into an online business, create passive income, digital products, like really cool stuff like that. It's the same thing that I do with people one-on-one. It's just a process. There's a transformation that people want to experience and achieve in their life and their business. So Effortless Income comes with my one-on-one coaching because it's great for me to refer them to the course in between our calls, but it also sells as a standalone course where I'm not even involved because it's the process. It is my one-on-one coaching process just in a self-paced version. Now, once you have an online course, ideally we want that course to sell by itself on autopilot and make us basically passive income. And if you want to get a deep dive of the funnel that I've used to make this happen, check out this video where I show you the funnel formula that has made content creators like you and me Millions of dollars. Also link it down in the description. When you're building an online course, just remember that people pay for a transformation and outcome, and that's where your course should speak to. The lessons in your course are the mini transformations that lead to the big transformation you're promising. And if you want to build that course fast, start coaching people and then building the course while you're coaching people through the process. If you have any questions, leave a comment below. Other than that, I'll see you in the next one.