If you’re considering whether an online course is right for you, I hate to break it to you but, it may not be.
Courses are my passion, and as much as I believe that we all have something to teach and that anyone can create an online course – there are some instances when creating a course isn’t really right for you.
This doesn’t mean it isn’t right forever, but maybe for now it may not be your next best step.
Especially if you’re just starting out in the online world.
I often have people reach out who’ve just started out in the online world and the very first thing they want to do is get that ‘passive income’ everyone talks about – and create a course.
I usually give them some straight talk and advise them not to.
You see, if you’re completely new to the industry and haven’t taught your course topic before, it’s going to be a lot harder for you to do things like:
- Create proper course objectives and outcomes.
- Figure out what to include/exclude.
- Create content that people need vs what you think they need.
All super common things first-time course creators get wrong.
I highly recommend teaching your topic a couple of times in a live challenge, or 1:1 scenario or even in person, before you create an online course. Because teaching it that way allows you to see firsthand how your content resonates with your learners.
You get to see where they’re getting confused or where there are bits missing that you need to add – so you can go back and tweak and improve your content.
It also allows you to build your presentation skills and confidence in what you’re teaching, because you gain a deeper understanding of the content through repeating it.
So, when you do decide to create your course, you’ve got it down and you can create that course with ease.
Another reason why an online course may not be right for you is – if you don’t have an audience.
“If you build it, they will come” is a great quote for a movie, but not how things work in the real world. Especially not in the online world.
Publishing a course without an audience is a bit like setting up a lemonade stand in the middle of nowhere. Sure, your lemonade may be organic, ice-cold and super tasty, but if there’s no one around to buy it, you’re wasting your time.
It’s always best to create the audience first and then the course – that way you validate your idea, build interest and have some ‘take-my-money’ clients for your course when you do create it.
One more thing to think about is, do you have the time to create a course.
I know this can be a bit of a vicious cycle. You want to create a course to help free up some time in your day – but you don’t have the time to create it.
Creating a course takes time and if you don’t have time, you need to make time – otherwise, you’ll never get it done.
It’ll end up being yet another half-finished project you intend to get back to but never do.
If you don’t have time to do it all on your own, it’s definitely still possible if you get some support.
This is exactly what my client Samantha realised when she started out on her course.
Samantha is a busy mom, who runs 2 businesses and she wanted to create a course to teach everything she knows about getting started in the trucking business in the US.
She’d already validated her course by running it in person and wanted to move it online. But putting it all together herself was taking forever, she needed help.
That’s when she reached out to me to help her through the process and get it done. And that’s exactly what we did.
So, if you have a dream to create a course and you’ve never taught it before, or don’t have an audience, or don’t have the time to do it yourself, maybe creating a course isn’t really right for you – right now.