Profit By Sharing What You Already Know

By: Justin Ferriman • May 21, 2015
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dollar-billsWhenever I am having a conversation with someone about selling online courses, I usually encounter one of two sentiments:

  1. I have the best course idea in the world that I know will sell
  2. I don’t have any good course ideas and I’m not very well known

Both of these mindsets can be dangerous, but let’s talk a little about the second one.

The reality is that everyone has something of value that they can share with others. Your experiences (both professionally and personally) often have utility for people going through similar situations.

You can absolutely use your own experiences to create a course, and trust me when I tell you that you don’t need to be famous for it to be successful (I’ve seen first-hand).

The more important aspect of selling your own elearning is to determine how your experiences bridge a specific gap in a market.

Let me explain.

Very rarely does someone decide to take an online course “just for fun”. Even though there is a portion of the population that will do this, the completion rates are dismal.

You and I both know that people are extremely busy today. There are seemingly hundreds of different things vying for our attention. If we decide to take an online course, then it is because of a specific end-goal that we are looking to obtain. In other words, we don’t want our time and energy to go to waste.

This is the gap that you have to bridge. How do your experiences (knowledge) of a particular topic help people reach a desired end-goal?

The hardest part of this process is identifying the ultimate goal, but when you do you are much better prepared to formulate a winning unique selling proposition that accurately describes how your experiences help people obtain it.

By doing this you’ll see that you really don’t need to be well-known when starting to sell your courses online. Although, chances are you will quickly become known if you do it properly ;).

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter