Why create an online course? Most of us believe that we should become authors and have our names on a book, which is really great, because it gives you authority and credibility. But if you should ask me which should come first, writing a book or creating an online course, I will most definitely pick an online course. The reason for my answer is this: An online course is also a brilliant tool to use for credibility and authority. Imagine being introduced as the creator of the premium home study course - "xyz". Impressive, isn't it. But the key thing is this - An online course will on average make you a lot more money than a book and it's easier to create an online course than it is to write a book. A book would usually be priced anything between £5 and £20, the average price is £10. If you are just starting out and desired a monthly income of £3000, and all you had for sale is a £10 book, then you would need to sell 300 copies a month to generate that income. Now, that's a lot of books. And trust me, it's quite difficult to get that many sales. But for an online course, prices range between £100 to $1000 or above. Let's go with an average  of £300. With a price point like that, you would only need to sell to ten people to generate £3000. I can boldly tell you from my experience that it's easier to sell 10 courses than it is to sell 300 books or even a hundred books. To generate a sustainable income and cash flow for your business, selling online courses should be the way to go. Another reason you should consider selling online courses is because of the end users. Online courses come in various formats, which includes audio, video and text. And this is very beneficial for people who learn in different ways. So in essence, people get a lot more value when they consume an online course in comparison to a book.   Now that you have seen the value in creating online courses, you may be thinking, how am I going to do this? Can I really make sales? Well, I am going to teach you how to start generating these kinds of sales, so you can turn your business around and increase your cash flow! Let’s get into it.  

DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN SELL YOUR ONLINE COURSE

1. Run a Pre-Launch Webinar:

You can run a pre-launch webinar. During the webinar you add value to your attendees and then give them the opportunity to be your pioneers for the course as they experience the content as it's being created and piloted.   What I usually do is offer it at a significantly lower price than the proposed launch price and we usually get a lot of takers every time we do a pre-launch sale of our courses. Apart from making money from a course you haven't even created yet, this pre-launch webinar will also helps you to validate your idea as well as get very useful feedback from attendees as you create the content.  

2. Speaking at Events:

You may already have lots of invitations to come speak at events; you should definitely take advantage of such opportunities to talk about your online course. The whole idea is you offer great value during your session and at the end of the session, you make a ridiculously special offer for your course that is only available to them there and then at the event. If people got really great value from your session, they will want more. This is where a lot of people offer their books. By offering your online course and throwing in your book as a free bonus (if you have a book for sale) you will make as much as 30 times more than if all you sold was just a book.  

3. Running Automated Webinars:

In this case, you take a live webinar and repackage it into an automated webinar. What that simply means is that you can make sales even though you are not physically there. This is really powerful because you can literally make money on demand. Let me break it down. You run a live webinar where you teach, add value to your attendees and then offer your online course to attendees, if you get a good number of sales, then that means the webinar is a webinar. What you then do is transform the live webinar into an evergreen automated webinar (my favourite system for doing this is EverWebinar).  

4. Doing Joint Ventures:

There are lots of people in your niche who are already building communities with thousands of people. You should look for them, and create good relationships with them. The best way to ensure that they say yes to helping you sell your online course whenever you ask is to look for a way to give them value first. Another thing you can do is to offer them as much as 50% of the sales. I do this primarily through running JV webinars with them where they are the host thus bringing the trust and credibility factor with their audience and I'm the guest "expert" bringing the authority factor. I love JV webinars as they are usually interview style webinars which are more relaxed. I'm able to share my knowledge and insight with a new audience, those who attend gain so much from showing up. The host is happy as they've been able to really enhance their community and at the end of the day the host and I would make money from the sales we generate at the end of the webinar. This is one of the most exciting ways to sell your online course if you enjoy helping people. I have done this several times, and it has always being a win-win scenario for everyone involved. I encourage you to really give this one a go (The system I use for running my JV webinars is called WebinarJam)   So, my question to you now is this: Do you have an online course? If you answered yes, then that’s great. I hope you can put these strategies to work for you so that you can generate more sales. But if you answered no, then what are you waiting for? You should get to work doing that right now, and make sure it comes out before soon. Creating and selling your online course can help you start generating five to six figure income alongside any other income you are generating from your coaching business. Share your thoughts.