Read this before you launch a course...

Why most new course creators fail. Open this to find out what most are missing. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   In this week's Creator to CEO newsletter, I want to dive into a topic that's been heavily requested: Course Creation! This topic broke the record when it came to Instagram polls, with a whopping 539 of you who wanted to learn more about the topic - one of the higher engagement rates on my polls: This is why I released this week's Youtube video which featured more or less the A-Z when it comes to the behind the scenes of how our company launches online courses. [You can click here to watch it in full.]( But upon reviewing the comment section of this new video, a few comments caught my attention in particular:   This makes complete sense, so today’s newsletter will be for those of you who want to create an online course for the very first time. That being said, let’s dive - shall we? Below I'll share the top 3 things anyone will need to have before creating a course. Remember: The online course business can be tough, especially for beginners, and without these key components, many beginners end up getting broke and burned. 👉 Component #1: A Proven Process A mistake most beginner course creators make is they think they can slap together a course and sell it - without realizing that in order for a course to be successful, it needs to be able to get results for the majority of people who take your program. An online course needs to be able to stand on its own as much as possible, as the purpose of having a course is to avoid doing custom work. Of course, your course can have a group coaching / group call component to it, but even so, your teachings and coachings should apply to the majority of the people who purchased your program. For me, when I started, I got my proven process from working with 1:1 clients first. Working with 1:1 clients allowed me to collect feedback easily and do custom work if needed until I found my "groove". After working with a handful of clients for the same package, I was able to identify what worked and what didn’t. After my process was validated with a few clients, I then transitioned into a group program where I delivered the course, but kept doing weekly (and eventually monthly) calls to make sure clients were OK. After a while, you can decide to remove calls completely, or keep calls simply because you want to support your clients further - however, this does not take away from the importance of your course absolutely needing a proven roadmap first. Remember: If you don’t have a validated framework to take your clients through in a course, you will inevitably increase the number of refunds, and decrease the number of results your clients can get. 👉 Component #2: Clear Target Avatar This leads me to my next point, which is being extremely clear on who your course is for and not for. If you are someone who is just starting out and you have no idea who the target avatar is, then it will be really hard to execute your program. Of course, overtime you can niche down - but from the get go, you should be somewhat clear on who the intended audience is for your course and what the problem you are trying to solve for the people who enrolled in your program. Remember: It should be one clear problem that everyone is going through. For example, when I first launched my course, it was a general Instagram course. What I realized is because I didn’t niche down enough, it caused problems such as: - Broad Curriculum = More Questions: If your target avatar is broad, then your curriculum will be broad. This means your curriculum will not be perfect for anyone, and will likely have a lot of gaps for specific people. This means this will increase the number of one-off questions that your students will be asking you. And when they ask the questions… it will cause the next problem which is: - Questions not being relevant to everyone: An E-Commerce business who wants to use Instagram will have a very different set of questions and objectives from a Model who wants to use Instagram. While this is OK in some courses, it can be harder to scale because you may need to continue answering one-off questions that are irrelevant to most people in the group. And because these are one-off, it doesn't make sense to include them in your curriculum as lessons, because it wouldn't be relevant for everyone else. Do you see the problem now? - Reduction of perceived quality of the group: The best courses and online programs are those that have a strong community. When you have a community of like minded people working towards a common objective and asking relevant questions that everyone can benefit from, it increases the value and success rate of the program as a whole. For example: Would you rather be in a group of Dentists, Gardeners, Restaurant Owners, and Content Creators trying to grow their businesses in general?, OR Would you rather be in a curated group of Content Creators who want to grow their businesses through launching online courses? Remember: The more specific it is, the better your program will be, the more successful your students will be, and the higher prices you can also charge. 👉 Component #3: Traffic Let’s say you’re starting out and you don’t have Component #1 or Component #2 locked down. If this is the case, then there will absolutely be a ceiling on how much you can charge because your program promise is not refined and because you don’t have a proven roadmap, you likely also don’t have a lot of testimonials and social proof to begin with. This means you’ll be charging lower prices. With these lower prices, if you want to earn $10,000 and your program is $200, you will need about 50 people to buy your course. If you want to make $10k per month, then you will need 50 people per month to buy your course. This can be easy for some, but difficult for most who don’t get enough traffic to meet those demands OR don’t have enough money to pay for ads. Now, at this point of the email you might think that I’m raining on everyone’s course creation parade. The truth is, I’m sharing these components because too many people jump into course creation blindly, and think that online courses are the one-way ticket to passive income. Here’s what I learned: If you want to make passive income, you need to learn how to make active income first. Passive income is generally created as a result of A LOT of work up front - something that you pour everything into SO THAT it can eventually run on it’s own. For me, while my own program The BOSSGRAM Academy earns me "passive" income, I will tell you that it took A LOT of work to get there. Here's more or less the entire process I took to validate my course: - I worked with 3 free clients first to test my strategies. Note: At this time, I had no desire to create a course. This was just me wanting to work with clients and testing things out, but eventually as I worked with my clients, it became clear creating a course would help free up my time. - Once I got confident, I started charging and worked with 12 more clients at the high ticket level. - I saw that the process I was taking all 12 clients was working, so I then asked these clients for testimonials AND I packaged everything I was teaching them into a course. - I created a sales page for my course, outlining the idea that I had for it, the modules I would walk people through, as well as the program promise. Keep in mind, I had not created the course yet. I simply wanted to see if people would even want to buy a course like this. On the sales page, I specifically said "When you enroll, you will start the course on X date". This gave me about a month in between to prepare any type of course creation. Remember: You do not want to waste months of your life creating a course that doesn’t even sell. You can [click here to listen to an old podcast episode]( talking about the strategy I used. - I used the testimonials I got from my 1:1 work to vouch for my course, my teachings, and my process by putting them on the sales page. This helped increase course sales because prospects knew I had prior experience. - Once I enrolled people into my course, I prepared the first Module so they had access to it when the program started. - I drip fed the remaining 5 modules every week while also hopping on Q&A calls with my students to get their feedback (The course at the time had a total of 6 modules) - I used their feedback to tweak the next module. This ensured that pretty much everything in the course was relevant to them, which increased the # of testimonials I would get. In other words, I was basically co-creating the program with my first round of students! - When my first round of students finished the program, I took ALL the feedback and updated the program, refined the program promise, and even niched down. I then enrolled the next cohort in my updated program. - The rest is history! Every year I continued to collect feedback and update the program. My program first started as an Instagram only program, but has evolved A LOT since then thanks to feedback. Today, the program is called The BOSSGRAM Academy. It has been running for almost 4 years and has helped over 6,000 creators and coaches sign clients themselves We have also generated over 3 million dollars of results for our clients collectively, which I am so proud of. So Voila! Those 10 steps I outlined are basically the steps I took to create my course. It all started with 1:1 client work, and it evolved into a scalable machine. Now If you are someone who’s reading this and you ARE that person who might NOT have … The proven process, … The social proof, … The clear target avatar, OR … The traffic 👉 Then I invite you to register for the [LIVE trainings]( I’m delivering on March 29, March 31, April 2, and April 4. In the training, I'll be covering: 1. My 4-part process of finding a profitable niche, 2. The 4 types of content to create to attract the right followers, AND 3. The key components to creating scalable 1:1 client programs that can eventually be turned into a course or group program. [Click here to register.]( These trainings are updated for 2022, and I cannot wait to be delivering them live! Just make sure to register sooner than later, because the software we are using has a limit on seats allowed in a room at a time!  On the other hand,  if you are someone who’s reading this and you have all the components I am mentioning, then what are you waiting for!? Either [click here to watch my latest Youtube video]( to get the behind-the-scenes of our course launch preparation... OR [click here to sign up for the waitlist]( for my next program which will be launching in a few months about course creation, if you would like support from me personally. (Please note: A mandatory prerequisite to this program is that you must have a validated offer or have worked with clients before - if not, then I encourage you to [check out the LIVE trainings]( I am hosting to help you with getting your first few paid clients!) ORRRR if you want more videos on course creation, simply DM me and let me know! ❤️️   Anyways {NAME}, It's always a pleasure to be able to write to you every Monday morning as a part of the Content Creator to CEO newsletter series. You can be giving your attention to anyone else, including your business, but today - you chose to spare 15 minutes of your day with me. I do not take that for granted, and I appreciate you for staying subscribed. I have a lot more to say when it comes to program creation, and I hope this email covers some gaps in the meantime. As always - don't forget to share your favourite or the most helpful part of this week's letter on your stories and tag me @vanessalau.co so I know. I always look forward to my story mentions every Monday - and I thank anyone who takes the time to share! Until next time, I'm rooting for you! Vanessa Your Content Creator to CEO Mentor PS: I'm always taking requests for CEO newsletter topics - so feel free to slide me a DM and send over a request - I'll consider it wholeheartedly. PS: If you haven't heard yet, I'm releasing an updated FREE training about content creation, social media, and offer creation exclusively for creators who are looking to monetize by signing paid clients. If you are someone who has never worked with a client before and yet you desire to launch a course one day, I highly recommend you attend this training. [You can click here to check it out!]( In the training, I'll be covering my 4-part process of finding a profitable niche, the 4 types of content to create to attract the right followers, AND the key components to creating scalable 1:1 client programs that can eventually be turned into a course or group program. This training is also all updated for 2022! I'm going LIVE on Mar 29, Mar 31, Apr 3, and Apr 4 - simply pick a time that works for you. I am only going LIVE on those dates, and seats are limited since we'll be using a special private platform - so I hope you sign up soon and that I'll see you LIVE in a couple of weeks! [Click here to find a time that works for you!]( [Click here]( if you do not want to receive further emails about the 'Confessions of a Content Creator to CEO' newsletter  And/or [Click here]( if you do not want to receive further emails about the new and improved Followers to Clients Training. Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( Vanessa Lau International Inc., PO BOX 27371 Garden City PO, Richmond, British Columbia V6Y0E9, Canada