Why buy — or sell — online courses?
Why buy online courses, when all the information is available for free, if you only knew where to look?
Or — if you’re an aspiring Course Creator, consumed with self-doubt about selling information that “wants to be free”, this post is for you too…
I recently facilitated a webinar and received a lot of responses about these two questions — why buy / why sell online courses? — and I’ll weave their insights into this post.
Then I’ll share my top 3 reasons at the end.
Organized Information is Valuable
Sometimes, you don’t even know what to look for. You don’t even know that certain concepts or possibilities exist until you learn it from someone who’s been there.
Even if all information is freely available, and the Course Creator is “only” curating and organizing it, it still took them a lot of time to do so.
Isn’t it worthwhile for you to save that time and energy… if you even knew what to look for? Instead, you can enroll in the course, and use your time to apply (instead of look for) the organized information to better your life.
Good courses are valuable because they are well-curated knowledge in one place. It gives you step-by-step support to actually get something done.
The Creator’s Personal Experience
In fact, the information you need might not be available online yet — because it came directly from the course creator’s experience. They gathered the knowledge from The School of Hard Knocks — their own trial-and-error!
Therefore, taking their course will likely save yourself significant time, energy, and money in not having to make the same costly mistakes.
It’s important to note that some courses are written by university professors who have no practical experience in the field… so it’s important to vet your teachers and see if their background/experience is a fit for your needs.
Curated Learner Community
When you start trying to study an online course, you’ll find that it is helpful to have accountability and mutual support with other students. It’s rare — outside of a course — to find such a dedicated learning/practitioner community on a specific topic.
After all, the group has been filtered down to the people willing to pay for the learning! This signals higher interest/passion/commitment to learning the topic than those who are casually surfing the web for free info.
Because the teacher is being paid for this, they have the incentive and energy (and time) to facilitate this kind of learning community, whether it’s Q&A or facilitating mutual student support.
Many people find that the engagement with the teacher and the community is a key reason to enroll. You get a sense of direction and anchoredness that’s hard to replicate on your own.
Your Own Commitment
Buying a course also signals to your own psyche a commitment to the topic. You’re ready to experiment and learn.
You paid for it. You’re now more accountable to study and do something with it. Investment motivates action. The act of buying is a commitment or a devotion to the learning for the betterment of ourselves and our clients.
In some cases, a course costs enough that you will need to get the buy-in or permission from your partner or employer. Then it becomes even more of a signal of commitment to yourself (and to your family or employer) that you’re going to take this learning seriously.
Supporting the Teacher
Are teachers worth supporting financially?
Of course.
So why do we expect content creators to do it all for free?
Buying a course is a wonderful way to support creators. If you’ve been benefiting from their free stuff, it encourages them greatly when someone pays for their course.
Your financial support is a win-win — it helps their career (giving them more energy and time to create) and it helps you, as you now have access to special content and a curated community of fellow students.
Got another reason why you buy (or sell) online courses? Would love your thoughts.
Why not just make money from donations?
Some might say that the “new” model is simply to give away all the information for free, and just try to make money from donations.
This is not new. Donating to teachers is a 2,500-year tradition.
Nowadays, making a living from donations is possible if you build a big enough audience — I would estimate that if you have over 100,000 followers, you can begin to create a true livelihood just from their donations.
However, take that intense effort of building a giant audience and nurturing them, and compare it to building a much smaller audience of 1,000 followers. That small audience would be able to support your livelihood, if you sell online courses.
Several years ago I made an experiment — giving away all my online courses and asking for donations. The result? I was able to earn a maximum $500 per month on donations. Then I switched back to selling online courses. The result? $5,000 per month (10x what the donations were.)
It’s human nature to want what’s easy. If high quality information is available easily and freely, then why pay?
But if the easiest way to get the special knowledge or access to the creator (and the student community) is to pay, then many of the people who want that learning, will pay.
As mentioned earlier, paying for online courses is a win-win for both the Teacher and the Student.
Let’s run the numbers…
Online busking — (putting out free content then asking for donations) — let’s say you get on average $20 per audience member annually and you’re able to build an audience of 5,000 — congrats! You’re making $100K per year.
Yet, you’ll probably find it very hard to build that large of a donating audience.
Selling courses: it’s much easier to build an audience of 500 people paying you an average of $200 annually for online courses. That’s also $100K per year…
I’ve found the latter much easier to do!
Still, will people really pay for online courses?
If you’re doubtful, just ask around. Post this on your social media:
“Hey, has anyone purchased online courses before? What were the reasons you paid for it, when there’s lots of information out there for free?”
You’ll probably get the list of reasons I’ve already written above, and more!
When someone feels trust and connection with a content creator, and that creator puts forward an online course on a topic that the person wants to learn, then a sale happens.
When there are enough people who feel connected to the content creator, enough sales happen to offer the creator a good living.
On the other hand, to make a living wage by doing online busking, you have to be extraordinarily entertaining and/or have a huge audience. I have neither, and yet, I’m making a great living as a “content creator” — by selling courses.
This is why I advise caring, knowledgeable people to sell online courses, rather than depend on online busking.
What if people steal your course content?
It’s not a problem for any teacher with a loyal student base.
I’ve been selling courses for 16 years, and all my content (and courses) are uncopyrighted, and yet, no problems with piracy!
Again the main thing is to have a sense of connection to an audience. If they care about you, they’ll respect your need to keep the content private.
Here are some additional advantages of creating/selling courses, as quotes from my webinar participants:
- Reach: “To reach a wider audience than I can reach in person… to reach more of our people world wide.”
- Accessibility: “Online can be done from wherever in the world… more accessible to a wider audience.”
- Impact: “Helping more people at once… I want to help more people… to change the world.”
- Flexibility: “Passive income… no time for 1-to-1… you can reach more people.” It is also a way to “support more people, and support people you work with 1-to-1, a way for people to be introduced to you that is more low stakes for them, value your own content!”
- Business Model: It can “build out your business model to more sustainability”. It’s a way to have “more ways to work with you at different price levels, self-paced plus interaction combo.” And it is a “good way for people to experience you before 1:1 coaching at a lower price point.” And for your 1:1 clients, it “gives one-on-one clients background information so they have a deeper understanding.”
- Joy and Fulfillment: “They are fun to create… I love to teach… because it’s fun… cause I love it!”
- Personal Growth: “It pushes and invites me to delve into my topic and have fun creating.” And, to “explore, practice, organize, curate our knowledge.”
And, some more reasons that participants gave for buying courses:
- Interaction: Many like online courses because they provide “direct specific support and learning tailored to me and my unique needs”. Others love “live interaction… that dynamic interaction… the ability to get questions answered in real time”.
- Flexibility: You get to enjoy the “time convenience, can speed up or slow down, pause and relisten.” You can be “learning at your own pace.”
- Integration: Online courses “can be presented in a way that helps the learner integrate the material”. They are “practical, easier to integrate into your daily life.” They usually “have action steps and are more interactive than books. Also, incorporating more learning modalities (video for example).”
- Convenience and Options: You can “learn about a topic or theme that might not be available in the local area”. Yet you get to enjoy “the convenience of doing so from home.”
My Top 3 Reasons to Create Courses:
- To organize info for one’s existing (and future) clients. I find that it gives me accountability and motivation to structure a lot of knowledge into a journey with my clients in mind. By teaching, it makes me smarter about my field much faster.
- To sell and serve many people who aren’t yet ready to become clients… to make a positive impact even if it’s the only thing they buy from me. I can serve more than 10x the number of course participants than I could 1–1 clients.
- To create a sustainable income as a creator. My business income today comes mostly from selling courses. I wish for that possibility for all content creators.
Having created and launched more than 40 courses (25 of which are currently available for sale on my website), I’ve been asked for years to teach people how to create and sell courses.
Over the last 16 years I’ve taught that course several times already :) and the newest version is now available: www.georgekao.com/creatingcourses
I look forward to your comments and questions 🙏🏼
