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How to Create a Course & Start Selling It In 30 Days or Less

It takes most people months or years to get their first course up and running.

That's because they're worried about getting it "right". Or having enough "value" in it. And so they create. They create. And then they create some more.

Until it's a total Masterpiece.

Trouble is -- they've never sold it to anybody, nor had any students go through it. This means it might not be the right course for your students at this moment in time.

But you'll only find this out at the tail end, when you're trying to sell it, and when you're trying to send students through it.

You'll either have trouble making sales because (while it's your Masterpiece) it's just not what people want right now, or if you make sales, you'll have high refunds, because again, the content isn't what people want right now.

This is the danger of creating a course in isolation ahead of time. You have no validation that people want it.

And unfortunately, this is the way most people have been taught to create courses. Lock yourself away, create the perfect thing, and then release it to the market and sit back as you make money while you sleep.

If only it worked that way.

Here's our suggestion for a better way: talk to people, find out what they want and give it to them.

Sounds crazy, I know, but so many people skip this step and it's what leads courses to have a 3% completion rate.

Here's our strategy for getting and running (and making money) with a new course inside of 30 days.

Week 1:

Zoom with whoever will talk to you. (Ideally they're in your target market).Ask them what they need to most help with in your area of expertise. Propose a solution that you could deliver in a live workshop format, and ask if they'd be interested in buying it. If not, ask what they'd prefer you cover.

Rinse, repeat until you have something that feels valuable to the other person. Repeat with more people until you have an outline of something that has widespread appeal.

A good format for you might be a 1 month course length, with 1 zoom call per week where you do some live training and take Q&A.

When you do this, you're guaranteed to create something that people actually want RIGHT NOW -- not what you think they want -- or worse, a product you built for another moment in time.

Week 2:

Continue activities from week 1. Never underestimate the value of talking to real people who could be your customers. It's tempting to want to short-cut this and it's where most people go wrong.

Week 3:

Complete your outline of the course. Write some emails that explain what you're doing, who you want to help, and how. Send the emails out, inviting people to register for the course. Set your first training for the end of the fourth week.

Set up an empty product in Xperiencify. Just the name, the price (say $500), and the first module and training (with no video), and create a $400-off coupon. Get your order form link.

Week 4:

Get your sales hat on.

Zoom with and talk to people about your course. Answer questions. Sign them up yourself manually using your own order form. Use your upcoming live training as a FOMO countdown. (This should be much easier because you've created something you're fairly sure that most people will want.)

At the end of the week, deliver your 1st training. You'll record each session and then upload the recording as the 1st training of your course.

While you should have an outline of what you want to cover in each session, listen to your students.

They will TELL YOU exactly what they want you to focus on in each session, and you might find that your training needs to go in a totally different direction that you didn't anticipate.

This is the art of "Feedback Loops". When you co-create with your students, you're involving them in your creative process which deepens their engagement, their involvement, their commitment to your process and the likelihood they'll take action.

Murray loves building software platforms that make life easier for marketers and entrepreneurs. It's all he does. He's built many tools over the years and helped thousands of people start and grow their business, which is his driving motivation.

His latest project is Xperiencify -- a new LMS / online course platform that fixes the "dirty secret" of the online course industry (which is that 3% of people get results from the course they buy.) They do it with a powerful combination of psychology 🧠, gamification πŸ•ΉοΈ and Silicon Valley "black magic". πŸ₯·