Show Notes

Welcome back to the Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host Kayla Das.

Today we’re diving into a topic that’s both exciting and potentially game changing for your practice, creating and selling an online course.

Selling an online course could be a lucrative way to make passive income and share your knowledge with the world.

However, the challenge is knowing which steps to take to transform your knowledge into a sellable online course.

In this episode, I’ll share my 8-step process for how to make an online course to sell in your practice.

If you’re not already aware, I sell my online course called Master Writing the Psychology Today Profile. This course helps bring therapists through my Empathy First framework for how to write and optimize a Psychology Today profile. The reason I’m sharing this is not to sell the course to you, but instead to explain my process when creating and selling it. Although if you’re interested in checking it out, I do have the link in the show notes.

So I also want to note as well that I’m going to refer to some of my favorite course creation tools in this episode. I’ll have all the links in the show notes including any discount codes that I provide. So I don’t want you to worry about writing them down, especially if you’re driving or out for a walk currently. You can easily click on the links after you finish this show.

So, let’s dive right into the steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Online Course Topic

So, step one is choose your online course topic. The key to a successful course is to choose a topic that either addresses a specific problem and brings course participants from point A to point B, which I call a problem-based course. Or provides tangible steps for building a specific skill, which I call a skills-based course. A third course type is theory-based courses, which aims to primarily educate the participant on a specific topic.

Theory based courses are very common in university settings. However, when creating online courses, typically problem based and skill-based courses sell much better than theory based courses.

And let me explain why. When someone is looking for a course, they’re usually looking for help with something, whether it’s they want to build a skill, or they want to solve a specific problem. Participants are much more likely to purchase an online course that either focuses on solving a problem or developing a skill, whereas there are few people who would buy a course for the simple purpose of knowing about a specific topic, especially when there’s so much knowledge out in the world currently. Unless it gives some type of result, or there’s an external reward for doing so.

Let me give you an example. Theory based courses are profitable for universities because they are a means to an end. They are a requirement to complete the degree. There is an external reward attached to the theory-based course. In addition, most theory-based courses in the university often lead to practical components as well. So later in the degree, you may have an additional course teaching you the skills, such as you know, how to write assessments or how to conduct a therapy session, or even when you are doing your practicum placement. So, the theory eventually leads into skill development.

With an online course, however, you only have one opportunity with your course to provide someone with the result that they are searching for. If your course is promising information but no specific results, course participants may not even take the course. And if they do, once they complete it, they may be left with the question of, you know, what’s next? And after paying that money to take the course, they may feel dissatisfied with the course and even have buyer’s remorse.

Now, in saying that, you can certainly include theory into problem based and skills-based courses, as long as it’s relevant and necessary for the overall helpfulness of the course content. In fact, it’s not uncommon for online courses to overlap in its type.

For example, it is possible to have a skills-based course that solves a problem. It’s also possible for a skills-based or problem-based course to include theory. It’s also possible for a problem-based course to also teach a skill that also has some theory behind the topic. However, the main type of course you choose depends on the main purpose of the course.

Now let me give you an example. So going back to my course, Master Writing the Psychology Today Profile course, its main purpose is to teach therapists how to write and optimize their Psychology Today profile so that they get clients contacting them through their profile, especially if they haven’t been seeing the traction that they’ve been hoping for before taking the course. So, the main type of this course is a problem based course. It’s looking to solve a problem, helping therapists go from no or few client contacts to attracting clients through their profile. However, in the course, I teach several skills such as how to write effective copy for your profile, as well as technical strategies for reaching more prospective clients through your Psychology Today profile. So it does overlap, but its main purpose is to solve a problem for the participant, it’s a problem based course. I hope that makes sense.

Step 2: Create Your Online Course Outline

So, step two, create your online course outline. It may be tempting to dive right into building out your presentations and putting your course together without creating an outline. And some people do create courses on the fly, and they work. However, I just know for me personally, I’m someone that definitely has to prepare. And a course outline can help you determine the sequence in which you want to teach your content. A clear outline ensures that you introduce concepts in a linear order, which helps your course participants to easily follow along.

Step 3: Create Your Online Course Content

So, after you create your online course outline, now it’s time to create your online course content. This is where you flush out all of your ideas from your course outline into actual content for your course. At this stage, you’ll also want to consider the style of the course. Meaning, will it be in presentation format? Will you be on screen explaining each point? Will it be a mixture of the two? Some people even choose an audio course over a video course. So this is where you want to identify, how are you going to present your course?

This is also important to distinguish because if your course is presentation style, you’ll need to create the presentations at this stage. If you’re going to be 100 percent on camera, you might want to create scripts. If it’s a mixture of both, you may want to have a clear idea of which parts you’re going to have presentations created for and which parts you may need a script. So, you really want to have a clear idea on the structure, as well as what is going in to this course.

Step 4: Record and Edit Your Course

Once you have that figured out, now it’s time to record and edit your content. There are so many tools out there that you can use. But my favorite tool is Descript. Because it provides a transcription and editing capabilities all in one.

Based on participant feedback in my course, I now include transcriptions as a resource in the course so that participants can easily follow along as they’re going through the video content and transcriptions make it accessible for everyone. So, using Descript, which automatically transcribes the audio portion of the video, is a game changer for course creation. And with Descript, when you remove content from the transcription, it automatically deletes the audio and video portion of the clip that corresponds with the content that you deleted. So, you don’t necessarily have to double edit what you’re doing either. Honestly, it saves so much time.

Step 5: Upload Your Online Course Content to a Course Hosting Platform

Step five, upload your online course content to a course hosting platform. Platforms like Kajabi can be great for this purpose. Personally, I love Kajabi because it includes everything you need to run an online business. For example, you can maintain your email list and send email marketing campaigns from there. I actually use Kajabi as my podcast hosting platform, and they automatically send my episodes to Apple Podcasts and Spotify each week. You can also have your website designed through Kajabi. And there’s so many more features depending on what your goals and vision are within your business. And also, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, all links will be found in the show notes, but if you do decide to sign up for Kajabi and you use my link, you can receive a free 30-day trial to test it out. Typically, if you sign up through their website, you get a 14-day free trial, but this is just a little extra for you.

Step 6: Set Your Online Course Pricing Structure

So, step six, set your online course pricing structure. There really isn’t a formula for how to price your course, although it’s probably the number one question that I often get asked is, you know, how much do I price my course? But when setting a price, consider the value that you’re providing and ensure your pricing reflects that.

For example, I charge $249.99 Canadian for Master Writing the Psychology Today profile course, because it helps with a specific problem that helps participants get more clients. I also know that if they get only two clients from the concepts I teach in this course, they get their money back and then some. So really, it’s true value. In saying that, the reason I don’t charge more is because although the course is jam packed with strategies and tools. It is a short course, overall, that helps with only one aspect of their overall marketing journey as a therapist.

However, I’m in the process of creating the Designer Podcast Academy, which teaches everything someone would need to know about creating, planning, recording, scheduling, and monetizing a podcast for both solo episodes, and guest episodes. As this course will be much more content and resource heavy, as well as it’s a one stop shop podcasting training that brings a person from point A to point B to point C to point D, it will cost more than Master Writing the Psychology Today profile because the value is bigger.

However, don’t get too caught up on the pricing because at the end of the day, you can always increase or decrease your price in the future if needed.

Step 7: Create Your Online Course Sales Page

Step seven, create your online course sales page. Your sales page should pull prospective participants in by highlighting how the course can solve their problem and or help them build a specific desired skill. It should include Description of your course, price, and sales buttons that send them directly to your course cart where they can buy the course. If you’re using Kajabi, they have a checkout cart created for you with a specific URL. It’s super easy to plug into any website button. So honestly, it’s really just highlighted the URL and plug it in somewhere. Super simple.

Also ensure to include all necessary legal templates describing your terms of purchase. Unfortunately, this step is probably one of the most commonly missed steps when selling digital courses. But it helps protect your content and your business. Fortunately, you don’t have to just create these legal templates yourself you can buy course creator legal templates from Online Legal Essentials I have the link below and if you use the coupon code EVASPARE10, that’s EVASPARE10 at cart. You’ll receive 10 percent off the regular price.

Step 8: (Re)Launch Your Online Course

Finally, is you want to launch and relaunch your online course. Decide whether you want it to be an evergreen course, meaning you can sell it all year round. Or you launch it at specific times of the year to create urgency and anticipation.

There’s pros and cons to each. Evergreen is great because people can buy it all year round but people tend to buy more quickly when it’s only offered certain times of the year. So that’s why people choose launching over the evergreen. But even if you choose an evergreen, it’s still a good idea to relaunch your course several times a year to build hype for it. I will say that when I do my launches, I make a lot more than I would just leaving it opened and just hoping someone will come and buy it.

So, you still want to launch regardless of your choice,

Recap

And there you have it, my eight-step process for creating and selling an online course.

So, let’s recap

step one, choose your online course topic.

Step two, create your online course outline.

Step three, create your online course content.

Step four, record and edit your course.

Step five, upload your online course content to a course hosting platform.

Step six, set your online course pricing structure.

Step seven, create your online course sales page.

Step eight, Launch and relaunch your online course.

Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode. If you like this episode or the Designer Practice Podcast as a whole, I’d really appreciate it if you would share the podcast with a friend or colleague. Our goal is to reach as many therapists and coaches as possible so they can benefit from all this ungated content that we provide so that they can grow and scale their practices as well.

Until next time. Bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by ItsWatR from Pixabay

The Designer Practice Podcast and Evaspare Inc. has an affiliate and/or sponsorship relationship for advertisements in our podcast episodes. We receive commission or monetary compensation, at no extra cost to you, when you use our promotional codes and/or check out advertisement links.