Pillars of Success
The ProCourseStart Pillars of creating a successful online course business are a simple set of principles that you MUST ensure you are integrating into your online course business for optimal success. By integrating these principles into your business, you will increase your chances of success as this is a proven model to build an audience, create raving fans, and have repeat customers.
The ProCourseStart Pillars of a Successful Online Course Business:
Pillar #1: Identify a problem in your profession, and deliver a SOLUTION
This is the unique value proposition of your online course business and builds the foundation for your products and content. No one is going to purchase your products unless you can solve a problem in their life that improves the quality of their professional life and allows them to be a more successful and knowledgeable professional.
Knowledge is power and chances are that you have developed unique skills and knowledge through your professional working career, therefore your job is to identify a unique problem within your profession and how you can leverage what you know to solve that problem. The key advantage here is that very few, if any, other people in your field are capitalizing on their own expertise to solve unique problems within the profession through an online course platform.
In my opinion, this pillar is NOT NEGOTIABLE if you want to build a successful online course business, thus stop here and flush out pillar #1 before you move forward!
Pillar #2: Marketing is the NUMBER ONE function of an Online Course Business
Sure, you need to meet pillar #1 before you move forward, but you need to remember that marketing is going to be your number one priority because it is simple: you can develop the most amazing course in the world, but it doesn’t matter if no one knows about it. You must become an expert on who your audience is, what their pain points are, and how to target that exact audience. Effectively marketing your online course business helps you build an audience, create fans, and ultimately provides you with a steady stream of paying customers. By having a robust and effective marketing strategy, you will build a successful online course business that will generate steady, consistent, and growing revenue!
Pillar #3: Provide consistent, valuable, and free content
The importance of this pillar cannot be overstated. By providing consistent and valuable free content on your website and through your social media channels, it establishes your credibility, builds trust with your customer base, and improves your SEO (search engine optimization). This can take a considerable amount of time for the online course business entrepreneur, but its importance is critical to your success. I spent more time creating free content on The Elite Nurse Practitioner than anything else in that business, but it paid off because I was able to build an amazing audience and fan base that ultimately resulted in a strong consistent customer base.
Free content can be anything you are good at! Is writing your strength? Then create regular articles and a blog. Do you enjoy being in front of a camera? Then record videos covering a variety of topics specific to your profession and value proposition. Or do you enjoy talking? If so, then create a podcast applicable to your profession and online course business! Or do all of the above!
Pillar #4: Focus on income generating activities, not technical details!
I couldn’t tell you how many times I have consulted with individuals starting an online course business who were focused on the WRONG things. Sure, it is important to choose the right course hosting platform, picking the best website hosting platform, and selecting the most effective third-party applications to streamline your online course business, but it isn’t THAT IMPORTANT. At the end of the day, your customer could care less about these technical details behind the scenes… All they care about is how you can solve their problems and improve their life, therefore this is what the online course business entrepreneur should care about as well!
By focusing on your unique value proposition and the solutions you can offer to your profession, you will be focusing on income generating activities because this is what ultimately generates revenue in your online course business.
If you focus on your core products and content, you will increase the chances of building a successful online course business!
Pillar #5: Leverage the knowledge and work of others
You can start an online course business that targets professionals on your own because I did by myself for many years with The Elite Nurse Practitioner, but I was not able to grow the business past a certain point on my own. Additionally, if you are a one person show, then it increases your workload and time working in the business vs. working on the business. It is critically important that you utilize the knowledge, skills, and work of contracted individuals if you want a business that is operationally independent from YOU, the founder.
You should have operational staff that can handle the day to day tasks of your online course business such as customer service and technical support, but you also need to leverage the knowledge and skills of other professionals to help you build content and additional courses because let’s face it: you only know what you know, thus take advantage of the skills and knowledges of other professionals to help build and grow your online course business because at the end of the day, you will pay these people pennies on what the potential revenue that will be generated with their content through having an effective, robust, and marketable online course platform.