At the end of each chapter, and throughout chapter 6, the action steps make it nice and easy to check what tasks you need to have completed before progressing to the next stage. Follow these tangible steps and I guarantee you'll get results. But I don't want this to be just another ‘how to’ book, so I've folded in some of my own story and experience. To supercharge the inspiration, I've included interviews I conducted on Zoom at the end of 2020 with some outstandingly successful course creators. These role models have been mentors to me as I've progressed on my own online course journey. As you read their stories, you'll soon notice that, rather than following a single, standardised program, each of these remarkable course creators has a different way of doing things. One of the great things about designing your own business is that you get to do it your way, the way that best works for you.
I'm a systems girl and love to use good frameworks to make life easier. You, dear reader, can freely access all the beautiful digital resources to support each part of the book at milliondollarmicrobusiness.com. Lastly, a word on terms: You'll find that course participants are variously described as students, clients, customers, even members. I use these terms more or less interchangeably. Given that most people I work with are super-qualified professionals, referring to them (accurately enough) as students often sounds wrong. Once they have signed up for a course, I generally think of them as clients.
I recommend you read this book from cover to cover for an overview then use it as a practical handbook, so that by the last page you're well on your way to your first million dollars in online course sales.
I believe everyone has a skill they can package into an online course. You have skills and expertise that other people will want to access for themselves. In sharing your knowledge and skills, teaching others in short, easily digestible lessons, you will embrace the new way of doing business as an online digital course creator and educator. Now let's dive in and I'll show you how.
01 Start small
Often it's not coming up with an idea for your first digital course product that's the challenge; it's choosing just one. People I work with constantly tell me about all the different, sometimes overlapping courses they're going to create. I've shared my first steps already, so you know I started three completely different businesses while trying to discover what I really wanted to do. But I gained traction only when I finally picked just one, starting small and allowing it to grow and evolve.
You've picked up this book, which means you're already interested in online courses and have probably been looking around at them. Maybe you've listened to some podcasts and heard some success stories too. My goal with this book is to persuade you that it's possible to create a million dollar business based on your existing expertise and to show you how to put it all together, ready to launch it out into the world. But I don't want to give you a bum steer. I don't want you to think that when you go live with your gorgeous new website the dollars will come rolling in so thick and fast you won't be able to count them.
Overnight success is possible, but my gosh it's rare. What a digital business does is it allows you to scale and leverage, and it absolutely accelerates your success, enabling you to reach your goals way faster than anything you'll see in a traditional business.
I was talking to someone who runs a course teaching people how to do gorgeous hand lettering. She put everything together in under a month, launched it out into the world … and got 23 people to buy her product. She was devastated. She'd wanted 100 people for her first course launch. Where that particular goal came from I don't know, but let me tell you, 23 clients for a brand-new online business is something to happy dance about. Once you've started, you can take that experience and build on it.
A digital business gains traction and compounds fast. When you first launch, people who don't buy will at least know about you. Thanks to social media, word spreads rapidly, so, from your first year's performance, if you maintain consistency and keep showing up and adding value for your audience, you'll continue to grow month on month.
If you're looking at how to begin, my advice is to start with what you know. Ask friends and family, ‘What do you think I'm best at?’ If you're going with what you already know, your credibility in that area is probably already established.
So start small. Your business, like the chapters that follow, won't stay small for long!
02 Personal branding
What follows may trigger some resistance, because if you’ve never put yourself out into the world before in a big way, man oh man it can be scary! Building a digital business through content marketing and a personal brand is the most effective way to accelerate your growth and reach your goals faster.
‘Online’ can prompt the misconception that the transaction isn't as personal as shopping in a traditional bricks-and-mortar business. Actually it's more personal. In order to buy from you, your prospective client needs to:
know you
like you
trust you.
You will be able to achieve this so much faster if you step forward and own your expertise rather than hiding behind a brand name. If you never want to show your face and be the one talking about your business, then I suggest creating an online course may not be for you. You may create the most valuable product that the world absolutely needs, but if no one ever sees it, you've totally wasted your time. The way for your products to be seen is for you to be seen. It's time to step into the light.
We all feel like we're not good enough in some way. Everyone is unique, but having hang-ups is far from unique. So rather than let it stop you, embrace what makes you uniquely you. This shift in perception can sometimes take time. I know that when I first became a franchisor I had an idea in my head of what a professional woman looked like and decided that was the image I should project. So I marched into Portmans womenswear store and bought a suit and some terribly uncomfortable high heels and practised being more ‘professional’. Thankfully, gone are the days when we needed to ‘look the part’. That was the old way of doing business. You're now more likely to find the wannabes in designer clothes and the successful ones in jeans and a t-shirt.
A few years ago, after a long day of speaking on stage, I went to the end-of-conference social event to chat with the participants, but soon had to excuse myself and go home. I wasn't overtired or feeling unwell; the problem was my feet were killing me! Trying to look the part meant suffering excruciating pain. I would never show up for an event in flat shoes because I thought it looked disrespectful, and I didn't want the organiser to think I didn't care enough to ‘dress up’. But that night I vowed that henceforth I would always wear clothes I was comfortable in. Now I wear an array of gorgeous flat shoes that I can literally bounce around the stage in and have standing conversations for as long as I like! Embracing who you are and what clothes you're comfortable in will always help you perform better. You may love high heels — all power to you (and your feet). Just go with what's right for you.
The clothes we wear do matter. As a projection of ourselves, they affect how people perceive us when they make that initial snap judgement. We may as well let people judge us on who we really are, because we're going to be judged anyway. I love colourful clothes and wearable art. I'm sure some people will see me