Caitlin Bacher:
Today I want to talk about a sensitive topic that I don’t see many course creators speaking about openly.
If you have an online course that you’ve sold before but over the last year you’ve seen your revenue really take a nosedive, then this episode is going to be incredibly helpful for you.
So let’s get into it.
My name is Caitlin Bacher, founder and CEO of Scale With Success®, and I’m on a mission to help course creators all over the world grow their business in a way that is profitable and scalable. We’re sharing revealing conversations about what it really takes to scale an online course business to millions of dollars per year. Join us here to discover the tough decisions we’ve had to make, the biggest failures we’ve had to bounce back from, and the learnings that emerged every step of the way. We are so grateful that we have the chance to share it all with you right here on Scale With Success®: The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. Let’s get started.
Lately, I’ve seen some private chatter amongst colleagues who have seen a dip in their online course revenue.
Now, it would be easy to chalk this up to the economy.
But I have clients that are in similar niches as those who are struggling, and they are experiencing exponential growth in their business.
So what gives?
What are those who perceive that nobody wants to buy their course doing differently than those who continue to experience success?
Now, what I’ve discovered is a bit nuanced.
So in order to get any value from what I’m about to share, you’ll need to listen all the way to the end.
That’s because some of what I’ll say sounds weird, and it takes a little time to sink in, at least it did for me.
The 1st thing I noticed about those who are struggling is that they recently entered a brand new space with zero competition.
Now, if you are in a marketplace where there is nobody else doing what you’re doing, there might be a reason for it, and that reason may be that nobody cares about it, yet.
That’s not to say that there isn’t room for innovation.
Airbnb was the first of its kind. Uber was the first of its kind. But be aware of the immense amount of time, money, and energy resources it is going to take.
So it will always be easier to get started in a market where you have some competition because that means that there’s already a demand for it, and it means that the market is already a little bit educated about what kind of solutions are out there.
But if you have a big vision and you have high risk tolerance and you’re undeterred by failure after failure, then definitely go for it.
What happens to a lot of people is that, even experienced course creators, sometimes they start this new offer in a brand new space that has zero competition.
People initially buy, so you might think that you have a slam dunk offer.
You’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is incredible. I knew this was new and different, and it turns out everyone wants it. This is incredible. The sales are just going to keep on coming, right? Opened it up and loads of people buy.”
But the initial flood of people who purchased are those in your audience who have known you forever and would be likely to buy just about anything that you put out.
So over time, the offer becomes more and more difficult to sell, and you’re confused about why that is.
Now, it’s going to take a lot of time and lots of trial and error to work out the best way to build demand for your new offer in that new space where there is truly no other competition.
People who are best suited for this, for creating those kinds of disruptive offers are those who don’t take failure personally, have very high risk tolerance, and access to money from other revenue sources to fund their experiments.
Now, if you don’t have that yet, that’s okay, we all need to eat, so have patience to build up revenue sources from problems people know they have and then reinvest that revenue into developing your other ideas.
The 2nd thing I noticed about those who are really struggling right now is that it’s never a good idea to assume that people want to have it just because you really, really want to sell it.
There are two ways that you can position your offer, nice-to-have or need-to-have, and in times like these, the nice-to-haves are not going to cut it.
A nice-to-have is something that sounds good, but it’s okay to buy later.
Right now, people are being more discerning about what they purchase.
But they’re still purchasing, they’re still buying, they’re still investing, but they’re practicing more discernment.
So if you have positioned your course as something that, “Oh, that sounds nice to have, but it’s not really necessary,” they’re probably going to pass on it and use their funds to invest in something else that they feel is a higher priority.
So a need-to-have offer solves a problem for someone who is extremely frustrated trying to solve that problem on their own.
Now, one of the things that we are famous for in my company is helping course creators position their offer as a need-to-have.
Now, this doesn’t mean creating a new course.
It means changing the way you position your online course, especially relative to all your competitors.
We believe your course has the power to change hundreds, thousands, or even millions of lives, but only if you can effectively position it as a need-to-have.
- Now, I have seen courses about how to needle-felt a portrait of your dog absolutely flourish because it’s positioned as a need-to-have.
- I’ve also seen courses about how to build generational wealth completely tank because it’s positioned as a nice-to-have.
So it’s not the topic itself that matters. It’s the way you position it relative to your competition in a way that immediately connects with people you can help.
I’ve seen too many people fail because they think the only way to make millions is if they are teaching others how to make money.
But if that’s true, then why are so many course creators who teach about making money struggling right now and why are others that are teaching about playing a guitar or learning how to play the banjo absolutely flourishing?
It’s not the topic that matters. It’s your position.
As the CEO of your business, it’s your responsibility to generate demand for the products that you sell, not to jump from topic to topic in search of something that sounds easy.
The 3rd thing that I noticed about those who are struggling is that they are thinking way too much about the competition to the point where their message is starting to sound very similar to what they are saying.
It might be because they’re feeling insecure about their offer, and so then they’re telling themselves that, in order to be successful, they need to do and say things in the same way as these other people that they perceive to be successful.
So even though it might be unintentional, because they are spending all of their time scrolling through social media looking at what everyone else is doing, they’re letting all of their competition’s messaging kind of seep into their brain, and it ends up coming out in a way that doesn’t stand out at all.
It seems the same.
In doing that, it kind of fuels the cycle because then your offer blends in even more and you’re standing out even less.
On the flip side of things, the 4th thing I noticed about those who are struggling are those that are not thinking enough about the competition – so you are unaware that many others are starting to use similar messaging.
This is something that at my company we actually really struggled with earlier this year.
I went through a period, well, it was for sure all of 2021, I think a bit into 2022, where I was just totally off social media.
My brand was on social media, and they were continuing to post and create content for it and everything, but I was just like, “Oh, I need a break.”
So I took that break, which superficially, on the surface, it sounds like a good thing.
Yes, of course, take a social media break, no problem.
But the problem was that I was so heads down focused on my own work and staying in my own lane that I wasn’t lifting my head up to look around and see who else had squeezed into my lane and was causing friction for us.
We weren’t able to run as quickly. That was because I was too heads down focused on doing what I was going to do.
I think for a lot of us course creators who really pride ourselves on being creative and innovative, kind of the flip side, the weakness of that is that sometimes you can be so focused on innovating and creating for yourself that you fail to see what’s going on around you.
So once you look around and you see what people are emulating, then you can determine how you want to differentiate.
Again, it’s not about trying to be like everyone else. It’s about looking at the marketplace, look at what your competitors are doing, and then figuring out a way to position your solution as unique and different.
There is a completely false expectation that being in the lead is easy, and when you’re in the lead, you can just sit back and ride the wave.
I remember when I was like, “Oh, once I get to 6 figures, it’ll be easy. Once I get to 7 figures, once I get to 8 figures…”
The thing is that capitalism doesn’t work that way.
So no matter who you are or what you sell, as a CEO, you need to look at what is and be able to see what will be 6 months or even a year from now.
This requires you to think ahead and always be willing to experiment and to, of course, fail again and again without making that mean that all of that trial and error that you’re doing means that you’re doing something wrong.
I am an incredibly focused person. It’s great because I can get a lot done, and it’s great because it’s something new and different. But sometimes I don’t stop to put my head up and look around and be like, “Oh, wow, there’s some other folks that have come along for the journey.”
That’s just part of doing business. But it’s my responsibility as CEO to notice that so that then we can continue to be in the lead to pivot and shift so that we can continue to move forward and to meet our own revenue goals.
My big takeaway from all of this is that it is 100% possible to increase your online course revenue right now, but it’s going to require you to start thinking about things differently.
It’s going to require letting go of some of the beliefs that you currently have about why your online course isn’t selling and start asking yourself some honest questions about whether you are doing some of the things that I spoke about today.
➡️➡️➡️ If you have an online course that you’re struggling to sell right now and you want to learn how our clients are continuing to generate 5 and 6 figure months from their online course, the first thing you need to do is sign up for my free masterclass.
In that free class, you’re going to discover 3 things:
1. A new sales mechanism that allows you to sell without selling so you can free yourself from the pressure of being in sales mode all the time and start enjoying the benefits of consistent revenue from your online course.
2. You’ll discover the 5 key ingredients that differentiate this new sales mechanism from anything else that you’ve tried before and how it’s completely revolutionizing the way online course creators grow and scale their business.
3. You’ll discover how to implement this new sales mechanism and double or even triple your online course business over the next year without increasing your budget for paid advertising.
Sign up for my free masterclass to discover a new sales mechanism that allows you to sell without selling.
See you next time.
Are you struggling to scale your online course business to your first 6 or even 7 figures?
- You hate launching, but right now it’s the only way your course actually makes money.
- You can’t sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat, worrying about all the things you think you should be doing.
- All the sales and marketing strategies that used to work for you are completely failing. Maybe you’re feeling stuck, stressed, and confused about how to get things back on track.
- You wonder how in the world so many other course creators are able to generate predictable revenue month after month?!
It doesn’t have to be so hard.
Sign up for my free masterclass and I’ll walk you through the 5 pillars you need to turn your online course into a profitable six or seven figure business without launching ever again.
All you have to do is hop over to caitlinbacher.com and sign up to watch FOR FREE today.
So go ahead, click over to caitlinbacher.com and sign up for my free masterclass to learn how you can turn your online course into a profitable six or seven figure business. See you there.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Scale With Success® Accelerator — an online course designed to help you generate launch-sized revenue without lanching. If you want to learn MORE about our proven method for success, click here to watch my free masterclass. See you in there!
