Caitlin Bacher:
Episode 76: How to Build Out Your Product Suite Without Having to Make a New Course
If you’ve been looking to expand your product suite this year without making any new courses, then you are going to love today’s episode.
Today, I’ll be sharing three offers that will provide loads of value to your customers and are really fun to deliver.
In fact, I’m such a big fan of these three offers that we are actually selling them right now in our business and they’re doing really well.
The best part is that they complement our signature offer Scale With Success® Accelerator beautifully.
Are you ready to start thinking about what offers you can make alongside your online course?
Let’s get started.
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 are 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.
Does anyone else feel like you have lived 12 months in the last two months of this year?
Good, bad, and ugly, this year has been filled with so many opportunities for my personal growth and expansion, and I am grateful for it.
My word for 2023 is connection and my team and I are leaning into it big time with new offers that are designed to connect with and offer support to people who need our help.
Now, if you’re already one of my clients, then you know that one of the things I talk a lot about is focus.
It can be easy to fall into the trap of creating course after course, and before you know it, you have a product suite of offers that are all designed for people with completely different problems.
Now, if that’s you, then rest assured I’m not going to advise you to stop selling all but one course.
But after listening to today’s episode, you may be inspired to put a plan in place to start streamlining your offers over the next year.
So let’s get into it.
➡️ If you’re a longtime listener, then you know that I sell an online course called Scale with Success® Accelerator.
- In this course, you’ll learn how to build a Profitable Sales Engine™ in less than 30 days so you can sell your course on autopilot and enjoy all the benefits that come with generating consistent revenue in your business.
So I knew that whatever new offers I introduced to my audience, I wanted to keep it centered around that same theme, helping online course creators sell their course on autopilot and generate consistent revenue.
The other thing I wanted to keep in mind is that I didn’t want to be the only person delivering these offers.
I really wanted to think outside the box and come up with some ways that my team could be part of the delivery, not just my coaching team, but other members as well.
Lastly, I really wanted these offers to increase the connection between our brand and the people we serve.
So I wasn’t really interested in making a $27 ebook.
- Now, could that be profitable? Yes.
- Did it feel in alignment with my word of the year? No.
So, all right, here we go.
Three offers that you can sell alongside your online course.
Offer #1: Done-for-you service.
Now, you likely have people in your audience who sign up for your course and then ask you if you sell additional services that do some of the work for them.
Two of the requests that we get a lot are,
- “Can you build out my evergreen funnel if I give you all the content?”
- And, “Can you look at my existing Evergreen funnel and give me feedback on what needs improvement?”
So instead of reinventing the wheel with the done-for-you service that might be a hit, we decided to just give people what they want and package it all together in an offer we are calling Funnel Deluxe.
My favorite thing about this offer is that it leverages so many different talents for my team.
My own business has run on evergreen funnels for years.
So if there’s anyone who’s an expert on what works best, it’s my team.
➡️ I won’t get into all the details of Funnel Deluxe here, but if you want more info, just send me a DM on Instagram with the words “Funnel Deluxe” and someone on my team will get you squared away.
So think for a minute if there’s a done-for-you service that you or your team could offer people who are interested in your course.
Here’s a few examples.
So maybe you teach a course all about YouTube marketing.
– Well, one idea for a done-for-you service is to come up with maybe a 90-day content plan that is completely personalized for the client.
You won’t make the content because the client will be responsible for that and can learn how to do it inside your course.
But a 90-day list of content ideas that are SEO-friendly and attract just the right people would be a huge help.
Or, maybe you teach a course all about how to make family mealtime enjoyable if you have a house full of picky eaters.
– So a great done-for-you service could be a personalized 30-day meal plan and shopping list that will include just the right blend of familiar favorites and new things to try.
– Your client can learn all the ins and outs about successful mealtimes in your course, but having a personalized plan of exactly what to serve based on the things that their family enjoys would be a really big help.
Are your wheels turning yet with done-for-you service ideas that would complement your course?
I hope so.
As I was reading these examples, I was literally coming up with so many more ideas of done-for-you services that these pretend businesses could offer. So let’s move on to the next offer.
Offer #2: One-to-one mentorship.
Now, I am a serious introvert who loves small groups.
So providing one-to-one mentorship was a no-brainer when it came to coming up with ideas that would serve our audience.
The great thing about this offer is that it is so flexible.
So I decided that my one-on-one mentorship is 12 weeks, and I chose that duration because it was long enough to make a big impact and short enough so it wouldn’t feel overwhelming for the client.
The way I’ve designed this package is so value-packed that I feel like all of my one-on-one clients are going to want to offer this to their own audience after they’ve experienced it firsthand.
So right now, you likely have people in your audience or even people who’ve already purchased your course that would love some one-on-one time with you.
Why?
Because your brain and all the lived experience that you’ve stored inside of it is the shortcut.
Your mentorship can help them move faster and achieve an even bigger result than they get on their own, which is great for the client and really fun for you.
So how do you price an offer like that?
Well, a one-on-one offer like this should command a premium price well above what your course sells for.
I’m super transparent about pricing and you can follow me on Instagram to see what my pricing structure looks like.
I’ve worked with course creators before who burn out on one-on-one because they are pricing low and selling at a high volume.
This is not good for you or your client if you’re doing one-on-one work.
Energetically, how are you going to show up for them one-on-one if you’re completely exhausted because you have 20 more one-on-one clients to see later that week?
Listen, one-on-one mentorship, one-on-one coaching, it’s not right for everyone, but if it sounds fun for you, then I encourage you to think about offering that in your own business.
So the two offers we’ve discussed so far to sell alongside your online course are, one, done-for-you services, and two, one-to-one mentorship or coaching, whatever you want to call it.
Let’s move on to the next, offer number three.
This one I am really excited about.
Offer #3: Live workshops.
So live workshops are great for three reasons.
Number one, they deliver incredible value to those who attend, not just learning, but actual implementation.
Number two, they help people who are on the fence about your course, but want to work with you at a lower investment first.
And number three, they’re just really fun to deliver.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to delivering a live workshop is that it should really compliment your course, not compete with it.
This is important.
It should not be a shortened version of your course.
A good workshop topic would be something that even someone who purchased your course would find valuable.
It could be something you briefly touch on in your course that you want to go deeper on, or it could be a topic that if learned prior to the course would really enhance their experience.
Think small but impactful.
So we’re primarily going to be advertising these live workshops to our email list, so stay tuned for the next one, or just send me a DM with the word “workshop” on Instagram and my team will let you know when the next one is coming out.
The format we’re using for these live workshops goes something like this:
- 30 minutes teaching,
- 15 minutes Q&A with me,
- and then 45-minute work session with my head coach.
Now, if you don’t have a coach on your team, you can always run the work session yourself.
And of course, this is just an example of what we’re doing, but you can definitely tweak things to your own liking.
So to recap, the 3 offers that we’ve covered today that will complement, not compete with your online course are:
- A done-for-you service,
- One-on-one coaching mentorship, and
- Live workshop.
Now, whether or not you decide to try making one of these three offers in your business, I hope that today’s episode sparked some creativity and helped you to start thinking outside the box about building out the product suite in your online course business.
Thank you so much for joining me today, and I’ll see you next week on Scale With Success®: The Podcast.
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