Caitlin Bacher:
Three unpopular opinions about scaling a million-dollar course. 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 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.
Today, I’m going to be sharing three unpopular opinions about scaling a million-dollar course.
Opinion #1: Don’t sell high ticket.
One of the things that I did in order to make my first million dollars selling online courses is that I did not focus on high ticket. I focused on selling a premium course. That course was priced at 997, which was something that was easy to sell via an automated webinar. Anytime I meet someone who is new to the online course industry, they usually have a bunch of questions around what their pricing should be, should their first product be an online course, should it be a mastermind, should they start selling a group coaching program, what should that look like?
I started my entrepreneur journey as someone who first provided a service. I started out in the very beginning just selling a one-on-one service, which was I helped people with social media management. After that, I started to do one-on-one consulting. As I was doing that one-on-one consulting, over time, I started to notice that all of my clients had similar problems, and over time, I kind of developed a framework that I was able to use and kind of customize no matter what business owner I was talking to.
Then over time, I thought, you know what? I can really package this framework that I’m using to help people one-on-one into an online course. I’m so glad that I did that. When you focus your efforts on scaling one single online course to $1 million, you will have the following.
Number one, a large targeted following of people who connect deeply with your brand.
Number two, you’re going to have a large customer base, people who are satisfied and are looking forward to the next thing that you’re going to sell, whether that is perhaps a group coaching program or whether that is perhaps a mastermind, but the good news is because you’ve been focused on selling this one program and because you’ve been solely focused on selling that one program until you get to $1 million, over time, you have amassed this big customer base that then when it’s time for you to think about offering something high ticket, you’re already going to have a pot of satisfied customers to pull from.
The third benefit of starting with courses and avoiding high ticket is that you’re going to have a large profit margin.
Now, when you are selling an online course, and when you are delivering a student experience for that online course, you don’t need a big team. The method that we teach involves using automated webinars. You don’t need a big team to help you launch all the time. You’re not going to need a big team to do sales calls. You don’t need a big team to be in the DMs, like answering messages and trying to get people over the fence to invest in your high ticket offer. It’s none of that. It’s having a premium course priced around 997, although it could be anywhere between $500 all the way up to $2,000 and selling that in an automated way.
The fourth benefit of scaling one course to $1 million is that in doing that, you’re going to be able to systemize lead generation.
Whether you are generating leads via organic strategies, whether you are using paid traffic strategies, whether you are leveraging joint venture partnerships, either way, by focusing on generating leads for your program and by doing it in a really targeted way where you’re only focused on marketing and generating leads for that one single program, you’re going to get really good at it.
The fifth benefit that comes along with focusing on scaling one course to $1 million is that you’re going to be able to automate your sales process.
Now, this is very important. When a lot of times people start with high ticket programs, they’re trapped because all of a sudden, they have to start doing sales calls or they have to be in the DMs all day, like DM-ing people back and forth. One of the benefits of selling an online course that’s priced anywhere between $500, $1,000, $2,000 is that you’re able to sell it hands free. That means you have an automated webinar running. You’re not launching. The automated webinar is running 24/7 and traffic is being driven to it 24/7, and so that you are able to really build that predictable revenue that your business needs in order to scale. You’re able to do that just by selling one program all the way to $1 million.
Finally, going all in with just one of your signature courses and scaling it to $1 million is going to give you the opportunity to get really good results for your students.
The reason is because you are going to be able to, just because you’re focused on selling one program, you’re going to be able to develop that program in a way where people are going to be able to get results with or without you.
You are going to have some students come in that are going to need a little bit of extra hand-holding, but because you’re only focused on selling that one program, and because it’s a course and not a high ticket offer where they’re going to be demanding a lot more of your time if you’re selling that high ticket offer – because it’s a course, you’re going to be able to create systems for delivering an incredible experience for your students, so that whether someone is enrolling in your online course on a Saturday afternoon, whether they are enrolling in your course on a Tuesday morning, they’re going to be able to have a really smooth onboarding experience and they’re going to be able to easily get the support that they need throughout the program. Because you are really focused on optimizing this one offer, you’re going to have more time and energy to develop those systems needed so that you’re going to get to a place where eventually, it’s going to be relatively hands free from you.
Now, it’s definitely not hands free overnight, but the great thing about having an online course is that when you’re starting by selling courses and you’re able to get that to $1 million, what that means is that you’re going to have time freedom to then think about what you want your next offer to be. I tell all of my clients, “Do not start that next level offer until you have really systemized lead generation for your online course, and until you’ve been able to automate sales, and until you’ve been able to really take yourself out of the delivery.”
Once you’re able to do that, it’s going to free up your time because whenever you’re starting to launch a new program, whether that’s a group coaching program, a mastermind or whatever, that takes a lot of time and effort because it’s something brand-new, but it’s going to be a lot easier for you because you’ve already created this amazing predictable revenue stream that’s going to be generating over $1 million per year so that you have the time freedom to explore and be creative and think about what that next level thing is going to be.
The great thing is when you go to offer that next level offer, you’re going to have, let’s say your course is priced at $1,000 and you’ve made $1 million from it, you’re going to have 1,000 people to draw from to bring into that next level offer.
What I see a lot of people struggle with and they really, really struggle is when they’re starting off with a high ticket offer and they come to a place where they’re like, “You know what? I don’t like selling or delivering high ticket offers. I really want to move to online courses.” They absolutely can move to online courses, but it’s a little bit trickier, because typically, they don’t have a big pot of clients to sell their online course to. It’s almost like it’s reversed.
And so, starting out with courses is just a really great idea when you’re new to business. You have high profit margin, you don’t need a big team, it doesn’t take a lot of time to deliver, and you’re able to kind of create if you’re selling it evergreen, create that predictable revenue for yourself so that you can make mistakes and you can have small failures along the way, and it’s not going to totally tank your business. Don’t start your business selling high ticket, start with courses instead.
Unpopular opinion #2: You are going to try and fail a bunch of times before it works.
Hear me out on this one. I know that your mistakes are a symptom of growth. When you are avoiding mistakes, you are avoiding growth.
When our clients are scaling their business, they’re making a ton of mistakes. However, they have a support structure in place to help get them back up, course correct, and start to build momentum. The quicker you’re able to bounce back and get back up, the better off you’re going to be in the long run.
People who struggle the most to scale their online course business are those who have a really hard time overcoming the mistakes that they make. They can’t move past it. They keep obsessing about it over and over again. They start to blow things out of proportion. They start to over-generalize and a tiny mistake ends up becoming something huge and it can feel like it’s insurmountable.
The great thing about having a support network in place is that when you do make a mistake, you have people there to support you, to help you shift your perspective, to zoom out so you can see the big picture, and understand that while this might feel like a really big deal right now in the grand scheme of things, it’s going to be a tiny blip on the journey towards your success.
My 3rd unpopular opinion about scaling a million-dollar course is that being ready is a choice.
Feeling ready is fleeting. Like all feelings, they come and go on an hourly basis. If I were to take a snapshot of myself at different moments throughout the day, there would be times within that one day where sometimes I would feel incredibly ready and confident to take on anything, and then other times during the day, when I would not feel ready at all and I would be scared and really anxious about taking that next step.
If you let go of this idea that you need to feel ready, that allows you to move into a place where you can decide to be ready. Being ready is a choice you can make today. Even if you’re scared it might not work out, even if you’re scared of what others may think, you can decide right now to be ready. I remember the night that I gave birth to my daughter. Now, as we were driving to the hospital, yes, I was in a lot of pain, but I also felt ready. I was like, yes, I can do this. Let’s go, da, da, da, da. Cut to a couple hours later when I was in the hospital room, I was not feeling ready. I was really starting to rethink this whole motherhood thing. I was thinking to myself, you know what? I’m actually going to press pause on this. I’m not sure if being a mom is right for me. I don’t really think that I feel ready to give birth in this moment, but you know what? I didn’t have the option to wait until I felt ready. I had to decide then and there that I was going to be ready because it was happening no matter what.
As the CEO of your business, you are being called on to be ready every day, whether or not you’d feel like it. I have an actual physical list of over 100 hard things that I’ve had to do in my life and not a single one of those things was achieved because I felt ready. On days where I have to make a hard decision that I don’t feel ready to make, I read that list and remind myself that being ready is a choice and it’s the key to unlocking that next opportunity for growth.
Now, by no means am I saying that choosing to be ready is a way of suppressing your emotions and not processing your feelings in the moment, because guess what? A lot of times during the day, you do feel afraid or you do feel anxious or you do feel worried about something and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way and you should absolutely give yourself the time and space to feel that. A lot of times people have this really negative perception of fear and that it’s almost like fear is something to be afraid of.
I experience fear on a daily basis. I struggle with anxiety. If you don’t have a list of 100 hard things that you’ve had to do, I highly encourage you to create that list and then any time during the day, when you know you have a hard decision, a difficult conversation coming up that you need to hold, take the list out, read it and remind yourself of all of the hard things that you have had to do in life and that you were able to overcome and work through and come back stronger for it.
I shared a lot of unpopular opinions today and I would love to hear inside of the comments, which ones you agreed with and which ones you disagreed with. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to leave a comment, leave a review, share it with a friend. All of those activities really help to boost our visibility so we can get in front of more course creators. With your help, we can create a ripple effect and impact millions of course creators all around the world. We appreciate your support and I’ll see you next time on the Scale with Success® Podcast.
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