In light of everything that has gone on in these past years, your ideal customer still has a driving desire to become a better version of themself.
What's holding them back are the nagging problems they face. It could be a pain in their back, problems with their business, or an issue between their ears. Whatever it is, it's keeping them from winning their story.
They are not yet who they envision themselves to be.
More than ever, people are hungry to learn. Learning used to happen only from conventional places like universities or schools. Education is a behemoth of an industry and it always will be.
Technology has democratized how we do education. Today you can access any expert in the world from whom you want to learn. You don't have to be in the same room anymore. You can learn from them wherever you are.
It's a great day to be an educator.
Online learning has been around for a while now, and it's only going to get bigger from here.
Your client and other people just like them need some expertise. It's an expertise that you have. There are things you know that others would benefit from learning.
With an online course, whether free or paid, you have the opportunity to help them do it. Here are some of the benefits of creating a course for the people you help.
1. Lead generation
Whenever someone enrolls, they have to provide their email address. With that precious data, you have algorithm-free access to their inbox. With the proper checks in place, you have permission to talk to them. People are never more eager to hear from you than in those first few weeks of signing up for something you offered them.
You can use that email address to nurture them into booking an in-person appointment with you.
2. Make the world a little better
Booking appointments is excellent, but it's not everything. Think back to that bright-eyed, value-driven entrepreneur that you were back in the day. You were altruistic and excited to make a difference in people's lives. Sure, you knew it was a good living to be made, but that wasn't the only reason you got into your business.
You wanted to help people.
You wanted to make a difference in some lives and leave the world in just a little less pain because you showed up.
A course offers you the chance to deliver something of value, even for people you'll never meet. You'll give them an idea, piece of information, or point them to a resource that could unlock new levels of joy and happiness in their lives.
You may never meet them. That's ok. You still helped them with your course, and that's worth something.
3. Build trust
If your course is effective, it will take someone out of a problem and into a better reality. When you do that, you earn some trust. Trust is the foundation in a healthy relationship.
When you have trust, you have a lifelong patient. When someone sees that you are competent at solving a problem they're struggling with, they will be more prone to trust you to solve other problems.
4. Clarify your thinking
How do you take someone from suffering from where they are to where you know they can be? What are the steps? It's probably in your head right now but have you ever had to map it out? What if you wanted to teach your secret to an associate or a mentee?
There's something about mapping out your process that sharpens your thinking, clarifying how you deliver your outcomes. Teaching a course forces you to sit there and map out each step as you take someone from A to B.
5. Save you time
People who want to make courses love their clients but they'd also love to have more freedom from them. If they're honest, they're getting a little bored saying the same monologue all day long. It's the same instructions, analogies, warnings, and answers to the frequently asked questions. Imagine if, instead of wearing out your voice and your compassion, you had a course you could point people to so that they could learn from while they're at home and you're on vacation.
6. Open a source of passive income
Who wouldn't love another revenue stream these days?
Rather than tell a client they have to drive into town, park, pay, and listen to you teach them something, now they can do it from home, without driving, and for cheaper of a price. You can teach your "A" material to your customers in a course without having to expend the same energy over and over. Teach it once, reap the rewards for years.
Your course doesn't have to be a big-ticket item. You can pick any number to decide what kind of value should be attributed to the transformation you offer. Sell that over and over would get you a nice uptick in your revenue.
7. Develop your IP
Finally, one of the benefits of developing and publishing your course is that you now have your IP (Intellectual Property). These are your thoughts, tricks and treatments that are yours for life. Yes, this material is a smorgasbord of all you've learned and adapted over the years - but you're the one that's curated it. It is now uniquely your product to offer the world.
Kudos to you today. You are the kind of person who seeks to help real people win their story. Your vehicle now is this course you are about to create.
When you are the one who publishes the course, you'll reap many benefits. With a course, you will generate new leads, clarify your thinking, become an authority, develop your material, and make people's lives better.
