As a course creator, there are different prospective-student hesitations I interact with and goals that I have for my students.
But as a content creator, it's common to see online courses getting flak.
It’s even worse that I agree — lots of them make no sense, but they’re luring people to hop right in because of the influence some people hold.
As somebody who has never had a refund request from 200+ students, let me tell you how to select a course that multiplies your money back.
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Why Choose an Online Course?
A few simple reasons:
- textbooks are outdated
- online courses take place in your own comfort
- cohort-based groups help you make new friends + hold you accountable
- the easiest way to be where you want to reach is to learn from somebody who’s been there and done that
In short, they can fast-track your growth. What you spend months figuring it out, you can learn it in a few weeks.
It’s not that what I teach or what I’ve learnt from others cannot be found elsewhere for free. But paying for relevant information in one place saves me time to search for information and hit-and-try techniques.
It saves what I want to optimise for — my time.
How To Select a Course?
Is there someone you look up to? Check out their offerings.
I think it’s easier to invest money in somebody you already trust. That’s why I hopped into one of Ali Abdaal’s courses because I’ve been following him for over three years.
If someone is where you want to be, see if they have anything to offer that can help you reach your goals, too.
Lastly, ask your peers about the courses they’ve done and what helped them.
What To Look For
Look out for this to be more certain about the course you’re picking:
- Testimonials: What is the class profile like? Where are they from, what do they do, and what are they up to right now? What do they have to say about the course?
- Success Stories: Are there any success stories that show a clear before and after metric? Check them out.
- Ping others: I encourage my students to ping previous students from the testimonial page and ask them how was their experience at my CBC Summit 21 in case they don’t trust me enough to make a choice, which is alright. You have to be careful of where you put your money.
How To Make the Most of It
Here’s what I recommend to make the most out of your experience:
1/ Bias for action
Implement all that you’re taught.
Don’t wait till you’re better or create a perfect draft, just implement it. Once you do it, it’ll be easier to try it again and again.
Implement all strategies ASAP at least once.
2/ Record metrics
Write your numbers at the beginning and in the end to see a trend.
Sometimes, you may feel that you haven’t learnt enough but see a stark difference in your numbers, which will help you realise that you have.
Other times, you may not reach a number but get enough conversions — now that’s an eye-opening win too.
3/ See how it made your life easier
At the end of the course, ask yourself about the information you’ve absorbed in the past few days/weeks, how has that made your life easier?
How many hours would it take otherwise to learn it?
That’ll show you how much time you saved.
4/ Talk to others
I've only done one cohort-based course where I don’t remember what I learnt as much but I made such amazing friends.
In fact, I met someone 3 days ago who flew down to India from Mexico!
My peers made my experience more special.
In a cohort-based course, you have an opportunity to interact with folks from across the world — go for it.
Run after it.
You may not remember the lessons but you’ll surely remember wonderful people.
Make $$$$
Now, whether it’s a course on meditating better or learning online writing — you have to implement what you’ve learnt even after the course ends. You cannot get results from anything by doing it only for a few weeks.
No matter what, consistent effort is the backbone of all things beautiful.
Apart from that:
- Affiliate referral system: most self-paced courses have an automatic system of affiliates that you can hop on to right away, so enroll yourself there.
- Ping your instructor asking to be an affiliate: in case the above system isn’t there. Most instructors are happy to give a percentage of the fee to you if you refer others.
With affiliates, please plug them in only where it’s relevant and don’t sell them too much.
But the main buck will come from doing the work — there’s no escaping that
Stay Updated
Your course may have frequent changes or updates. Stay updated with your course content, especially if it’s a self-paced course.
Something I tell my audience is that I’m growing with time too, so I and all my products are a work in progress.
We grow together.
I hope this helps you make the right decision, and gives you an ROI.
If putting X helps you make at least 2x, go for it. This mentality helped me purchase by first online course that paid me back by 6x in 4 months 🤯
It’s an investment.
All the best!