806: Unlock the Secrets to a Profitable Online Course

0:01This episode is supported by What Should I Do With My Money? From Morgan Stanley. Okay, can we just talk about how money is legitimately one of the hardest topics of money. up. Like even when you think you have your stuff together, there's always this really weird awkwardness around it. That's why I am obsessed with this podcast. It actually makes money conversations feel approachable. I recently listened to an episode about affording multiple big life things at once, like a wedding, a house, an IVF, if they were all happening at the same time. And honestly, it hit home. So many people are wondering, can we actually have it all without sacrificing our sanity or our savings.

0:42What I love is that they bring in real experts who help break down these massive costs into actual doable steps. It's like having a money mentor in your ear who gets it. Search for What Should I Do With My Money in your podcast player. We'll also include a link in the show notes. Many thanks to What Should I Do With My Money and Morgan Stanley for their support. We've talked about all these different methods that we do inside of our business, like lazy launches and what that looks like and live launches and all these different things. But I think you always want to keep your pulse on the promotional piece of it because you want people to experience all the incredible things that you put inside of the program itself.

1:24I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a$300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven-figure online business that feels even better than it looks, all from my house in small town Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain.

2:00Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Have you ever thought about creating a digital course, but you're not sure where to start, what you really need and how to actually make money with it. Or maybe you're sitting on a great idea, but feeling totally overwhelmed by the tech, the launch or the marketing.

2:38Well, if that sounds like you, then you're in the right place because today's episode is all about cutting through the noise and giving you the exact steps to create launch and profit from your very own online course. You'll get answers to all the big questions you've been asking, like what tools do you really need? How do you know if your idea is going to sell? And most importantly, how do you turn your knowledge into a product that people actually want to buy? I know firsthand how powerful online courses can be, not only for growing your business, but for creating more freedom in your life. And that's why I'm so excited to dive into this topic today.

3:12This episode was such a hit the first time my previous podcast producer, Kylie, and I aired it, and I knew we had to bring it back, especially since my best friend and mentor, Amy Porterfield, is hosting a live course creation bootcamp this month that will help you nail down your digital course topic, type, price, and audience growth plan in just a matter of days. Plus, when you join her bootcamp, I'm also giving you free access to Insta Essentials. That's two months of done for you Instagram strategy, expert insights, and a toolkit to help you show up and convert, all valued at$49, absolutely free.

3:46If you head to jennacutcher.com slash bootcamp, you can learn more about Amy's bootcamp and save your seat. That's jennacutcher.com forward slash bootcamp, which will be linked in the show notes too. Now let's dive into this throwback episode with Kylie Lowe on what you really need to create, launch, and make money with an online course. Super quick question. How many tabs do you have open right now? Like actually go to your browser and check. If you have ADHD like me, it's a lot. And when you throw a business into the mix, it's even more. You might have a tab for your email marketing system, one for your payment software, one for your CRM, content tools, email tools.

4:22And with all those tabs, you're spending more time searching through data and less time, you know, growing your business. But with HubSpot's customer platform, you can close all those tabs and access all your tools in one convenient place. With HubSpot, you'll get everyone's eyes on the same work, boost data analysis with AI, optimize workflows for marketing, improve pipeline management for sales, and keep track of every customer question, big or small. So close those tabs. It's business growing time. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. That's HubSpot.com. Well, hey there, Kylie. Hey, Jenna.

4:59I just sounded like Amy Porterfield when I said that. I talk to her all the time. And so whenever she talks, I was like, hey there. I feel like I just sounded like my friend. Well, that's perfect. Since we're kind of talking about, well, I remember the story, the origin story of your whole course creator journey started with Amy Porterfield, which is kind of wild. And now you guys are on voice texting terms. You're like business besties. So I think it's only appropriate that you kind of mimicked her voice or not even really mimicked. You just kind of sounded like her naturally. Okay. Can I tell you this story really quick?

5:36I literally texted this to her yesterday. I found this email that I sent to her. I think it was like maybe like 2016. Can I read it to you? Yeah. Yeah, please. So I sent this to Amy before she even knew I existed. And here's what this email said. I'm actually very proud of myself that this is what I sent to my hero. Okay. So it says, hi, Amy. My name is Jenna Kutcher and I'm a wedding photographer based in Wisconsin. I started listening to your podcast and am a student of both of your paid programs. I want to take my education to the next level. And in order to do so, I know I need to invest in knowledge.

6:15I would love to work with you, but I know you're a busy gal. So if you don't offer one-on-one business coaching, would you please recommend someone who you trust? You are the best, Jenna Kutcher. Wow. Isn't that wild? That's like out on a limb, big time. Totally out on a limb. And you know what's so funny is I sent this to Amy because I love to like just remind her once a year of like where we started. She inspired me to start my podcast because, you know, even looking at how I worded that, like I was a listener of her podcast. Then I bought her program. I just really like, I consumed every bit of content she put out.

6:51And so I was like, I love how bold I was. And you know, what's wild is that she wasn't doing one-on-one coaching, which I knew because I listened to her show, but she like connected me to other people who helped me enter into the digital course creation world, which then she pivoted into, which thank God she did because she's the best at it. But I just like love that reminder of like one, just how you never know who you're impacting through the content you're creating. But two, it's never too late to like reach out to someone that inspires you and ask for help, which I love. Yeah, no, I love that.

7:29Thanks for reading that email. It also makes me giggle a little bit. Sometimes I cringe at my old self and sometimes I want to hug her because I'm like, you are gutsy. Right. Right. So then on the topic, of course, is I know it's something we've talked about on the show a lot because it is such a big foundational part of your business. And this, you know, the brand really has a huge foundation in digital course creation and you're an educator online. so I know at risk of being redundant can you just give us a little backstory of Jenna the course creator how that all started oh my gosh yeah so when I was a wedding photographer I started to hear more about the digital course space and I was at a season of entrepreneurship where my wedding season was about six months of the year being in the Midwest and then I would have six months of a slower season.

8:25And in that slower season, I started mentoring other photographers because I was getting so many questions. Like people would be like, how did you grow so fast? Or like, what is your pricing guide look like? Or how did you build your WordPress site? Like all these different things. And so I remember actually Facebook memories reminded me the other day, I'd put up a post and I was like, Hey, I think I'm going to start mentoring other photographers. Would anyone want to come to our apartment? And I'll do like a half day or a full day session based off of what you need. And so I started doing these little mentor sessions.

8:57We lived in a tiny little village of 1200 people in our first apartment ever. It was right after we had gotten married. And I started realizing that people were asking me the same things. Like after doing five of these mentor sessions, I was answering the same things. I was giving the same templates. I was, you know, walking people through the same strategies. And I was like, Like, okay, one, this is awesome, but it's not scalable. Two, I'm getting bored of saying the same thing over and over again. And three, clearly there are themes that people need help with. And so I actually ended up investing in my first online course and it was not cheap.

9:33The world was very different than it is today. I think it was like$5 ,000. Oh, wow. But I invested in it on the premise and the promise that the creator would actually teach me to do what he was doing. So like I didn't even necessarily want the course itself. I wanted to see how did he build it? How did he deliver it? What was the experience like? All of those things. Because I knew that like I have this tendency to overcomplicate. Like if I don't know what platform to use, I open up 8 million tabs and I get so overwhelmed that I just don't make a decision. And so I invested in it knowing, hey, I'm going to get the backend and that's what I really need help with.

10:12Because there wasn't, you know, things like digital course Academy or things like that out there at the time. And so I ended up taking this online course and then building my first one. It was called the Jenna Kutcher course. Oh, what a name. It was a six week program and it was audio only, which really should have been my first hint at you're going to be a podcast. I remember literally sitting in my bed and recording like each module. And honestly, I listened to them. And while my voice and delivery has significantly improved over the years, the content was actually really solid. And on top of delivering the six-week program, I was doing these one-on-one calls with every single student who joined.

10:53And that was my first dip in the water of online courses. And that was years ago. And I remember, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, but I remember my first launch, like matching my corporate salary of one year. And I was like, okay, game over. I'm in. I get it. I see it. And I also get to witness people's lives change, like sign me up for the rest of my life. And so far for the rest of my life, that has been a massive part of my business. Jeez, that first launch must have just been so confidence building and like proof of concept and everything you need to really go all in. Yeah. It was, it was so crazy.

11:35And like, you know, when you walk into a restaurant and they have like their first dollar they ever made framed. Like I remember like the first person who bought my course and I was like, okay, if I can even find five people, just like that one person, this is literally life-changing. And you know, it's just this beautiful thing where it's like a lot of times we're like so focused on the masses that we forget like the power of one. And so it was like that first person that was like, yep, I'm in. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, there's more people just like them that's going to find value in this that I can help.

12:08Like, it's just so incredible. I always love hearing the origin story of the Jenna Kutcher course and that whole timeline, because now I'm on the other end of it, you know, 10 plus years later of your entrepreneurial journey. And I'm seeing the proof that digital courses really can transform businesses and lives and people. So I'm excited because we came up with this idea to ask our Facebook group, the Gold Digger Podcast Insiders Facebook group, what questions do you have about digital courses? And these questions all come from people who are the Jenna Kutcher from 10 years ago, before the Jenna Kutcher course existed.

12:49They're kind of standing at that point where maybe they have a spark of an idea, but the confidence isn't there or they're unsure of how to navigate it and go forward. So I'm excited to ask you these questions from day one people or like day zero people, really. Let's do it. Okay, starting off strong with such a problem that I see, definitely a confidence issue for someone who's not sure if they should create a course. Gabriela Valdez wants to know, do I know enough? I love that question. I think that's a question we could ask ourselves for the rest of our lives, right? Even in writing my book, I had to keep reminding myself, like, here's what I know so far.

13:33Like, that is like how I moved through the process. Because here's what I know so far about these certain things. I guess what that invites in this opportunity to evolve and change. But do you know enough? Have you gotten yourself a result? Have you gotten someone else a result? Like that's where you begin. And I think a lot of times when it comes to horse creation or even like poising yourself as an educator, there is this massive identity crisis and imposter syndrome really rears its head. And I think that is so natural. And I think if you don't feel that, I'd be shocked because that question is like, who am I to teach this?

14:14Right? Like, who am I to tell somebody how to do something? Do you know enough? Have you studied it? Have you learned from other people? Have you invested in learning this thing? What does that look like? And it doesn't mean like invested money. It means like investing time. I was recently walking through a loss, a pregnancy loss with somebody close to me. And I would never ever pose myself as like an educator on that topic. But I realized like, I devoted hours upon hours of learning and scouring the forums and reading medical journals and hundreds and hundreds of dollars on doctor's visits and stuff.

14:53While I don't know everything, I know a lot to help somebody through it. And I'm saying this as in your knowledge does not have to be monetized, right? Your knowledge can literally just make a difference in someone else's life. And so if you need proof that you know enough, start for free, start helping someone else transform, start testing what has worked for you to see if it works for other people. Just like I did those mentor sessions in my living room in my apartment, that was helping me really find the confidence that one, this works for other people. It's not just reserved for me, but two, I can help other people.

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17:13Head to revolve.com forward slash gold digger, shop my edit and take 15 % off your first order with the code gold digger. Fast two-day shipping, easy returns. It's literally the only place you need to shop from. That's revolve.com forward slash gold digger to shop my favorites and get 15 % off your first order using the code gold digger offer ends December 14. So happy shopping. So that kind of rolls into the next question then, because Esther Marani wants to know what do you do when you know how to do so many things, or you know how to figure out how to do so many things, but you don't feel like you're an expert.

17:50So you don't feel like you're in a place to teach others. That expert word is sometimes a hang up. I mean, what a beautiful problem. You know how to do so many things. That's like the coolest problem to have. Like what a great human experience. One thing that Amy Porterfield teaches in this is that you just have to have the 10 % edge. What that means is like, you do not need to be miles beyond the people that you're leading. You need to be steps ahead of them. And honestly, Kylie, I feel like this is sometimes where people go wrong is that they are so proficient in what they teach that they forget what it was like to start.

18:31Right? Like, have you ever had a teacher? I remember I had this teacher in high school who was teaching chemistry. And he was so immersed in the world of chemistry that he really struggled with like explaining it to people that weren't obsessed with it or that didn't get it or that weren't natural at it. And it was so hard to be his student because he would just talk like everything was common sense. Like surely everyone knows this when like in reality, none of us knew it. And I really struggled learning. And one of the things that I have loved in my career, and I think part of the reason why I've been able to find quote success is that I have walked people through things as I'm moving through them.

19:09Right? Like even in the book writing process, like Amy Porterfield and I literally talk daily, daily. and she's writing a book. I wrote a book and like, I was sharing my experience as I was moving through it. Cause I'm just months ahead of her. Right. So I'm like, this is working. This isn't working. I would do this. I wouldn't do this. And at one point I was joking and I was like, please tell me you're taking notes on what I'm sending you. Cause I'm no, I'm not going to remember all of this. And she's like, Oh no, I have a whole notebook of notes off of what you're telling me. Like this is so helpful.

19:39And so the 10 % edge is really, really crucial. And I hope that someday you do become an expert, that you feel like you're an expert. But remember, you don't have to wait for that to be your, you know, title before you begin. How can you be just further down the path and guiding someone along the journey with you? Well, so then to summarize, it's not about being the expert or knowing everything about one thing. It's a knowing enough about something to share it with somebody else and help them get a result. Yes. Is that okay? Okay. Okay. I'm taking notes over here too. All right. So then the other thing that usually comes up when it comes to creating a course is obviously you want to create a course to sell, to make money and you need people to sell too.

20:27And a lot of people are like, wait, I'm not sure my audience is big enough. So Katie Walsh wants to know, what are your tips for marketing a course when you're just getting started building your audience or really what's the benchmark of a right time quote to start and launch to? Okay. So when I launched my first program, I had an email list of around 500. And I had been growing my email list while I was developing and building the course. So I, my one regret, because I don't have a lot of them, my one regret in business was that I waited so long to start my email list. And I even was way ahead of the time on that.

21:06But like still, when I think about all the years of being an entrepreneur without having an email list list. And Amy agrees on this as well. Like we talk about this all the time. Like my email list is the number one priority in my business. It is the number one indicator of my business's health. It is the number one results driver in everything that I do. And so if you do not have an email list, you want to start building one today. If you need help with that, I have a really good mini course. It is absolutely free. We've had over 53 ,000 people take this. So that's bananas. Isn't that insane?

21:43If you are like, if you're tiptoeing towards the starting line, there are 53 ,000 people that will pull you along the path that are investing and learning about starting an email list. It is a five day mini, mini program with tutorials called the zero to 250 challenge. You can go to list build challenge.com. It's list build challenge, But regardless, when you think about it, like I always talk about, you want to have a list to launch to, right? And a lot of people are so focused on social media. Social media is incredible. It's awesome. If you have big numbers there, congratulations. But your email list is going to be people who have already seen the value that you can offer and exchange something of value in return, which is access to their inbox.

22:25And so Amy has taught over the years, you want to have between 250 to 500 people on your list before you launch a program. She's had students that have 100 people on their list do$12 ,000 launches, but you want to be growing your list while you're building your course. And it's honestly a really cool thing to be doing because when you have an email list, you can test out ideas, you can ask questions, you can see what people are most interested in, you can test out ideas. And one thing I love that Amy does and teaches is she has this way so that you can get your first 10 sales before you even start building your course.

23:06And what that does is it validates your offer. It brings in cashflow before you start getting too deep on a topic or something that might not resonate. And it also just gives you the confidence of like, people are willing to invest in learning what I already know. So start growing your email list. If you need help, go to listbuildchallenge.com. It's a really great tool to get started. It walks you through how to create the signup form, how to send the email, like all these different things and grow your list while you are building out your course. It doesn't have to take you a lot of time, but your email list is going to be the biggest indicator of the success of your launch.

23:43And so you don't want to leave that for last. Do you think people underestimate the size of the audience that they do have, or like they just don't see the power in what they already have? Yeah. Oh, all the time. And it's really crazy too. And I've actually been thinking about this a lot in terms of my own business is like, it is so much better to show up for the people that are already there and to serve them so well than to be always focused on getting more. What I mean by that is like when I did my first launch, I'm pretty sure I had around 500 people on my email list, but I was personally getting on one-on-one phone calls with every person who even thought that my program would be the right fit for them.

24:21And I wanted to just serve people so well and give them such an incredible experience and help them build up their own confidence in themselves. And so I think in a world that is so fixated on like more, more, more, more is incredible, but it's not always better. And I think the best way to get more is to serve the people who are already there. They're going to come back and they're going to bring friends. So then this is a perfect segue because the next question is from Lisa Holloway. And she wants to know what's the difference between what is needed to launch a course and what is a nice to have before you launch.

24:57And I have a feeling the email list is on the needed side, but what else? What's on either side of that list? Okay. So needed side, absolutely. Email list. So you have a list to launch to because you don't want to just like throw it out there and like hear crickets, right? You have to have a way to get your offer in front of people. You need to have some sort of framework that will get people results. And you need to know how to lay things out in a way that will guide people on the path. Right? Because one of the things that I think is a tendency when you think about the online course world is that you're just like, I just want to sell the course, but like you want the course to actually generate results or else no one's going to take it again, or you're going to get refund requests or like all of those different things.