The Evolution of My Online Course
Episode Summary:
There are so many options when it comes to monetizing your business and thought leadership – 1:1 coaching, group courses, masterminds, and so much more. Today I really want to demystify this for you today and tell you exactly what you need to create and when in order to quickly make the most money and create the most impact. I’m breaking down the evolution of my group course, Get & Coach Your First Client, which originally started as a 12 week course that I live launched 2x a year, but is now an evergreen course in which I enroll people all year long. There is no one right way to make money, but there is a lot of noise and it can be hard to discern who to listen to and what is the right way for you and your business. So listen in and take what you need! I can’t wait to hear about the action you’re going to take after listening.
Topics Discussed:
When to know it’s time for a membership program rather than 1:1 or live group coaching
Why a membership program isn’t truly passive and the work that goes into it BTS
Why Anna waited one year before she moved her 12-week course to an evergreen format
How Anna has reimagined what it means to enroll someone in an evergreen course
Using your evergreen course a strategic and leveraged way to grow other areas of your business
Episode Resources:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
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Anna Rapp (00:00):
There's so many options when it comes to monetizing online, right? You could create a membership, you could create a group program, you could create a mastermind, you could do one-on-one work. And it sounds wild, but I really wanted demystify this for you today and tell you exactly what you need to create when order to make the most money and the most impact, the fastest. I think online right now, there's so, it's so easy to get distracted, right? And it's just remembering that you can have multiple income streams over time. But I wanna walk you through exactly how my current, my, I would say my course, that's the most quote evolved. How it went from conception to where it is now. And that is really at a membership level. And I wanna explain to you how it went from creation all the way to membership.
Anna Rapp (00:51):
I hear so many women coming out the gate being like, I wanna create a membership, right? And the thing about a membership is you need a large audience to be able to, let's say you're charging $97, right? You are going to need 20 people to pay you $97 to make the same amount as two people paying you a thousand dollars, right? And I get that it sounds so sexy to launch a group, to launch a membership, right? And make save time and what is it called? I don't know how they say it, like make more money and less time, right? But I think it's remembering that's only true if you have the people to fill the program, right? And while group programs and memberships are amazing, and I love my group work for many reasons number one, because I love the community element number two, because it does leverage my time, that's the word leverage.
Anna Rapp (01:40):
But I don't think it gets talked about enough that like feeling a group program, feeling a course takes work. So you're saving time on the delivery, but you are spending time on the marketing and getting people in at the same exact time. So really the e evolution that I, my current signature course did, I wanna say it quickly and then I'm gonna break it down. Okay. I started it really as one-on-one, I help people with what I do with them one-on-one. And then from there I moved it to a live launch course where I, you know, launched it live and people had to join at the same time. From there, I took it to an evergreen course where people can now enroll in my program at any time. And then from there I evolved it into a membership where even after people finish the 12 weeks of the course, they can stay on and pay monthly to stay in the program.
Anna Rapp (02:33):
Okay? That was the quick and dirty of it. But I really feel like I've done that evolution with that course in less than two years because I've had seven years of experience trying all different things with all different programs and I've found out very quickly what doesn't work and what does work I really feel like is this formula I just shared, which is first whatever transformation you're wanting to walk someone through in your course or coach something, someone around doing it one-on-one first is so useful because it helps you make sure that what you're teaching and training on actually works and actually gets people results. It also helps you have time to build up your audience. You can sign a one-on-one client and make good money even before you have an audience, right? So it just gives, you tend to build the audience from there.
Anna Rapp (03:19):
I really feel like live launching, really getting eight women to move through your curriculum at one time is where it's at. Because you, what you really need to do is when you're creating a course, like get that course finished, get that asset created. Yes, it'll be your million dollar course over time, but it's not going to be if you don't have the curriculum done. And I have so many of my clients come to me and they've been dreaming about creating courses or masterminds for years, but they don't do it until I really hold their feet to the fire and say, okay, let's launch this thing. Let's get it done. And remembering the goal of your course, the first time you create it is to just finish it and to get the curriculum done. Whether you have five people paying you or two people paying you, it doesn't really matter, right?
Anna Rapp (04:04):
And then from there, if you want, I've had a lot of fun with moving the delivery evergreen of this program and also the marketing of this program, right? This is really the first time that I have allowed someone to come into my program at any time. But I'm so glad I waited to do that until after the program was established for about a year. People wanna move their courses evergreen and they think it's super sexy, but if you ask my team, it's actually a lot of cogs on the back end to make sure that it can work smoothly. And so I would say like live, launch your course at least three times, run people through it at least three times before you move it into evergreen, which means people can join it at any time. And for me, I took like for example, like my courses have worksheets and slack posts and emails.
Anna Rapp (04:53):
So I really had to feel from a tech point, what does it mean that whenever someone joins, they're gonna get the emails in the right sequence. What does it mean that when someone joins, they're gonna join the Slack group and I want the Slack group to be relevant to them and not say like, welcome to week one, right? So it's just a lot on the backend and I really focus first on the delivery of my evergreen course and then from there focused on the marketing of my evergreen course. I shared this a little bit, but I created a 20 minute webinar. You know, I was really against like automated evergreen webinars for a long time. And then like the advice I give people with sales, I was like, what if I just made it my own? What if instead of having like a two hour webinar where they're pretending that it's live, like what if I just tell people like, no, this is a recording, right?
Anna Rapp (05:40):
What if I let people skip or fast forward or play it on double speed because I like to play things on double speed sometimes, right? So I kind of like reimagined what it means to enroll someone evergreen and it's been converting so well so far. I'm super excited to play with Facebook ads a little bit and dump some more fuel on that fire that's already burning. But that was like another piece is not just getting the delivery evergreen, but getting the marketing evergreen. That's a whole different beast. How do you talk about that program year round? How do you get people enrolling in it year round, right? And then from there, the final shift I did is I was really realizing that like after the 12 weeks of the curriculum, people were still needing support. And so I decided to make it evergreen, which means that people can stay in and pay a monthly fee, still get the live coaching calls with me, still get private worksheet reviews with me and get the q and a threads and the Slack community.
Anna Rapp (06:38):
And that's been working out so well to have that membership component where people can still stay in my support without especially if women aren't quite ready for the Mastermind yet, right? My mastermind is really for women that are already creating 2K in their business a month, already established business owners. And so I really realized like, oh, I want a people way for people to be able to continue to get my support as they're working on building up their coaching practice. I think I nailed it. Like I really feel like that framework for getting a course from conception all the way to membership, it's where it's at. And I've been able to like, it's felt really well, it's enrolled really well and now I feel like I'm at the place where I can really like turn up the volume on this program. And I just wanted to share that because I think in the online space, like there's just so much information out there.
Anna Rapp (07:30):
And so if I were to do this again from scratch, I would do that same thing. I would start off whatever I wanna do my course on, I would start teaching on it and training on it and creating resources and doing it one-on-one with people. And then I would move it to, again, I would just launch it as a group and I would just move people through it no matter how few or little people I would just, I have so many clients that are like, oh, only three people signed up for my course. Like, well, that's fine because you haven't even created the dang course yet. Like, use this as a time to actually create your course, create the videos, create the worksheets. I remember when I was creating my quote curriculum for my mastermind, I was in the middle of, you know, moving down to San Diego and I would like record my audios and worksheets and videos like in the church lobby when my kids were in Sunday school, right?
Anna Rapp (08:18):
Like I think the cool thing about having people move through your program live is it forces you to create the content. It forces you to create the curriculum and then that asset is with you forever, right? From there, launching it live from there, really working on evergreening the delivery from there, working on evergreening the marketing. And then finally seeing if you wanna wanna add an ongoing membership component. I love adding a membership component onto a course too because it really provides a lot of focus for your membership clients and a lot of it's not just like random people, right? It's people that have, are there
Anna Rapp (08:54):
For a common cause, have been through the curriculum and are there for a reason and have context of what it's like to work with you. And I just enjoy it so, so much. Okay. I hope this was useful for you, especially as you are thinking through, you know, potentially lunching a course or you know, lunching your one-on-one offer my program, get and Coach your first client helps you do either launch your one-on-one practice and fully book with one-on-one clients. Or if you already, I have several people in the program get and coach that are already booked. One-On-One, but are really looking on launching group programs, really focusing on group coaching in courses. And so using the strategy, you can use it either way to launch your one-on-one or to launch your leverage group program and first six weeks of the program help you launch it.
Anna Rapp (09:43):
Second six weeks really help you on the delivery and giving your clients a kickback experience so they can come back, they can spread the word about you as a coach. And I hope this was helpful. I've never really recorded an episode like this. I know that it's more granular and maybe you'll need to like go back and listen to it a few times, but I hope that it dispels things for you and really helps you figure out the fastest way and a really strategic way to grow your business grow your courses and really do create all the income streams in the right order. Also wanna do a special shout out to Hailey, my podcast manager because guess what? Podcast just turned four years old. Happy birthday to us, Hailey. I am so grateful for you and all of the love and energy you've helped me put into this podcast for the last four years.
Anna Rapp (10:32):
I am so thankful for it. And happy four year anniversary to you too. Beautiful heart-centered entrepreneur, podcast listener. The best way that you can thank me is by leaving me a five star review. If I know I don't ask for that very much, but I would love for you to give me a review on whatever platform you listen to that helps more people see the show. And I read every review and it just tickles my heart. It makes me happy. Or share on Instagram and tag me if you have an episode that particularly speaks to you, it means the world to me. And I'm so thankful that we have this way to connect and communicate. But if you'd like to communicate with me more at the next level, I again invite you to join my Course Getting Coach. If you wanna learn more about it.
Anna Rapp (11:12):
The best way is to watch that 20 minute free webinar that'll give you a feel for the content of the course in 20 minutes. Really it will. But it'll also give you a feel for my coaching style and how I really simplify things, how I'm very actionable. And so I highly recommend you watch the webinar. It is called Sign Your Next Five Coaching Clients with one Simple Strategy. You're gonna love it and when you watch it, you get $3 coffee money from me as a way for me to lovingly kick your booty, send you to the coffee shop, and get you actually taking action on trying these strategies, trying tips. You know, I'm a big fan of my courses of yes, learn this, but now go take some action, now go do the work, now go assign some clients. 'cause I know that's where you're gonna be happiest is not just in the safety zone of learning, but actually going and doing and actually coaching and doing the work that you know in your heart that you're so called to do.
Anna Rapp (12:05):
I think for me, when I was starting my coaching business, it really felt like, oh, is this too good to be true? Like, I'm doing these things that I've always done, like supported women, help women listen to women, cheer them on, give them strategies, be a listening ear, right? Like, except for this time I get to get paid a lot of money to do it. And for my clients. I have 12 main coaching niches that I teach. No matter what coaching niche you teach, I wanna say you're worthy of making a ton of money supporting women on what you're passionate about. Whether you're passionate about women getting healthier, having thriving marriages, maybe it's just women in general that you wanna help them with their life, drop the anxiety and accomplish more. Like whatever it is that you are passionate about helping women or clients with, I wanna empower you to do that. Okay? Grab the webinar and again, so thankful for you and hope you have a beautiful rest of your day.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.