Creating a Passive Income Stream From Your Live Course
Creating an impactful passive income stream course ~ that your students will complete
You’ve run your course live a couple of times. It sells, and better still, your students get a great result from it. Yay!
But. You’re a bit ‘over’ launching it every few months, and then having to be there live, module by module, to teach your students.
You want to take your live course and make it a self-led passive income?
It means it would always be available for your audience to buy (no waiting for the doors to open) AND it would free up time for you to focus on creating your next course/ focus on creating content, or simply having more time for yourself’.
Cool, love this Freedom Friendly Business initiative from you!
You might be thinking - all I need to do is record the modules and stick them in your course platform as pre-recorded learning resources. Job done.
Well kinda. But.
I’ve talked before about the pros and cons of self-led vs live courses (and my personal preference - the hybrid model). And a self-led (or hybrid) course is certainly the way to go if you want to escape the launch cycle and create a more sustainable approach to building your business.
But here’s a biggie to be aware of when you make that shift.
In my experience as a course creator, and a student, I know that live courses can often create a more impactful result - you have live calls that create the accountability you need to show up, learn and do the work - and therefore, get the results.
If you’re shifting your course from live, to self-led, you need to make sure your course is built in a way that delivers a great experience, and results for your students, at the same time as creating the freedom you’re craving.
And here’s the thing - not only does helping your students get the most out of your ecourse mean they see a positive result. It also means your students feel great about the experience and will rave about your course to just about anyone who will listen - hello free and easy marketing!
How to shift your course from live to self-led learning & help your students complete your online course so they can get results they will rave about
Banish the overwhelm
This first point is probably the most important point. I know, the courses I’ve completed and feel best about are the courses that were totally un-overwhelming - perhaps 2 modules a week with a 20-minute video.
The thing is, you’re a generous soul and you want to share everything you know about the topic in question - right?
Whoa Nelly!
This is where you need to pause for a second and think about your audience - how much do they really need to understand and learn about this topic for them to see the transformation they want to see?
Do they really need to take onboard the entire contents of your brain? Or, do they just need to know the basics?
Take a look at your course content and see if there’s anything you could take out to help reduce any overwhelm. Take a look at your feedback, or ask your students if they felt overwhelmed at any point and make some tweak based on what they say.
Tell your students how they can to get the most out of your course
This is the simplest answer to helping your course students get the results they want - tell them what they need to do to get the most out of it.
In your introduction to the course, your first welcome module, tell your students how they can set themselves up for success with your course.
This might mean encouraging them to block time out in their calendar each week to work through the course, perhaps it’s reminding them how they can ask questions if they get stuck, or it’s encouraging them to download and print the workbooks - because when they do the exercises they will learn more and see a quicker/ better result.
Lean into the value of a self-paced course and make the fact that they can go at their own pace part of the value.
Offer scalable support
Even when you’ve put a ton of market research and feedback into making your course the best course it can be, students can still get stuck.
By offering support in a scalable way, you can help your students keep progressing through your course without having to be there to hold their hand every step of the way.
Options for offering scalable support:
Having a community for your course where you can check in with students (tag them into your posts!) and celebrate their wins (to congratulate your students and show other students their fellow student’s progress and success to inspire them too)
Checklists/ Quizzes to help them track their progress
Peer support - setting your students up with accountability buddies and running peer assessments (so students grade each other without you needing to be too involved)
Feedback or audits on your students work and progress
Offering ‘office hours’ where your students can voice note you or email you, and you’ll respond to them each tuesday between 12-1pm for example
Offering a monthly, or weekly Q&A call on Zoom where people can come and answer their questions.
The key with offering scalable support is to avoid that temptation to over-deliver! It’s easier to add more later, than end up struggling to deliver all of the support you’ve promised and having to take something away.
Keep tweaking your course
The best way to learn about what’s working and what’s not in your course is to ask your students. I always recommend running your course live at least once or twice before you make it a self-led product, so you can get live feedback.
From your live runs of the course you’ll know what questions came up time and time again, and which bits your students got stuck on or struggled to understand. Figure out where those tricky points are in your course and make adjustments to help your students avoid getting stuck.
When your course is in self-led mode you can continue to get this intel by asking your students for feedback at the end of the course - and testimonials if they want to leave one. Include a survey in your last module to ask them for their feedback so you can keep tweaking and improving your course.
Resources and tools
We all learn in different ways, and have different stuff going on in our lives. So, it’s useful for your students (and good from an accessibility point of view) to offer different ways for them to learn in your course.
Think about what your audience needs. If they’re always on the go, perhaps they need an audio recording of each module so they can listen to your course while they’re cooking, driving or out for a run. If your audience is new mums - make sure your course content is accessible on mobile so they can learn while they’re feeding.
As well as offering different ways to learn, providing supporting resources and tools to accompany your course materials will also help your students implement what you’re teaching them, so they can take action and see their results come to life.
Think about the courses you’ve completed and feel great about.
What was it about those courses that meant you completed them and feel good about your investment in them? What elements can you carry over into your own course design?
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