In this episode of the Course Wizards podcast, Amit and Chris discuss the most common challenges course creators face--and how you can beat them in 2023!

Links:

• Apps for Authors - https://writing.fyi/apps
• New Zenler - https://www.newzenler.com/invite/zmnfZZ
• 5K Course Launch Blueprint - https://getnzlr.com/5k-launch-blueprint
• Course Launch Secrets Facebook Group - facebook.com/courselaunchsecrets

What's up?

Course Wizards.

Welcome to yet another episode of the Course Wizards.

I am your host, Amit, and I'm here with the one, the only Christopher Maselli.

What's up Chris?

Hey.

Hey Amit.

Oh, it's a good night.

We're doing course creators.

We're doing course creations.

I don't know what I'm talking about,

It's a good night.

We're talking, we are talking about some of these challenges.

Like Chris is facing.

Like I'm facing right now, just opening the show.

Yes.

Yes.

And that's one of the challenges.

But today's episode is very special.

We're gonna talk about how can course creators overcome some of the common

challenges that we face, right, as we get into course creation, or even

if we are seasoned course creators.

These are some challenges that we continue to face and what

are our tips to overcome it?

So Chris, why don't you open us up since you're having some challenges.

All right.

Yeah.

We've been doing this a long time, haven't we?

I Between the two of us, it's been probably a good decade or more that we

have been recording online courses of all kinds and over those over the time.

Technology may change in that, but there are still some common challenges.

That we find if come up time and again that people ask us about.

And so we just thought we'd talk about some of those.

And so yeah, the first one is really just coming up with your course idea.

It can be so hard sometimes to figure out what exact angle, what thing am I

gonna talk about what do I know about?

And the truth is, what are you passionate about?

What do you love?

What could you talk about forever or what do you know about that you

can offer a unique perspective on?

Anything like that you can create a course on, really, there's almost

nothing that is off limits as far as course creation ideas go.

If you can think it, you can probably teach it, and if you can

teach it, you can teach it online.

So yeah, just come up with your idea.

And you know what, sometimes it just takes practice.

It's okay to go ahead and record one and then realize you're gonna

end up scrapping that course because it just didn't work out.

That's okay.

I've got courses I've recorded that no one's ever bought, right?

And that comes with the territory.

But every once in a while you'll come up with one.

It'll just sell like hot cakes and it'll be the kind of thing that, you

know, that just resonates with people

And I am yet to find.

That sell like hot cakes one.

Yeah.

And I can tell you, Chris, this is my challenge too.

So even after been doing this since 2015, I am still struggling on what's the one

stake I wanna put in the ground that's me.

Yeah.

What am I, what do I wanna be known for?

I can't do New Zenler because that's too niche down.

Like I can be the new Zenler guy, but I don't think I can do courses

on it because it's so niche.

And if it is that niche down, then it's going to be hard for me to

sustain and quit my job and become a full-time course creator, right?

Yeah it does take a while and you just have to really dig deep and figure

out what are you passionate about?

Because I'm passionate about so many things and I jump, if I see a new

topic, I'm like, let's capitalize.

Chat, g p t, perfect example.

Let's capitalize.

, am I going to be the ChatGPT guy?

No.

I think what I've figured out, Chris, and you have known me for about three years

now, is I want to be the blogging guy.

I think I teaching people how to blog successfully.

And I think finally I'm coming to realize that's what I'm good at.

And I have ranked multiple blogs and I've showed you some of my hidden

blogs that are only in the affiliate world that I don't wanna disclose.

But now I have figured that out.

Chris, do you, does that resonate?

With like what I'm saying and how difficult it can be

and how to find this trend.

Yeah.

And sometimes it is, it's not just about finding the one thing, sometimes it's

about finding the overall kind of ideas.

So like what Amit is talking about, being the blog guy, it's not just

how to create blogs, but it's how to drive traffic to blogs.

It's how.

Come up with new blog ideas, right?

It's how to use the different platforms that blogs are on.

There's a lot of things that surround that idea of blogs that he can branch into

because he becomes the blog guy, right?

And so you can do that same kind of thing with your topic.

I know a guy who does a particular piece of writing software,

kinda like you're talking about.

New Zenler, that's a particular piece of particular app.

I know someone who does a particular piece of writing software, but then he

branches off of that into how to write your own book and how to do editing.

Okay.

Like a screen editing screen

and then he'll go on to other ones.

So you can definitely branch out.

It's really just that overall idea.

Yep.

And talk about this all the time, I'm in the Facebook group with Daniel . He

started off as the Filmora guy.

Yes.

But now he's branching out into how to grow your YouTube channel.

But his catch, or the lead magnet for people to enter his

world was how to use Fil Mora.

And if someone's using Fil Mora, they likely are using it for YouTube.

Which feeds into how do you get better at YouTube?

Then you join his paid Facebook group and you can see how that

translates.

Yeah, and some of that comes, I think, from getting to know

your audience, because as you get to know your audience, they're going to

start asking you questions, and certain questions will become very common.

And so if you are normally doing videos on Fil Mora, and then you keep getting

a bunch of questions on How do I grow my YouTube channel, it seems a natural

extension to make that your next topic.

What's so Chris, the next one we have here is, we talked

about this in our previous episode.

, so this is a really good one, is feeling natural in front of camera.

Yeah.

This is a challenge.

And everyone has their own way, right?

Yeah.

A lot of people have a challenge with this.

I don't feel comfortable being on video.

A lot of people say that.

And yeah.

How do you feel natural?

How did you get to feeling natural in front of a camera?

I never did not I never had the fear.

even though I have a severe fear of public speaking, I sweaty palms,

heads, everything gets sweaty.

I had done a digital, I had participated in within my work, like

my previous job, we had done like a digital talent show and I'm like,

sure, I'll put my name in the hat.

This was on Zoom, , was still so nervous.

I had taken, I remember three tequila shots before I even started,

so I'm not recommending that.

So you don't remember it at all?

I was doing a comedy show.

Yeah.

And uh, yeah it turned out to be okay.

But to overcome that fear, I had a fear of having so many eyes on me.

But when I'm recording for a YouTube, no one's watching me

live, so I don't really care.

I think that's one thing to remind yourself is if you're just recording

your videos that no one is watching live, just speak to the camera like

you're speaking to your best friend.

Yeah.

And if liquid courage works for you, then that's great for you.

Try that whatever works.

But yeah, just look right into the camera like I'm looking

right into the camera right now.

And you don't have to, if you don't feel comfortable thinking

that, this camera is looking at me.

Then just do it off camera and just do audio in the beginning and slowly

graduate to maybe enabling your camera.

Yes.

What really helped me with it was because I'm a perfectionist,

so I would start recording and think, oh, it's not good enough.

I gotta rerecord that take.

And then I started watching others who were recording videos on training,

watch 'em on YouTube or through other courses, and I would see them mess up.

And it didn't bother me because I loved the content so much.

And then I realized I could do that.

I could do at least as good as they were doing, and knowing that was my

standard made it a lot easier for me, and it just took away any of that.

Yeah.

Set the bar lower and it made it easier.

What's the next one, Chris?

It also helped to have the right equipment, right

when you get a good camera.

And your face is nice and clear when you got a light, when

you've got a good microphone.

We talked about several of these things on our last episode if you

wanna hear some of our recommendations.

But just get some decent equipment.

It doesn't have to cost a lot.

It can be under a hundred dollars to give yourself a Blue Yeti microphone

and a c 9 22 Logitech camera.

And with those two things, you're pretty much ready to go.

And the right equipment goes a long way.

And it's so relaxing to be able to sit down and just know,

okay, I got everything I need.

I just gotta record now.

It's just the content now.

And you have it down, right?

Because you have your stream deck.

You know when to press a button to cut from scene to scene.

Yep yep.

Every, you get it all set up.

It takes a while to set it all up, but once you get it set up, you're good to go.

Yeah.

It does boost your confidence.

It's you like, okay, all I have to do is be in my element And that's

one of the challenges, right?

Just facing the camera, talking to your audience, being on camera.

That's one of the challenge, one of the many challenges that course creators face.

We are not going to cover the whole breadth of challenges, or we'll be

here forever, but we are going to try to cover some of the top ones.

One challenge that I have faced, Chris, is growing your community.

And that's always one of those catch 20 twos where you don't want to be too sleazy

to grow your community by dropping links to your community, but also provide value.

So what I found works best for me is just providing value.

Immense amounts of value.

And when people see what you're providing they will actually click on your profile,

find which area you will, or which platform you hang out on, whether that's

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever.

And if you have a community in your profile, they will come

join that community because they want direct access to you.

That's good.

Yeah.

Building a community can always be a challenge.

And another challenge that I've found that a lot of times people

face is creating a second course.

They put all their blood, sweat, and tears into their first course, work as

hard as they can to get it just right, and then they feel like, okay, I'm done.

And not realizing, you know what, that was just a warmup.

You have so much more that you can teach and train and so don't forget

that you can do that and the best thing you can do is just jump into the next

one, just like you did your first one.

So I am going, I'm going to rebuttal you that one more thing that people

forget, including me, which is also my challenge is once the wave has died down,

how to keep riding that wave of sales.

For your first and your flagship course.

Yes.

Yes.

That's absolutely, and that's a great point Amit because we, it is too easy

to create a course and then just go on to the next thing and yeah, so yes,

you want to, you wanna keep creating, and I guess that's what I'm saying

when I say build yours second course.

But that doesn't mean you just forsake the first course.

Go ahead and realize you can reintroduce that to the world

every few months if you want to.

It is a continuous money maker for you if you get something out

there that people really like.

Yep.

And I think the best way, cuz Chris, you and I are both

probably guilty of this, right?

You just had launched your course last year, we talked about . We went

through your sales page and I don't think you promoted it after a while

or are you still promoting that?

No, that one, the one we went over was the one for Black Friday.

And so I haven't recorded that.

I haven't promoted that one since, cuz it was a special Black Friday deal.

But yeah, I need to pull that one back out of the vault and try

again with a whole new angle to it.

Maybe we'll do a Christmas in July.

I like that.

Yeah, but that's too far out.

You gotta do something before that.

There's,

I think you're right.

Coming up.

I've been working on one I'm working on some email training courses.

Yeah, that's what I'm working on now.

Cause you're also promoting mailer lite, so that kind of ties into that.

That's exactly right.

Yep.

All right, awesome.

So creating your second course, but not forgetting about your first few courses

and continue to, I think a really good way to do that is to set up a lead

magnet funnel that sells that course as a backend offer and get people in with

the lead magnet, then sell them and keep that automation just on a loop.

So all you have to do is keep filling the bucket with leads and funnel

those leads into your paid course.

Easier said than done.

I haven't done it yet, but I, that's my next step with my Chat

GPT course, is to now create a lead magnet that I can promote for free.

People come in through that and then sell them the course.

Yeah.

That's good.

That's good.

What's the next?

So what are some of the other challenges?

Chris?

You tell me.

I think setting your pricing is a challenge.

I can't tell you how much I agonize over this.

That, and that was when we were talking about the Black Friday deal that we put

out there, that is something that we really struggled with was how much is too

much to ask or how low is too low to where we're not making enough money, right?

Is it a value piece?

Is it a money making piece?

You, it takes a lot to figure out exactly what the right price is for your

audience that you're promoting it to.

And a good thing to hi do is just know that you have to learn over time.

You have to learn what your audience is willing to spend on courses,

what kind of value you're bringing, depending on what the course is.

And look at, see what other people are doing, do your

research, but then also test test.

And I know your latest course your Chat G P T course, you actually had

multiple price points that you could test and see what was most efficient.

So that then you could stick with the most the most promising one.

Yeah.

And I would say just, every few months, just raise it.

See how far you can raise it and where that bar is, where you are

gonna start seeing a drop off.

Where, okay.

That might be way too much, but I'll give you an example.

I'm in a Salesforce Facebook group with 16,000 professionals and it's,

this group is run by this guy who teaches a Salesforce course and

that's his core, like that's his job.

He does that for a living, he charges 2200 bucks.

He has a team of people on working with him because he's so successful with that.

Yes.

And I told him, Hey, can I promote my $200 course?

And his words were your course is too similar to my course and

you can see the price difference.

We are charging, I'm charging 200.

He's charging 2200, and he's scared that if he promotes my course,

we have almost the same content.

He said that people might start taking mine over his, so clearly I have a

price gap here that I need to bridge.

Yeah, it sounds like you need to raise yours by about 2000 dollars.

But that's one of the problems and challenges that I face as a

course creator is one, just not having this be my full-time gig where

I can give it my a hundred percent.

So my attention is always divided, which is one of my biggest challenges.

As a course leader, is how do I stay focused and stick to that one

until I've completely exhausted.

Yes.

Like I'll create a course, I'll do a launch.

The launch goes great like we did with chat, G P T.

. Then the fire turns down to a simmer and then I move on instead of putting more

fuel on that fire that I already created.

Yes.

Yeah, that's good.

I don't know if that's a challenge that you face too, Chris, but

that's one of my biggest challenges.

Oh, yeah.

The biggest challenge I think, probably on this list is this last

one, which is just getting sales and keeping sales keep getting sales.

And that is something that we're all still figuring out.

And sometimes it is like you, there's almost nothing to figure out, you'll.

I know course creators that have created a course and it just took off.

And sometimes you look at it and I think there's nothing special about it.

Like, why did that one take off?

And yet, I know there's maybe I've created another one that's even more in depth.

Is even better video quality, right?

It's got extra resources, but it's not selling as well.

And why is that?

And that's, it's that's something, that's the kind of thing

that'll keep you up at night.

Right?

Yeah.

I think it's a culmination of everything we talk about on this podcast, right?

It's the, your sales page, your lead magnets, like everything has to be in sync

and on brand, and you have to continue to deliver at each of those touchpoints

to then eventually ask for that money that they'd be happy to give you.

Cuz you just provided so much value.

Yeah, that's right.

All right, let me recap here.

Some of the common challenges that are faced by course creators.

First of all, coming up with that course idea.

That's always a challenge, just go ahead and go for it.

Find out what drives you.

Feeling natural in front of a camera.

Best thing you can do with that is just practice and watch what others do.

Be yourself.

Third, having the right equipment.

Don't be afraid to invest in a good microphone and camera.

Go ahead and create that second course don't let the first one

stop you from keeping creating.

We always tell you to keep creating.

Next, grow your community.

That's one of the best things you can do.

As your community grows, so will your sales because they're the ones who

like what you're doing, they've already raised their hand and said, yes, I want

more, and you can sell more to them.

Then of course, setting your pricing and getting sales, both

those things are a big challenge.

And I, face challenges with those all the time.

But as you do this more and more, you start to see what works, what

doesn't, and you can go on from there.

Thank you, Chris.

Now, I heard this on a different podcast and I wanna adopt this,

see if it moves the needle, Chris.

All right.

So I would like to challenge our listeners and our watchers to, if you

found value right from this episode.

From any episode before this, hit the subscribe button, leave us a review.

Let us know if we have helped you.

We are giving you all this for free.

Yes.

So you are in debt, because now you have consumed

free content, the lead magnet.

Now you need to hit subscribe and let us know how we are

doing so we can get better.

So we'll continue to provide this for free.

Chris, do we need to put an urgency on this?

No.

Alright.

We are gonna continue to provide this for free, but what we ask for return

is subscribe on our YouTube channel or on the pod, wherever you're listening,

and let us know how we are doing by leaving a review with that, thank you

for listening to the Course Wizards podcast and for tuning in, and until

next time, what are they gonna do, Chris?

They're gonna keep creating.

Bye-bye.

Keep creating.