Struggling course creators listen up. This may be the reason that your courses aren’t selling the way that you want them to.
Hey, there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author. In each episode, you’ll get real world practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
Welcome back to another episode of the Momentum Marketing podcast. As always, I’m your host, Jillian Kendrick. I’m very excited to be with you today. Today is actually a really crazy day for me. I have a conference out in Phoenix that we’re leaving for tomorrow. We had a super busy weekend. That of course, if you have a busy weekend and you’re a parent and you don’t get much sleep, you know how those go. And so I’m just struggling to get through today. We still have to pack, we planned to pack last night and that didn’t happen, but that’s ok. I’m really excited to go to this conference. It’s hosted by Keap, it’s called the Let’s Grow Summit and Keap, which is the CRM that I use and that I recommend to all of my clients and I’ve partnered with them for almost a decade now. They are gonna be making some really big, awesome announcements at the conference and I am so excited to bring back some great news and share it with you.
Today however, we are talking about the reasons that your online course might not be selling. So if you sell online courses, if you’re interested in selling online courses, if you’ve been selling online courses for a little while or a long time, you know that there is an incredible amount of nuance and variations and testing and retesting and fixing and tweaking and all of these things that go into creating an amazing offer that will get people to buy. And on top of creating an offer, making it irresistible, naming it appropriately, putting the pieces together, making it actionable, making it desirable, right? Like on top of all of the things that you have to do to sell an online course, the one piece that I think gets overlooked the most is bonuses. So bonuses, although they’re part of the course or really should be kind of considered the whole package of the offer or the course itself. Bonuses have this perception of being separate and being free by virtue of the name bonus, but it can actually work in your favor to be part of the course and, and part of the offer holistically. And what I mean by that is when you’re bonus things onto a course, you wanna think about a couple of factors.
Number one, do your best if you can and if it’s appropriate for your online course or membership to try to make the bonuses as actionable as possible. And what I mean by that is you don’t want to give away a bonus where the results or the ROI is unclear. So if you give away a Facebook group as a bonus or a slack channel or access to like a hijabi membership or a customer hub membership, that’s totally fine. That’s great.
Unless somebody has already been in a course and fully understands the value of that community, the value of having direct access to you, the value of asking questions that can get answered immediately, the value of being in community with other people who are struggling through the same thing that your course is teaching. Unless someone has done that and been through that, they really don’t understand the massive value that a group can give to them. They just don’t get it until they experience it.
So if you’re gonna bonus something like a Facebook group, you really have to dive in and thoroughly explain exactly what they’re getting, what the benefits are, what it means to them, why it’s important, how it’s valuable and what result or benefit are they going to get from this bonus? A better bonus would be something like a Facebook ads checklist, that is very clear that it’s for Facebook ads and it’s a checklist to either get you started or maybe an A B split test checklist or something along those lines that gives them very clear ROI I it gives them an obvious benefit or return to them or investing that time to go through that bonus or go through the course. So you wanna make sure that any of your bonuses have a very clear ROI a very clear benefit statement to the person that’s gonna be buying.
Number three, your bonuses should actually be helping you overcome objections that somebody would have to not wanting to buy your course. So let’s say, I don’t know, let’s say you’re selling a course on saving for your kids’ college fund or investing for retirement, something like that. Well, one objection could be, it sounds like it would take a really long time to figure out how to do all of those things and I just don’t have the kind of time. I work full time. I’ve got kids. I would love to save for their college fund or invest for my retirement, but I don’t have the time to dedicate.
So you can have a bonus, an accelerator or a checklist or a video or a training or something that would help expedite that learning curve for them. So whatever their objections are and there really are just a couple of standard objections. It’s usually price time learning curve. There’s a couple of others depending on the industry that you’re in. But those are the big, big ones. And if you can provide bonuses that help overcome those objections, then you can get that person one step closer to saying yes to buying your course.
The next thing is to be aware of bonus things that will take up a lot of your time. So I used to think it would be really valuable to bonus in one on ones or kickstart calls or something like that with me. And I still do that depending on the price points, depending on the level and other factors. But for my standard courses, I no longer do that because I, if I sell so many of them that takes up a lot of my time to then schedule and fulfill on lots of kickstart calls or one on ones.
And because of the lifestyle that I want for my courses to be as passive and easy as they can be while still providing my students and clients tons and tons of value. I’ve eliminated things like that up front, but I’ve held those back and bonus them into other higher level programs.
And one of the issues with that too was not only that it took up a lot of my time, but people who had just started to work with me, brand new students, cold leads that had recently converted. Those people weren’t quite ready and didn’t fully understand the value of what that meant. So they would get a one on one or they would get a kickstart call with me and then they didn’t fully under and that’s on me as the marketer, but as they got to know me and as they got to work with me and as they got to see, not just how smart I am and the 13 plus years of experience that I have, but as I began to provide them continued value, my credibility in their eyes grew even more. And so then when I gave them a bonus of a one on one or a kickstart call, it was oh, I get to have a call with Jill and this is so exciting. You see what I mean?
So beware of bonus things that will take up a lot of your time. But then like I had said earlier, beware of bonus things where the return on their investment or the value to them isn’t just absolutely obvious.
And the last strategy for adding bonuses to an online course or membership that will help increase sales and help you grow your business is that added bonuses help add to the perceived value of that course. So the value of your course or membership should be obvious to the ideal buyer. Does that make sense? Somebody who you know this course or this membership is tailor made for that person.
The value or ROI of the course or membership alone should be obvious to the person that it was made for. Somebody else who isn’t quite there. They’re not quite ready or they’re not quite at that level of business or they don’t quite have that problem that you’re solving. They may be your ideal buyer eventually, but they’re just not quite there right now, but your ideal buyer, your perfect avatar, your ideal customer. They should very obviously and clearly see the value of just the course of membership alone without any bonuses, because they have that pain point and they need it solved, because they feel that frustration and they’re willing to invest money to make it go away.
So when they see your offer, they should feel that they fully understand and fully see the value of just the course or membership alone. But then adding bonuses to that course or membership is what ups the perceived value. It’s what heightens and raises the stakes for them in terms of making that product an ideal product or making it just a commodity. So let me give you an example of that.
I was just listening to this in a video last night and I thought it was absolutely fascinating. I had to share this with you. At least in the United States, maybe not overseas yet. But have you ever heard of the Yeti company? They make cups and tumblers and basically they make coolers. But the fascinating thing about the Yeti company is that the fascinating thing about Yeti is that their coolers are like $300 or more. They are not cheap products whatsoever but people buy them at astronomical rates. They fly off the shelves. Whereas their competitors, you can buy a similar-ish cooler for maybe $50/$60. But people are buying the Yetis at 300 plus.
Why is that?
So Yeti went out when they first started and they created a product for the professionals. Imagine manufacturing golf clubs and rather than manufacturing golf clubs for a newbie or a first time golfer or somebody that’s only gonna play once in their entire life. You’re manufacturing golf clubs for Tiger Woods or Bubba Watson or somebody like that, right? That’s what Yeti did. Yeti went to a whole bunch of like hunting and fishing. Professionals. People that do this stuff for a living probably on ESPN the O show or something like that. And they went out and said, ok, if you were to create the absolute perfect cooler, what would it be? What functionality do you have to have? What pieces and parts do you need? What’s missing from the coolers that you’re using right now? And then they set out to make that cooler for the Pros. They made the Michael Jordan of coolers. They made the Venus William of coolers, right? And then because they knew that they had made a product that was 6 to 10 times what their competitors were charging. They then went back to those pros that they made those coolers for and said, ok, test these out, post them on your social media Here wear this hat, here have a free t-shirt and they got the pros using their stuff, using their products. And then as the average consumer or, you know, the weekend fisherman or the one time golfer type of person, right?
As the family who camps once a year started to take recognition of the fact that these professionals were using these Yeti equipment, high end coolers and cups and all this stuff. What Yeti ended up doing by marketing that way was they positioned themselves as the solution for the professionals. They positioned themselves as the ideal solution for the highest level professional. So imagine lots of little girls starting to play tennis and looking at Venus and Serena Williams saying I wanna be like them someday. What balls do they use? What tennis rackets do they use? What shoes do they wear? That’s the equipment that I want because I wanna be like them someday.
And that’s how Yeti positioned themselves. What you can take from this lesson then is as you bonus in more things, as you add more value, more perceived value, you’re elevating your course and your content so that when someone looks at your offer at your course or membership in totality with the bonuses and the payment plans and all the thing. They see it as the aspirational goal. The I wanna get to that place. I wanna be that person or I want to achieve that thing and adding more bonuses in helps elevate that. And if you need help with your course creation, I know I’ve talked about this before but I wanna remind you if you haven’t jumped into the ultimate A I formula yet, it’s still only $37 and the price is gonna go up next week.
So make sure that you jump on that. It’s 37 bucks right now. I think it’s gonna go up to 197 or something like that. Yeah, literally next week we’re holding out for our Black Friday sale for that course because it is literally so good. If you have tried to use Chat GPT or other AI to help you build your courses, to help you build your content, to help you get inspiration and you just find that every single time it’s falling flat, it’s not writing content. that sounds like you. It’s not giving you the stuff that you need and you’re having to go back and rewrite and fix and tweak and it sounds robotic or it’s confidently incorrect, the way that a lot of AI results have been.
The thing that you need to understand is that AI is much more of a learning tool than it is a production tool. You have to teach AI, what you want to get out of it and the more you give it and the more you teach it, the more you will get out of it. So the ultimate AI formula, which is my basically quick starter course on AI and how to use it.
I give you five formula prompts to put into chat GPT or whatever AI system you wanna use. And from there, once you go through all of the steps, you will begin to produce content. That sounds like you wrote it and requires minimal if any editing whatsoever. I had one student, Austin go through the ultimate AI formula and he had to say this, you did it again. This is gold, the copy I’m getting out of chat GPT right now is taking me less time to edit and is making the transition in my business so much easier. He also went on to say that the content he’s creating is saving him at least 4 to 5 hours a week on content creation and is gonna end up saving him upwards of $1000 or more just in the saved hours that he’s gonna be spending on his content creation.
All of that for only 37 bucks. I had another student, Jessica , go through the ultimate AI formula and she loved it. She said I had been playing with AI but never had any idea of how to train it to do more than just answer basic questions. I would use it to create content, but still required me to edit for my tone of voice. The ultimate AI formula really gave me some great ideas of how to generate more authentic content delivered close to my own style of writing. I never would have had any idea that this was even possible. Thank you Jillian. So she, Jessica, absolutely loved it. And again, you can get all of this amazing value for only 37 bucks, but that’s going away next week. So grab the ultimate AI formula at https://www.automatedmama.com/ultimate-ai-formula
And as always, if you have any questions, you can email my team at, hello@jilliankendrick.com
Have a great week. I’ll see you in the next episode.
Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing podcast. If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life or given you insight on how you can build your own momentum, then please share this with a friend. And if you’re ready to grow your business on autopilot, then I want to help you get there easier and faster with a free copy of my entrepreneur’s survival kit. Just leave a review of this podcast wherever you’re listening right now. Hopefully, it’s a five star review and you love it, then screenshot the review and email the screenshot to hello@jilliankendrick.com Once we confirm the review, we’ll send you a copy of the survival kit totally free. Thank you so much for joining me and I’ll see you on the next episode. All content is written and recorded by Jillian Kendrick Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: #40
Topic: This is Why Your Course isn’t Selling
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
https://jilliankendrick.com/link-pineapple/
