What No One Tells You About Creating An On-Line Course

Today I want to talk about what no one tells you about creating an on-line course. I can’t believe I am finally to a place where I can blog about this subject. I’m not kidding when I say I’ve been creating an on-line course for nearly a year.

In September of 2021, an idea to create an on-line course crept into my mind and I couldn’t shake it. I happened to put it out there that I’d like to create a course which would complement a particular category of units in my Teacherspayteachers store. Building an on-line course seemed the next step in my business and I still think this was a good idea.

I’m fortunate in that I’m a student in a wonderful company called SBZ Enterprises. They taught me how to amplify my presence in social media through their course focused on Instagram. If you don’t know much about the Instagram and how to market on it, I’d suggest you take this course. You can find it at: SBZ Enterprises

What No One Tells You About Creating An On-Line Course

Ironically, at the time I was considering this on-line course idea, SBZ was offering an affiliation with Digital Course Academy owned by Amy Porterfield. Would I be interested in taking the course with them? I excitedly agreed to do so, but really I had no idea what in the world I got myself into.

Persevering as I often do when I learn outside of my comfort zone, I enrolled with Morgan Sutton, CEO of SBZ as my mentor through the training. Morgan has been invaluable help in many ways and I will always be grateful for her support and confidence in me.

What is Digital Course Academy?

DCA is an on line course which teaches you how to create a webinar for an on-line course you are selling. At the same time I began creating my course, I studied DCA’s trainings. Talk about information overload! I mean, I’m not going to quit just because I’m in deeper than I meant to be. I finished the DCA course in December and decided that although I understood the concepts of webinar development, I needed to concentrate on my own on-line course before I could create a webinar for it.

Some people create the course as they develop their email list. In DCA you are encouraged to develop your course through the help of your email followers, gaining their insights and suggestions as you create it.

What No One Tells You About Creating An On-Line Course

My ideal client is a teacher who teaches theater or a core subject who wants to sharpen their teaching skills. I all ready knew teachers don’t have time to give me feedback, especially over several months as we fleshed out the course. Nonetheless, I was advised to survey my email list and make the first three modules of my course, so I did so.

I had seven beta testers for the course back in August. Not one of them completed the three module course. Not one. That disturbed me to say the least because personally I finish commitments even if I don’t want to. Morgan assured me it happens a lot in a situation like this. Cray cray is all I can say.

I was naïve

I planned to unveil my course ready by January of 2022. Oh my gosh, that was a ridiculous goal I could never accomplish. However, I didn’t know that at the time. In March I decided I’d hold my first webinars for the course. As the days and weeks wore on, I realized I needed another month to make ready everything. Again, I was so clueless.

It took me eight more months. Course creation can be a time suck, so if you are considering creating a course you need lots.of.time.

During those months, I built up my email list, put out more lead magnets for said email list, built sales pages for the webinar, created ten modules with guides for each and tried to hold three webinars. I followed the launch sequence for the webinar, too.

Everything appeared ready to go. What a flop!

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What No One Tells You About Creating An On-Line Course

You know how sometimes in your life, something stops you in your tracks and you can’t move on? These webinars were a failure because of reasons some of which I can’t control. My advice? Only use Zoom to hold your webinars and no one else. The company I selected for the first webinars completely messed up the dates and times of my webinars so the thirty people who signed up thought the webinars were cancelled. And you know, once your customer is confused they are leery to attend another webinar or buy your product.

Course Creation Takes More Time Than You Think

Licking my wounds for a couple of months I sat on the course. I wasn’t disillusioned but disappointed. I hoped that my webinars would attract teachers and I wouldn’t have to spend any more time on the course creation. I was so wrong. At that point, I cared more about people attending than any money I could make. In fact, I’m still of this belief. Money comes if it’s supposed to–that much I know.

In September I finished creating the course--all ten modules and ten guides. We (my dear husband and I) completed the recordings in early November, tweaking everything as time progressed. In the meantime, several hundred teachers joined my email list and I think I’m getting the right audience for the course.

Course Creation is Expensive

When you consider creating a course, there are expenses that no one tells you about for reasons unknown to me. Some of the expenses I never considered before beginning my course creation because I had no idea of all the details of doing this. In hindsight I guess I should have researched the idea more fully before I began.

I use these platforms

course creation (Canva)
platform to hold course (Samcart)
payment page (Samcart)
payment processing platform (Stripe)
sales page (Ontraport)
emails (Ontraport)
recording equipment (I was lucky here, as we owned good recording equipment from a previous project.)

Webinar Building is Expensive Too

Building a webinar has its expenses, too. Honestly, I didn’t know if Digital Course Academy is expensive, but there are extra (though optional) expenses involved if you use it. (Such as a course about email list building, for example.) These courses really do help you. Once the dust settles on this experience, I plan to re-enroll in some of Amy’s courses so I can pick up more tips. She’s really a gold mine of help!

Another expense–you need a platform for on-line meetings such as webinars and meetings with your students. I use Zoom because it’s the most respected and reliable.

Getting the word out about your course is a must–social media helps with that. You need to publicize both the webinar and the course. In my case, I use every available free platform–Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest. Linkedin.

If you have a blog and website as I do some of their costs play into this. So, I must count WordPress and Wix for my blog and website and being seen on Linktree,etc.

What’s the Course?

My course is titled, “We’re Live! Radio Theater 101”–a step by step blueprint using a unique teaching tool to engage students when you’ve tried everything else. Interested? Email me at DhcBaldwin@gmail.com

This week I announced the course is open and available for purchase. To be honest, I hate this part because I can’t control the outcome. I could wax philosophical and discuss how I don’t think we actually control anything, but you get the idea.

What No One Tells You About Creating An On-Line Course

One of the most difficult challenges is making a paradigm shift in teachers who think they can’t possibly use this in their classroom. They worry that they are expected to be a theater teacher and director, but I can assuage their worries. My guess is that I will probably spend a lot of time for the next month convincing teachers.

As of this writing, the webinars are planned for January when the teachers’ brains are rested and more apt to be open to new ideas. I know one thing for certain–it’s the cheapest it is every going to be. Once I begin the webinars, the course will cost more than it does at present.

I hope this helps you. It’s been good for me to write down my thoughts about it–that’s for sure. Have you created an on- line course? How did it go for you? Would you do it again? Feel free to email me at DhcBaldwin@gmail.com