Don’t Just Promote Your Expertise, Make Money from It

Publicity is great for a lot of things, but if you’re like most entrepreneurs, authors, speakers and experts, you’ll soon discover that getting your products and services out there is one thing, while making money from it is another thing entirely.

Even with good publicity and recognition, whatever you’re selling might never become a consistent revenue stream. Your knowledge and expertise are valuable, but the profit margins and sales numbers mean that for most information marketers, publishing will only ever make you a pittance. 

Luckily, there’s an easier way to make money from your expertise. Once you’ve built a platform and you’re recognized in your industry, you can use that platform to cash in on the industry that many entrepreneurs are recognizing today: online courses.

Just like I do.

As an author or speaker, you can get paid a lot for a one-time speaking gig, or you can get paid a little for a lot of book sales. But when you create an online course, you can get paid a lot to pass your knowledge on to many people in a way that’s sustainable, scalable and lucrative. 

No wonder that online courses is a fast-growing industry right now. But it’s not all easy.

My friend Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing surveyed over 1,000 online entrepreneurs, including me, and learned a lot about the challenges we face in creating and marketing online courses. The results above summarize what he discovered. You can read the survey details here.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more with you about how you can get started learning how to teach online courses, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I’m curious. Have you taught online courses?

If so, how did it turn out? Did you fill all the seats? Or was your experience similar to that of some of the survey respondents who offered courses and said they  were difficult to market, and they had trouble convincing people to attend?