LY Podcast: Ep. 56: Why Being a “Course Creator” Will Set You Up for Failure

Melissa Anzman (00:00): This is the Launch Yourself podcast, episode number 56, all about how being just a course creator is setting yourself up for failure. For more information and show notes, go to launchyourself.co/56. Welcome to the launch yourself podcast. My name is Melissa Anzman. I'm a best-selling author and the founder of launch yourself where we help experts grow profitable digital businesses. Each week, we will peek behind the curtain of how you can launch yourself and your business to the next level, with actionable tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life to grow your profitable digital business. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's get started.

Melissa Anzman (00:47): One of the most cringe worthy entrepreneur, things that I hear, particularly as of late, is people describing themselves as a course creator. When I ask what they do, who they serve, all those things. The answer is well, I'm a course creator that does a course on X topic, or yeah, I'm a course creator full stop or worse. I'm a content creator. So here's the thing. If you are thinking about adding courses to your portfolio or adding a digital product to your portfolio, I want you to really think of it as an addition, because when you say or set yourself up to be just a course creator, you are going to set yourself up for failure because usually when you meet these people who say they are a course creator, and I'm thinking of some big name guru that we all know right now in general, outside of the guru space, or maybe even including them. These are the people who are coaches, teaching coaches, how to make money coaching or marketers, teaching marketers, how to make money marketing. And the thing is, is that you should be skeptical when you come across this type of entrepreneur, you should sort of have your antenna up when someone calls themselves a course creator, because a course is a thing it's not the only thing that you do.

Melissa Anzman (02:12): And it shouldn't be the thing that you are a recognized expert in. Now, if they're saying that they're a course creator, what I think of immediately is you're great at potentially selling services or products. If those sales numbers that you report are accurate and true, which my friends, they usually aren't, but they aren't making money doing any type of work. It's an unsustainable model to be great at selling something but not great at doing something, not having a proprietary key message or key implementation or system or thought process. These are the things that build a real business on the backbone of you and your skill and your thoughts and your service and all of that versus just a thing that you sell. Now, what a lot of people out there are teaching is, Hey, a digital course, a digital product is great for your business.

Melissa Anzman (03:13): Just do that. Just become a course creator because then you can stop doing all that work that made you an expert and have a successful business that you have right now. So just sort of, you know, you're tired of doing the one to one R two, you're tired of coaching. Oh my gosh, a digital course is the best way to do that. And the thing is, is a digital course can help you do that. It does provide you a different option than just one to one services, but a digital course, isn't the only thing that you should do. Now. I have seen so many entrepreneurs go down this route of like really wanting to ditch the service, the expertise that they're in in order to create a standalone product. And they make that mistake. Of course, hindsight's 2020 when they think about it. Um, but I personally actually ran into and worked with paid good money, paid a lot of good money.

Melissa Anzman (04:13): I should say to work with one of these coaches. Now probably I would call them a guru in the space right now. Um, they weren't at the time they were a coach in my eyes. So I was like, Hey, this is super interesting. They have something new. Now. They didn't identify themselves as a course creator per se. I think I would have wizened up to that, but they did sell one thing. They had a high ticket offer program where they shared content within the program and then had entry-level employees being coaches to help the entrepreneurs in the program, make it through the content. And their approach was very much stop doing one to one and scale one to many, basically to go all in, in this one offering in this case, it was more of a program than a course, but the same type of rules apply regardless of the type of digital product that you're considering.

Melissa Anzman (05:12): The whole point here is it's a one bucket thing. Now growing your business with one too many offers is absolutely how you can scale, but to stop doing the work that got you there that is already making you money is a really bad idea. And it also Knowles and voids your expertise and your known status within a space. Now I like, I can tell you this time, I'm blue in the face, but I want to also go a little bit further because if you go all in, in a digital course or you become a course creator, it's up to you from here on out to constantly make money with courses. And usually a lot of people recommend having one big offering in core. So you don't sort of dilute what you're known for and then sell it. Well, the thing here is, is the tactics in which we sell the way in which we sell the platform, social media, as whatever in which we sell those things constantly change.

Melissa Anzman (06:17): They're not going to be even. And so, as you throw everything into that one bucket, you're potentially losing out if something should happen. If the market changes, if nobody wants your product anymore, or your course, like you're literally leaving everything in one bucket, which makes this person super nervous. So here's the thing, newsflash that coach I mentioned before the tactics change, the way that they were able to sell and close that program changed the platform changed their launched talk, tactics changed. And so things weren't necessarily scaling in the way that you can do it because you really have two options to scale your business. You either serve more clients or you raise your prices. You can do both, but there's still a ceiling for the level, um, for the amount of your time that you have, right? Like if that is a total cap and so creating a different source of income is absolutely a great way to scale.

Melissa Anzman (07:20): And this couch I've mentioned, had to do that because they hit their ceiling of being able to scale and raise the price in their program and still get X number percent increase of revenue of students. Year over year, that coach now has one-to-one consulting back on our plate. They created a low ticket membership, offering a new program, a standalone course and workshops all to bring in diversified income, which is completely the point. But I do have to say I'm a little bitter about it because that, wasn't what she taught. That wasn't how she said to model your business, which leaves me to just one little note, be wary of people who say, just do this one thing, because again, we're relying on everything to line up and constantly work for that one thing to bring you income. Now money and business is everywhere, right? Like we see it online.

Melissa Anzman (08:20): It's in our scroll, in our feeds. We talk about it. We drive past it. We walk past it, all the things. And outside of those top gurus, who've been in the game for 10, 15 years. Who've been in the online market for that long, the money and growth. The real money in growth is servicing clients with your expertise. I know it looks shiny and different on the outside. I know that we're made to believe that you can just have a course than have it be the thing, but I want tell you that's not true unless you are a top guru, which if you are, let's chat has awesome to you, but it takes more than just that. Otherwise you sort of, again, one thing, one trick pony, but also you're not expanding what and how your customer can buy from you. And so to actually service clients, to do the work that they need, whether it's done for you or done with you work, or maybe it's a group work or one to a small group type of situation, having different ways for people to work with you is absolutely how you can scale your business.

Melissa Anzman (09:36): I'd like for you to consider that. And then remember that digital products, especially courses are a companion or a diversified income stream for your expertise or service based business. It should not be an either or situation in order to generate income, profit and ongoing clients. Instead, your digital offerings are another way in which you can serve more people by leveraging and sharing the information that you have, whether it's your proven system of how you get your results with your one-on-one clients, maybe it's, um, a philosophy or a tool or a trick or a tip, or what have you, but we're packaging your brilliance inside of a digital product versus it being the only way that you service people. And this is also a way for you to get clients in the door with you, right? Like if someone can't afford your one-on-one services, which should be high, it's your time, it's your team's time.

Melissa Anzman (10:41): You're getting great results. You've spent however many years becoming an expert in your field. Not everyone can afford that. And so a digital product, or a course really allows you to package a piece of that. Not all of it. You can't do all of it, but package a piece of that. So that it is a, um, thing that someone off the shelf does maybe with a little support, that's sort of the advanced version of it, but that they can invest in your situation, your work, your ideas, your influence at a lower number to get them in the door. And the thing is, is the course absolutely helps on your Ascension plan. So that client may not be able to pay for your one-on-one services right now. However, when they get those results from that first course, they work with you. Maybe then they can afford to work with you.

Melissa Anzman (11:35): And I've seen someone do this in an interesting way. It's actually an a freeway, which I love that he does this. It's not something I recommend or that I can do right now. Um, cause I'm not at, you know, he makes millions of dollars a day, right? Like he's doing so good. But he has this book, um, that he recently, uh, released, it's called hundred million dollar offer. And his name is Alex and I'm not going to even try his last name. It's super hard. But essentially what he does is he works with gyms and only gyms who are at the three to $10 million mark in profit. And he says, listen, if you're not in that range, I want you to be successful. I want you to do great things. Anyway, here's everything that you need. Here's a book that's basically free. Here's free trainings, online, learn what you can learn.

Melissa Anzman (12:25): And then when you use my teachings and make it to the $3 million mark call me, which is really smart. So I'm sharing that in another way of just sort of diversified income and how digital prof digital products, whether it's a book or a course, or what have, you can really help elevate your expertise in the area. But the point here is, is you don't want to stop doing the work that got you here. That doesn't mean you can't pivot what you've done. It doesn't mean if you're in a field, you don't like that. You just have to stick it out. That is not why we all have businesses. It's businesses are hard enough. Am I right? The thing here is the point here is that being a course, creator puts too many of your eggs in one basket, in a completely unpredictable, always market. Meaning you can do a lot of things to influence how it's sold, how you market it, how you get clients, all those things are influenceable.

Melissa Anzman (13:25): But at the end of the day, we're relying on other people to constantly come back and buy the thing. And if we only have one thing to buy, then we're even narrowing our opportunity to generate income regardless of the market out there. So I really want you to diversify how you're making your money, how you're building your business. And to remember that what got you here may not get you scaled up, but it doesn't mean that we stopped doing the thing that we're an absolute expert in. We've worked so hard to create that expertise in our service business to create our methodology, our systems, our reputation don't throw that out because it looks like a sexy thing online. Like a digital course is going to solve all of your problems. Instead. It just becomes a part of your portfolio, a diversified piece of your income in order to scale your business in different ways and in different audiences, price points, and things.

Melissa Anzman (14:29): To join the free launch yourself workshop, where you'll learn why your digital products aren't selling nearly as much as you planned for and how to diversify and scale your income by launching the right way go to LaunchYourself.co/join.