Course Creators Weekly #38 🗓 March 15th, 2021 - Pricing, Productizing, and Positioning

"Slow down, create space, and charge your worth."—Robin Waite

This conversation between Andrew Barry and Robin Waite is extremely interesting if you're in the coaching business or selling productised services, but also if you're selling online courses. Here are some of my key takeaways:

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  Charge more, but only once you know how to position and articulate your value
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  Start with your goals, and reverse-engineer what you need to get there
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  Hustle in the early days to build momentum, but know when to slow down
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  Don't try to catch every wave—qualify your clients, work with ones that are a match
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  Be careful of sharing prices too early in the coaching business—articulate value first
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  When charging a premium, share your value prop and prices, then be quiet—let it sink

On pricing productised services:

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  Need to know: What's the outcome? Over how long? Can you set a fixed price to that?
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  Begin by selling at a fixed price, at your standard hourly rate
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  Increase prices to just about too much for clients, and get comfortable with rejections

On pricing online courses:

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  When delivering transformational learning, you can and should charge a premium price
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  "Raise your game where you can." to help you stand out in an oversaturated market
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  Start with your goals, break down the numbers, experiment, get feedback and iterate
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  Don't get into online courses for the wrong reasons—it's not passive income

In this article, Tiago Forte presents the 4 Waves of Online Education:

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  MOOCs: bringing traditional educational content online
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  Marketplaces: giving ordinary people the platform to earn money through teaching
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  Toolkits: giving instructors control over distribution + pricing + the student experience
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  Cohorts: creating transformations via live interactions + adapting content on the fly
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  Global, niche interest groups can gather to learn together, thanks to improved tech

In Tiago's opinion, 4 things set cohort-based courses apart:

Community

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  People learn together, bonding and forming long-lasting relationships
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  CBCs create the conditions for communities to emerge organically

Accountability

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  The relationships we form and value, keep us accountable to our peers
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  The ephemeral, scarce nature of the live experience forces us to show up live

Interaction

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  CBCs create the environment for people to connect on an emotional level
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  Live interactions create an experience akin to video games x university classrooms

Impact

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  CBCs transform and push the entire community past their collective comfort zone

Here's to a new era of education:

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  CBCs have raised the quality bar, and likewise people's willingness to pay, which…
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  Allows creators to invest in resources and build a business beyond their personal brand
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  CBCs have the potential to democratise transformative education in new, unique ways

You can't get away with surface-level material in a cohort-based course. Expectations are high, and there's nowhere to hide. Your course has to be rigorous.

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  Wes presents her "Content Hierarchy of BS", from Twitter to cohort-based courses
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  On one end of the spectrum, we have Twitter, with lots of BS flying around
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  On the other end, we have cohort-based courses: high bar + zero tolerance for BS
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  Move up the hierarchy by focusing on the 'how', not the 'what' or the 'why'
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  Focus on student outcomes, with layers of mini outcomes towards the ultimate goal
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  Focus on verbs—the things your students will be able to do by the end of your course
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  Use examples (e.g. screenshots, scripts, etc) to show students what "great" looks like
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  Avoid asking vague questions—provide context by sharing examples and inspirations
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  Know your audience, so you can educate them while still respecting their intelligence
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  Make your teaching Tactical, Actionable, Concrete, and Specific (TACS)

Check out Wes' article for more details, and 9 questions that will help you refine your content for a bias towards action!