Creating Leverage & Profits from Micro Courses

You don't need to be on stage every week to make a real impact or a serious income! Learn how micro courses can help you scale your expertise without burnout. 

Discover why smaller, faster courses are outselling big ones and how to avoid common mistakes when creating your first course. Get insights on creating courses that convert and build your authority, while freeing up your time. Tune in to explore the benefits of micro courses and start boosting your business today. 

Grab a copy of 'Micro Course Profits' for more tips!  https://www.mrwebmarketing.com/mcpbookoffer

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Profitable Speaking Podcast where we help you build a profitable six figure business from the stage. Here's your host, Mr. Web Marketing Brad Hauck. You don't need to be on stage every week to make a real impact or a serious income. In this episode of the Profitable Speaking Podcast, we're going to be talking about how micro courses give speakers, authors and experts a new way to scale what they know without burning out. I'm going to walk you through why smaller FAFTA courses are outselling big ones and how to avoid the biggest mistakes most experts make when creating their first course and why of course, now is the best time to get your knowledge out there. If you've been thinking about a course or if you already have one that's not selling, this episode will show you a better way forward. And if you want help getting started, grab a copy of my new book Micro course profits for just $10@mrwebmarketing.com store so let's get into it. In our connected world, you don't need to be on a stage every day to make a massive impact and consistent income as a speaker. Micro courses let you speak once and get paid for it over and over. They allow you to scale your business effectively even when you can't get to those stages around the world. Because micro courses are always online, they're not too hard for someone to handle and they work to sell you when you're asleep. Micro courses allow you to bottle up little talks and sell it 24,7 without being in the room. You effectively stop trading your time for money and start creating leverage. And this is really important from my perspective. Leverage is the most powerful tool that you have and too many speakers spend their time trading their time for dollars and money. And too many speakers use time to make money rather than use leverage to make money. Great talks can create momentum. Courses can keep your income flowing in way after the applause. If someone's enjoyed your course and they want to learn more about what you do or learn more from you, you need something to unsell them and you can't always work one to one. This is where micro courses exist to help you sell more products. Once a course exists, it builds authority and funnels people back to you because they get to experience your real depth of knowledge, just not what they see only on the stage. Courses serve the people who didn't attend your talk too, but they still want to see what you offer. I first discovered courses when I started speaking about SEO. Many people saw me on the stage and they wanted to learn about SEO, but they didn't have the time to actually come to one of my courses face to face or come and see me on stage. Being able to have a course that I could offer them gave me the opportunity to give them what they needed, also teach them the skills that they needed. But also it set me up as an expert because many times people would do the courses and they would decide that in fact, this is too hard, maybe I should bring an expert in. And that's where they would bring my company in. Now, obviously, these days I still do some SEO, but I've moved on to AI and marketing and accelerating your marketing for businesses. So I'm producing new courses now to go with my old SEO courses, but they're focused on newer topics. And that's one of the great things about micro courses is you can actually pivot to match what the audience needs to match what your market is asking for. It's never too late to produce a micro course. So why is smaller smarter for you? Most people don't finish long courses. Let's face it. How many courses have you bought and not finished? How many books have you bought and not read them right through. We are time poor. We want to learn something, we genuinely are interested in it, but we don't have the full time. So we get started, we run out of steam, we get caught up in other things and that's it. Micro courses respect the attention span of the people in the modern world. They take into consideration those time limits. Micro courses solve one problem well too, and that's why they convert better. Instead of trying to teach people everything, you take one small chunk and you teach that to them. And then when they want to learn the next chunk, they come back and they buy the next micro course and so on, and you can bundle them up. They're easier to build, they're faster to sell, and they're more likely to be completed. And when people complete courses, they feel that sense of success and that success then encourages them. Go on and try something else, and hopefully that something else is another one of your courses. Small wins lead to more trust, and more trust leads to more sales. Now, originally, a few years ago, I went about setting up and building the ultimate digital marketing course. And what I found was, while everybody told me that they wanted something like that, when, when it came down to it, they didn't need it. It was just too much. And it is a fantastic course and it is available. If you look on my YouTube channel, Mr. WebmarketingTube, you will find that course there. And it's everything you wanted to know about SEO and digital marketing and all sorts of elements about selling online. But people didn't buy it. It was just too heavy, there was too much content. And the worst part from my perspective is that I put so much effort into building this thing, so much brain power, so much time editing all those sorts of things, and I can do that myself. So I saved a lot of money. If you paid someone else to do it, it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to complete this course. Minimally. So huge mistake, but a valuable lesson most people don't get past. Most people don't get past module three in large courses. And it's pretty well the same when it comes to reading many books. They don't get past chapter three because they get caught up. So I apply the same theory when I write books now. I don't write them too heavy, around 120 pages so that people can finish them and learn all the information that I've put in them. So if you're looking at doing a course, think very carefully before you go down that row. Just start with some small courses and start selling them. Build a market. Get people to know you for what it is you do. The expert trap is one that I think we should mention here. Most course creators overwhelm learners because they try and teach them everything. You're trying to set people up to see you as the only expert to go to, but by giving them everything, they can't complete it. You don't need to teach what's important, you need to teach what sells. Remember, people don't buy prevention, they buy cures. So sell solutions. You're looking to solve those little problems with little courses that are worth big money to you because you can solve those problems. Micro courses also let you test different ideas fast, without months of filming. So if you come up with an idea and you think that you've got the solution and the people will buy it, then you can actually put that out there and see if people will pay money for it. Smaller specific topics sell better than general learn everything courses. I don't know how many courses I've been through in my life. A lot of them I suppose. But whenever I felt overwhelmed when I'm studying, it's generally because people are trying to cram too much information into too short a time. Now, I know that you can be self paced online, but people are often trying to get to an end so that they can solve a problem. And if there's too much information going in There I know myself, I get overwhelmed and I just give up and I try and find a different solution. And you don't want that. You want to be seen as a solution. You want to be seen as the one that they need to go to. Now, a lot of people don't know this, but my background, I've had a few jobs along the way. I did an apprenticeship as an electronics technician, but then I went back to uni and I studied teaching for three years and got a Diploma of Education and went on to complete my Bachelor of Education in Computer Education. And finally I did a Master's in Curriculum Studies with honours, which means that I studied writing courses. Writing curriculum for people, that's my specialist area. So more than anything, I understand about building courses and yet even I've made mistakes along the way with things like the ultimate course. This is really important. Courses are great at building authority, but you need to understand that if you overwhelm people with content, it's just not going to work for you. So take the time niche down, look at micro courses and push them out first. Eventually you can bundle them all together and actually make them into the ultimate course. If you want to sell them as a package. Courses are really good at setting you up as an authority. A good course builds instant trust and people experience your expertise through the training you're providing. Once people get a good result from you, they want more courses. Create superfans. And superfans we always talk about you need 1,000 fans to be rich, because those 1,000 people will buy everything you sell. Online content spreads faster than word of mouth, so the referrals you get from those micro courses from people saying how good they are, is going to build your business very quickly. Speaking gigs will also become easier to land when you've got a course to back it up. Because people have tried your course, they see how good you are and they take the opportunity to then get you in to speak to their people. You become the go to expert in your niche, even if no one knew you before. There's many times in my business where I have had a course, people have tried the course and then they've hired me to come and speak at an engagement for their people. And this has happened time and time again. Having someone sit and do your course exposes them to you in a way that they don't normally get. They get an intimate feeling of how much they see how well you express yourself and get those points out. And from that they really can make a decision about whether they want to put you in front of a group of people. So why is now the perfect time to launch a micro course? People are time poor and want learning on demand. Let's face it, all you gotta do is look at the rise of YouTube and Udemy and all these places. People need learning and it's now more important than ever to look at using micro courses because they fit perfectly with that time. Poor mentality. Google and YouTube just aren't enough. People want structured, actionable content. When you go to YouTube for an answer, or you go to Google for an answer, you often get a lot of other stuff around it. When you're seeking a specific solution, a course will answer that. It will deal with that problem specifically. And that's what you're selling. Remember, this is about bite sized chunks of learning just in time. Learning is rising fast and micro courses are the future of education. We are not going to see as many long courses. Universities, yes, they have degrees and courses that you can do, but they are now also offering micro courses. They're offering small chunks of learning that you can do to add onto your skills, to give you specialist learnings in specific areas. Course creation tech is also cheaper, easier than ever before. Getting a Logitech camera and a microphone is really cheap and it doesn't cost a lot of money to edit anymore. With tools like Descript and Capcut, being early in your niche will put you way ahead. So don't wait, get on this trend and ride it. Do not miss the opportunity because this is your way to build leverage into your speaking business. Compared to a decade ago, things have changed so much when it comes to producing a course. Once upon a time you needed someone who could use something like Premiere Pro to actually edit the video. And it was so difficult. It was such a specialist area and you had to pay someone who understood the software. Whereas now I can load this video into Descript, it will go through, it will pull out all my ums and ahs, it will tell me where I've stopped and started and cut those out for me. It will fix my sound so that I have studio sound and I can drag and drop overlays and other B roll video and all sorts of things onto it without any real knowledge of video editing. Yes, it's not perfect, but does it really matter? Remember, good is good enough. People are coming for your information. As long as the sound is clear and the video and the demonstrations are clear, then people will be very happy with what you've got because they're buying the solution and you're giving it to them. So that's it for today. If this gave you something to think about, do me a favor. Please subscribe and share it with someone who needs it. And don't forget, you can grab your copy of my new book, Micro Course profits for just $10 at mrwebmarketing.com store. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you in the next episode of the Profitable Speaking Podcast. Thanks for listening to the Profitable Speaking Podcast. If you've enjoyed today's podcast, please help a friend and share it with them. Until next time, we hope you have a fun and profitable week.