Welcome back, this is Dave Espino and today I'm answering a question that someone requested, and the question is “can we make money by teaching online or offering online courses? How can we make money this way since many free teaching materials can be found on the Internet?” The classic question that a lot of people ask and that is, “hey, why should I create an online course if you could find everything for free online?” Well first it presupposes that you can find everything for free online, and that's not the case.
Some of the Best Information is Hidden!
A lot of people hold their best information back so they can put it into an online course where they hold their best information back because it's proprietary, and they just wouldn't want to give it away for free. So you can't find everything for free online. Sure you can find a lot of different things online, but typically if you're looking online for information you're going to Youtube. There you're going to get two or three minute videos, little nuggets here and there, but not an entire comprehensive flowing course that goes from topic to topic to topic.
A course that takes you from knowing nothing about a topic all the way to being an advanced person in that topic.
The benefits of an online course, and why you can sell online courses even though some of that content may be available online for free is you bring your uniqueness to the course. You bring your experience to the course and you bring your credibility to the course. So the reason people pay for courses is because they believe that you can give them something that they can't find for free online. And typically that's your uniqueness and that's your credibility.
The Best Part About an Online Course is the Instructor’s Experience!
The fact that you've been doing this X number of years, the fact that you've achieved X amount of success in that career or in that field, the fact that you really know what you're talking about, that maybe you've proven that out through your Youtube videos or through other means, maybe your blog posts they have bought into you and now they want more from you and that's where the online course business thrives.
That's where it really does well for you, and that's why people will pay for online courses. So it's really kind of a misnomer to think that there's no way people will pay for my course because they could find it for free; it’s not true. I have a very comprehensive course on an ecommerce topic, and a lot of that content is stuff that even the most advanced ecommerce sellers do not know.
These are things that I've learned over the years and over years and years of trial and error, years and years of experience, even putting two or three strategies together and creating my own strategy. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of things out there that are not online because people don't want to share them. I have specific really insider strategies that I only teach in certain mentorship programs. Strategies that I will not divulge on a free video.
Remember that there are different layers of information, and a lot of people want an A to Z start to finish course. They want to be able to follow you from step 1 all the ways to step 10, and know that they're getting the best information so that's where you can make money with online courses. You don't have to worry or be concerned that there is information on your topic out there for free.
The cream rises to the top, and the people will rise to the cream of the crop when they see that you've got good information; when you've got years and years of experience and that you know what you're talking about. They will buy from you even if there is free information available out there.
If you like the online course business, you like the idea of making passive income with online courses, I just created a free Fast Start Kit to help you get started in the online course business. You can get that free kit at http://freecoursekit.com. Follow me for more content around the online course business, and I'll see you next time.