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Picture you’re at your cubicle.

You’re sitting down at 9:06 am (you’re always a few minutes late — why not, it’s not like you enjoy this job).

You open up SalesForce or some other CRM that lays out the onslaught of daily tasks you’re going to need to fumble through until lunch.

You see you have 3 meetings today with people who are going to talk about conceptual ideas that don’t help get anything done, rather than things the company, as well as you, can do to take action now.

You continue after lunch building up energy to cold call a bunch of prospects and sell a product or service you don’t believe in.

You keep staring at the clock, watching the second-hand tick and tock — each movement feeling like it’s mocking your existence at this job.

You head home, make some frozen dinner in the microwave, put on another rerun episode of Friends or some show you’ve watched completely through at least 7 times until the clock gets close to midnight.

You brush your teeth, change into your pajamas, and settle into bed.

Before you completely fall into a mediocre slumber, you stare at the ceiling above your head and reflect briefly on how tomorrow is going to be exactly the same until you finally fall asleep.

What I described above is an image familiar to too many individuals.

I know it was an existence that I lived for a handful of years after I graduated from college and started my first “Big Boy” job.

When things began,like most new adventures, things were great.

• I was learning a lot
• I was earning my first salary (a barely-enough-to-live-off $31,500)
• I felt a sense of purpose showing up to a cool, rehab’d warehouse that was now an office building

And then when things started to settle into a routine similar to the one I described above, a gloomy realization started to weigh on me.

Before I knew it — I was fired from my job.

The reason? Pretty much not giving enough of a shit.

And now looking back, I can honestly say it was one of the best moments of my life (cue cliché).

It was one of the best moments of my life because it helped catalyze my new adventure into the “Wild West” of making money online through various income streams.

In this article, I’ll go over exactly how I turned my life into making over $5,000 a month through my own efforts, all online.

I want to let you know:

• I’m not an online “celebrity”
• I don’t have tens of thousands of followers
• I don’t sell a monthly subscription SaaS product (at least yet…)

I’m just an Average Joe — just like you.

Let’s get into it…

How to Make Money Online

There are plenty of ways to make money online.

I make money online through 3 different income streams.

What will follow is a brief breakdown of each online income stream, an outlook of the industry, and how you can take action and start capitalizing on making money online with each income stream.

Income Stream 1: E-commerce and eLearning

There are a few reasons making money online is not only advantageous but something that should take focus. For one, the industries involved in making money online are all growing.

One of the ways in which I make money online is through e-commerce. E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions.

In 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 3.53 trillion US dollars and is projected to grow to 6.54 trillion US dollars by 2022.People shop online.

I am involved in e-commerce through the creation and sale of information products and online courses.

Currently, I make a few hundred dollars a month with my information products and am growing steadily every month.

How can you start making money through e-commerce and eLearning?

You may not realize it, but chances are you are an expert or at least able to educate an audience in something.

I know, I know… Everyone and their mother says this but it’s true.

Now I’m not promising the world with this method, but if you were to design a course or create an ebook that can help and educate an audience to solve a problem, you’ll be well on your way to generating money online through e-commerce and eLearning.

You create a course > market it online through Medium, Linkedin, Quora, or Pinterest > capture sales.

The above strategy brings me to the next means of making money online.

Income Stream 2: Content Writing on Medium

It can come across as obvious, annoying, and insulting whenever you read about someone making money on Medium.

Shit, everyone talks about it.

Of course, it’s only obvious, annoying, and insulting until you’re the one who is making money via Medium.

According to SimilarWeb, Medium.com experienced over 210 million unique visitors on its platform in May 2020. This is almost a 400% increase from when VentureBeat recorded monthly unique users at 60 million in 2016.

The platform keeps growing.

Along with the unique monthly users, the platform keeps growing in terms of it’s actively paying users as well (with users paying $5 a month to read the stories “behind the metered paywall”). While the exact number of paying subscribers isn’t available, it’s estimated that the platform, as of 2019, experiences anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 active paying subscribers.

That’s $1,000,000 to 2,000,000 that will be redistributed to Medium writers every month!

I currently earn anywhere from $3,000 to $3,500 from my Medium stories on a monthly basis.

How you can make money online through Medium’s Partner Program

There are so many stories on the platform educating “Medium Regulars” on how to make money through the partnership program.

Many of the stories share commonalities in their strategy:

• Write “great” content
• Write regularly
• Write clearly — without grammatical errors, proper sentence structure etc.
• Write “behind the metered paywall”
• Write for publications within your niche
• Write stories that lead to curation

And, I have to say, all of those guidelines are spot on.

Of course if you don’t believe me, you can go straight to the source that outlines exactly what content both Medium as well as the Medium audience is looking for.

When you’re writing and publishing consistently, it can grow and leverage you into making money online through the third income stream I have for you in this article.

Income Stream 3: Freelancing for Agencies and Companies

When you’re consistently publishing on Medium (as well as Linkedin, Quora, and other content sites) you are setting yourself up for freelance content writing opportunities.

How so?

Well, consider that your Medium account is essentially forming a portfolio of your works for the world (i.e. potential employers) to see.

The freelancing industry (also known as the “Gig Economy”) keeps growing. According to a 2017 study, it’s estimated that by 2027 that the majority of the U.S. workforce will freelance. Currently, research indicates that approximately $1.7 trillion is contributed annually by freelance work in the United States economy.

With the increasing size of the ecommerce industry, businesses are looking to get content to their site and they’re looking for it right now.

They need to educate their online shoppers in order to capture sales.

This is where your content on Medium can be leveraged into freelance work.

How you can make money online via freelance content writing

I cannot tell you how many freelance clients I’ve secured by simply publishing content on Medium — really without expectation at first of securing work.

Okay… I can tell you — it’s 2 (with a third in the works as this article is being written).

Currently, I make anywhere from $2,000 to $2,500 a month freelance content writing for agencies and online companies.

Furthermore, even if you don’t have potential clients/agencies reaching out to you via your Medium portfolio, you can secure work via word of mouth.

How?

A recent 2020 survey notes that 38% of freelance work is searched for via word of mouth.

This could be through your own professional or personal network.

I actually secured two other clients from talking about (okay fine, it was bragging about) my work on Medium.

They actually came forward with the idea of me writing for their marketing team as a freelancer because they needed content for their business.

One of those word of mouth clients led to work being published on Forbes.com!

The days of heading to an office via your 35–45 minute commute in stop-and-go traffic are behind us.

More and more, workers are telecommuting and vying for alternative means of making a living.

The catalyzing engine that has allowed for these new means of building a personal enterprise is the internet.

With the internet, any “Average Joe” and his brother can take their mind and various expertises and produce content that the world not only wants and needs but will pay cold, hard cash for.

If you have been contemplating taking the plunge and putting content online in attempts to make money online, you’re too late.

Just kidding…

If you do feel like you’re too late, I tend to turn to this Chinese proverb,

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

It’s not out of reach.

In fact, it’s more within reach than any other time in history.

But you have to act.

You have to start creating.

You have to start taking chances.

Because what is the alternative? To keep staring at the ceiling of your white-walled bedroom hoping the next morning you’ll wake up in another life?

We know that’s not happening.

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We’re entering a new era of growth, learning, and information exchange. Gone are the classic days of going to school, doing well so you can get into a reputable higher education institution, and securing a high-paying job with an adequate salary that will help you build a life for you and your loved ones.

The system of yesterday simply cannot support itself. It’s noted by the credit agency, Experian, that the United States currently holds $1.4 trillion dollars of student loan debt or $39,395 per borrower.

Furthermore, The National Center for Education Statistics illustrates that this debt is going to keep rising. According the the research, “[…]between 2006–07 and 2016–17, prices for undergraduate tuition, fees, room, and board at public institutions rose 31 percent, and prices at private nonprofit institutions rose 24 percent, after adjustment for inflation.”

If one wants to “invest in themselves” in the economy of the future, they are going to be swimming in a sea of debt.

What’s worse? According to data compiled from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, only 27% of people find work strictly related to their degree.

But that’s enough bad news for right now. On the other side of this grim narrative, we can uncover a profound opportunity for the selected few willing to look…

Why the online course industry paves way to the future

The creation, sale, and purchasing of online courses will help pave way into the future. 

The eLearning industry — the industry that includes the recognition of online coursework — has grown in recent years and expects to keep growing into the future. ADROIT Market Research projects the eLearning industry to grow to $315 billion by 2025. 

The industry is becoming more robust. With more platforms and 3rd party utilities entering the marketplace (Teachable, Thrive Apprentice, Udemy etc) the barriers to entry for the blogging “solopreneur” are lower than ever to make their own course — and more importantly, make some serious cash!

What does all of this mean in layman’s terms?

• People are searching for alternative means of developing skills
• Potential users are presented with access to thousands of different topics and courses that will help them develop those skills
• Insurmountable opportunity lies waiting for creators willing to put in the necessary work in order to build, market, and sell their online courses.

So enough dilly-dally, you came here to read about how you can build, market, and sell your own online course. This article is going to teach you just that. 

Starting out, we’re going to go over three fundamental themes worth considering for your online course…

1. You’re selling an outcome

Everything about your course: the features, technology, editing, and bells & whistles is all great.

What’s better?

The end destination you’re selling your user.

• Are they going to learn a new language?
• Are they going to be able to code their own app?
• Are they going to train to run a marathon in under 4 hours? (to my runners out there — is that a good time?)

For both you as the creator as well as the end user, the most important fundamental element to consider with your online course is the outcome that will be achieved. This is important to you so you know what to build and it’s important to the user so they know what their hard-earned money is being spent on.

2. The content alone isn’t enough

A tough pill to swallow with your online course is understanding and recognizing the fact that a lot of users won’t finish the course. This is due to the self-guided nature of online courses and the lack of willpower an average user will have in completing the course.

A way to combat this is the hand-holding you can provide for the user. 

• Do you have automated emails scheduled daily/weekly after a user purchases the course?
• Do you have a Facebook group the users get access to that will help them fully discover more about the challenges and successes other users are experiencing?

If you can discover auxiliary benefits you can offer in conjunction with your course, not only will you have more users seeing the course through to completion, you will build a bigger base of True Fans that will act as brand ambassadors and purchase future courses you release. 

3. Social proof, social proof, social proof!

Human beings, as much as we’d like to consider ourselves free thinkers, act more like herded sheep when it comes to our purchases. Not only are we more emotional than rational in our purchases, we like to see that other people, who are similar to us, have made the purchase and have experienced favorable results.

This is where social proof can work to your advantage. 

Do you have an email list already? If so, do you have a slate of True Fans that can act as Beta testers? Of course, they’re Beta testers of the program in exchange for feedback and a testimonial.

You need to build proof that the product works and that real people have used it and gained favorable results.

Or else you’ll just have a nice online course collecting digital dust on your site’s storefront shelves (you can thank me for the nice alliteration later). 

How to create & sell your online course

In illustrating how to sell your online course, we’re going to break this article down into the chronological order one can take in order to do so. This order is going to cover a number of elements required in the creation and sale of your course. Those elements include:

• Conceptualization
• Creation
• Marketing
• Sale

The rest of the article is going to outline a series of steps you can follow in order to create and sell your online course.

Step 1. Identify your end goal

Like stated earlier, it is your main job to define the outcome that will be achieved by the user of your course. 

• Are they going to gain a 6-pack?
• Are they going to learn how to code and produce their first mobile app?
• Are they going to learn how to create a professional-level edited Youtube video?
• Are they going to learn how to make a solar-powered, self-sustaining tiny home on a budget of $75k or less (if you can do this by the way — send me the course now!)

When completing this step, this doesn’t have to be the most in-depth of undertakings. Perhaps you have a notebook or a handful of post-it notes and jot down some ideas. Don’t beat your brain up too hard. Identify various problems that are plaguing your niche and, with your expertise, a program or solution that can help said audience find a remedy.

One great method for finding the outcome is by polling your audience (if you are reading this article and wish to build and sell your first online course, you should already have and be nurturing an email list). 

When you have identified the end goal for your user, it’s time to start outlining the course content

Step 2. Outline the course content

So you have the end goal for the user. Now, you’re responsible for reverse-engineering the way you got there. Let’s put one of the above examples under the microscope: How to create professional-level edited Youtube videos.

With that, we’re going to need to know:

• How to select an adequate camera (can be smartphone, 4k etc)
• How to select a proper microphone
• How to setup an XLR microphone
• How to properly frame the shot
• How to optimize the lighting
• What editing software to use
• How to stitch and clip takes
• How to use said editing software
• How to add opening video graphics
• How to add B-roll
• How to add free-for-commercial-use background music
• How to color-correct
• How to render the video
• How to upload to Youtube

You get the idea. All of these elements add up to the end goal of creating a professional-level edited Youtube video.

When you label out all of the steps necessary to get there, what you’re doing is creating your outline. With the outline (which I recommend you create in a GoogleDoc) allows you to map out what lessons, chapters and modules you’re going to add to the course. You have the responsibility of defining the chronological order of the chapters.

Take note of each example step above: all of these can be expanded in detail. The detail will be the lesson. The “How to…” the chapter, and then one can group the chapters into what are called modules.

When you have this all organized and succinct, we’re ready for our next step.

Step 3: Implementation of the coursework

Implementation of the coursework essentially means how you are going to host or provide your course.

There are a number of ways to do this. Some of the most popular are:

• Udemy
• Teachable
• Thinkific
• Thrive Apprentice

Now all of these platforms offer their own advantages. Udemy, is one of the most popular. It allows you to host your course on a site with thousands of other sites. That’s its drawback, however. You will be competing in a crowded marketplace with other course creators. This generally results in a price-war with your competitors — driving the price down so your low cost will capture the sale.

But you put in scores of hours to create this piece, you don’t want to pawn it off for pebbles — right?

Teachable and Thinkific are similar in that you host your course through their site but it acts as an extension of your own site. You create a domain with them and when you provide a link (perhaps in the header menu of your site) you are redirected to a hosted Teachable/Thinkific site where you can then lead the user to a sales page, purchase and a login for them to work on the course.

Of course the drawback here is you still lose your site visitor — i.e. they need to leave your site in order to access the course.

The third method is a plugin like Thrive Apprentice. As a plugin, you are hosting the course completely on your WordPress site. You allow the user to access the site via the plugin. Whenever they need to continue using the course, they are remaining on your site.

If there’s one thing all digital marketers and course creators can agree upon — keep your site visitors on your site.

When all is said and done, however — whichever hosting platform you choose for your site, you’re well on your way to benefiting from the hard-earned ROI you set out for in creating the course.

Once your course is uploaded to a platform, you’re ready for the next step.

Step 4. Marketing your course

“If you build it, they will come” — Field of Dreams

Read that quote above very carefully…

Now completely disregard it. That mantra is your worst enemy when it comes to marketing and selling your online course.

Why?

Because no one cares!

Well, let me rephrase that:

No one cares — until you convince them to care.

Yeah, that’s better. What do I mean by this? Just because you created an online course doesn’t mean that people will magically buy it. Why do you think whenever you turn on the TV or watch YouTube videos or do something that involves media (hold for Medium — Thank you Medium Membership!) you see advertisements, for even the biggest companies on the planet?

Because when conducting business, you have to market to people. Marketing to people involves reminding customers of your products and services and educating them on the benefits and outcomes your product can provide.

Of course there are some fallacies involved with this: Coca-Cola and them selling, “Happiness in a bottle.” Shame. 

But I digress.

In marketing your online course, you should be constantly sending out promotional material to your email list. A potential email sales sequence can be:

Introduce problem->What world could be like->Thing holding you back->People just like you (testimonials)->Offer

It doesn’t have to be overly intricate.

You can even introduce a pitch of the product using an email sales sequence like the one above after a new subscriber subscribes:

Opt-in->Welcome sequence (over course of 5 days)->Last email starts sales sequence

Overall, the most important aspect of marketing and selling your online course is that you don’t just create it and hope your customers will start flocking in droves — because that won’t happen.

Step 5. Onboard your user

No one likes to purchase something and be hung out to dry.

In other words — when dealing with the sale of an online course, it isn’t enough to just sell the course and hope the user will be able to fend for themselves and figure everything out.

What you can do to onboard:

• Send a follow up email with the purchase confirmation that has a detailed user how-to PDF that outlines how to operate the course.
• Have a welcome video in the course before any on the educational content starts.
• Offer access to a Facebook group that has current students — this will allow for troubleshooting and questions to be answered in real-time.
• Send an automated follow up email after 5, 7 or 10 days to check on the status of the user. How are they progressing through the course?

Step 6. Create brand ambassadors

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” — Jeff Bezos

It was mentioned earlier that the success of your course is partially contingent on testimonials (social proof). With every new user you have purchase your course, you are doing your business and course a disservice if you’re not following up and asking for a review or testimonial.

You want people going out and talking positively about your course.

In the new digital economy, more and more people are finding success online. Furthermore, more and more people are looking to reviews and testimonials to influence their purchasing decisions. A study conducted in 2018 noted that 7 out of 10 shoppers used rating filters to help influence their purchase. 

Just because you are a blogger doesn’t mean you are insulated or immune from this fact. All of the course hosting platforms mentioned in this article provide some form of review/testimonial feature with their services.

Reviews and testimonials will make or break the future of your course.

Conclusion

Creating your first online course isn’t rocket science.

But it is blogging science (yes, I’m coining that).

You cannot just tape together a bunch of ideas, get a camera and start filming a course hoping it will do well. That will just leave you with a bunch of footage, scrappy content and false hopes.

What you need is proper strategy.

The strategy you can adopt in creating and selling your online course can be comprised of 6 important elements:

1. Mapping of your user’s end goal
2. Creation of your course outline
3. Implementation of the course
4. Marketing of the course
5. Onboarding of the user
6. Creation of brand ambassadors

Of course all of this isn’t enough. When creating your course, you should always keep in mind the three fundamental principles of course creation:

Principle 1. It’s about the outcome.

Principle 2. The content alone isn’t enough.

Principle 3. You will live and die on social proof. 

When you have all of these things together and you choose the right platform to host and sell your course, you are well on your way to becoming an online entrepreneur and content creator.

So go forth!

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