Okay, so now we are looking at working out what will sell.
And I think one of the most important things that I’ve learnt from working with so many subject matter experts who have created online courses over the years, is that we can never assume that we know what will be the right thing for our target audience.
I made this mistake my very first online course. I created something that I knew people needed. And something that I knew had gone down well, once people were in the live classroom, but I didn’t consider whether or not it was something that would actually sell in the first place.
And I get lots of online course creators or wannabe online course creators coming to work with me who say, it’s alright, I don’t need to do think about this bit, I know what I’m going to create my course on.
And the problem there is that they haven’t done this additional step of just working out what it is their target audience really will want to hear about and will pay money for. So never assume that you know what will sell.
However, never assume that your target audience knows either. So I see lots of people going into groups where their target audience might hang out and asking the question, “Would you like an online course on X or Y” or whatever the thing is. Or even, and I have to say even worse, a question is, “What would you like an online course on?” People don’t really know how to answer that question.
And what you end up with is a load of information that you could include, as opposed to what you should include. And the problem with that is that you’re the expert, you already know what you could include, because it’s kind of everything that you know.
What you’re really trying to find out is the what you should include. And that can sometimes be a little bit more tricky to find out. It’s all about listening, it’s all about making sure that you take the time to listen to the words that people are using, what they’re talking about, the sorts of things that they are saying, are issues for them to get to somewhere they want to get to within the realm of your subject matter.
Once you’ve done all of your listening, then you can start thinking about whether or not there are any common themes in there.

Are there any things in there that are making you think, actually there are quite a few people asking about this particular area of my subject or expressing challenges or obstacles in their way for achieving that part of my subject area.
So that’s why it’s so important to do this additional step of working out what will sell with your target audience. And if you’ll indulge me for just a few minutes longer, I will take you through my favorite metaphor, which just demonstrates the importance of just taking that first step to work out what will sell as opposed to assuming that we already know.

All right, welcome to what is quite possibly my most favorite metaphor, or is it an analogy or a parallel … I don’t care! It’s one of my favorite ways of explaining how important it is to really understand what it is your target audience are looking for, when it comes to your online course, and the importance of not just skipping over the information because you think you know best about what they need.

So imagine that there are two enormous mountains near you, and one is called Mountain A, and the other is called Mountain B. They were imaginative when I came up those names, and being the subject matter expert that you are, you know, exactly all different routes to get from Mountain A to mountain B. And then you are – woohoo- on top of Mountain B, all excited.

And then there are a load of people over here on Mountain A looking at you with jealousy. And saying “Cor if only we knew how to get from A to B”. And of course, you know that and you think brilliant, I can create an online course helping people get from A to B. And so you go ahead and you think I know exactly what they need. What they need is a rope bridge. They need a rope bridge, just like you see in the Indiana Jones movies. And it’s got these various bits and pieces here, but simple.

Come down, go across the rope bridge, away you go, A to B. But they’re saying to you well, hang on. Actually, a rope bridge is all well and good. But why don’t we just go down the mountain and walk across? And then back up Mountain B? What what do we need a rope bridge for? Why can’t we just walk across the bottom, it doesn’t cost us anything to do that. And you might know that actually part of the reason that they can’t just walk down Mountain A and go across to Mountain B is this huge great ravine and very choppy water and perhaps the choppy waters got some sharks in it.

And perhaps the choppy water got rapids and boulders and ’cause you find sharks where rapids and boulders are don’t you? Anyway, the point being, you can’t just walk across the bottom between A and B. Too much water, too much other stuff going on there. So that’s the first thing that you need to help them understand that they can’t do that. So no rope bridge, rope bridge is what it is. That’s the best thing for them.

But then they say well, yeah, okay, that’s all well and good, but actually, we want to make a bit of a trip, there’s loads of us here. We’re not very happy about walking across the road bridge rope bridge, we know what happens with these ’cause, you know, you get hoards that come along with their great big swords and they cut them off. And then the bridge goes in, aargh, we fall into the bottom and nobody’s very happy. Crocodiles get them. Not the sharks, the crocodiles, get them at the bottom.

So what they’re saying is we need something more sturdy than that. So you’re Oh, okay, that’s fine. We can do that. What we can do is we can build you a road bridge. Ha hah, right. And this road bridge can take your car. So there we are easy road bridge, with wheels. Yes there we are. A nice road bridge that can take your car. So you can get from Mountain A to Mountain B. And they’re like, Yeah, okay, but what we’re actually moving from our little dwelling over the other side of Mountain A, to our little dwelling over the other side of Mountain B. And we have to cross over to get from one to the other.

So a car’s probably not going, I mean it’ll have to have to make several trips. We want to take a truck. Oh, okay. Well, in which case, we’ll have to give it a few more foundations and really think about this, so that it can take a truck. And you can tell that it’s a truck because it’s got work ‘truck’ written on the side of it. Alright, they say yeah, that’s great. But actually, we don’t want a bridge like that. Because you know what, there’s a load of us, it’s a big excursion, we’re not moving after all.

There’s just a ton of people that need to get from A to B several times a day in both directions, A to B and back again. Ah, you say, right, okay, well, in which case, we’re looking at something even bigger and even more sturdy, so that we can actually have a train with triangular windows <ahem>. And the train can take everybody from A to B and back again. And so you go ahead and you build the online course. But here’s the thing, if you hadn’t listened to them, you might have been building a rope bridge for a train’s requirements. Or building a bridge that can take a train, when all they need is a rope bridge.

I mean, you can take this even further if you want to, they might say actually we want to get from A to B but, it kind of doesn’t matter how quickly we do it, we want a bit of an adrenaline rush while we’re doing it. So you go oh right, okay, well, in which case I need to make a zip wire. Or they say, yeah, that’s a bit too much adrenaline, we’d like something a little bit more sedate, but very scenic. So you go oh, okay. So what you need is a hot air balloon. ‘Cause that’s what hot air balloons look like obviously.

See what I mean? Getting from A to B isn’t just as simple as getting from A to B. You’ve got to listen to what it is they need, what they want, what they want to do on that particular journey to understand what sort of bridge or what sort of crossing or what sort of experience you are delivering for your online course learners. Alright, rubbish drawing aside, I hope that has got across to you. And then let’s get on with the rest of the How To.

Hi, and welcome to the How To video for working out what will sell.
So you’ve seen the what and the why you’ve watched the video on the metaphor for why it’s important to listen to your audience.
But how do you go about doing that? Well, the very first thing you need to do is work out where they’re hanging out.
So where are they? And obviously, this is a lot easier these days, because we have all sorts of online groups. So it could be a Facebook group, it could be LinkedIn group, could be somewhere on Instagram, somewhere else on one of the other social media channels, just where are your target audience hanging out? Where are they having discussions about your subject matter? And you might be able to be in some of those groups, you might be able to join some of those groups, it might not always be that easy.
But if you can get inside those groups, then that’s a really good thing to do, just so that you can be there and pick up on the sorts of things that are being discussed.
But as I mentioned, it’s not always that easy. So if you can’t get into any groups, another option for you is to actually create the space yourself. So create a group either on Facebook or LinkedIn or somewhere else.
So create the space, even if it’s just creating a page. It’s better than nothing. Because what you want to do is create somewhere where people feel safe, actually talking about your subject matter, and where you can, at an appropriate time and in the appropriate way, ask questions of those people. And we’ll come on to that more in a moment.
If it’s impossible for you to create the space, then other ways of finding out information from your target audience include things like Amazon. So you might be able to find some books that have been written around your subject matter.
Maybe you’ve even authored one or more of them. And you can go and see what reviews are saying. So you can pick up on language and terminology that people are using, you can pick up on things that they really liked about what was being given to them information wise, or things that they felt were missing from the information that was being given to them.
All of these things are really good bits and pieces of information for you to be able to understand what it is your target audience is thinking, feeling, saying, the words and language that they’re using, in and around your subject matter. So Amazon book reviews, particularly the one and two star reviews, if they have commentary will be rich in language, for sure.
If it’s not possible to do that, maybe there aren’t any books on your subject matter, although that would be unusual, I would suggest, you can perhaps go and use Google to find if there are any spaces in somewhere that you might not have explored. So it might be somewhere like Quora, or Reddit, or somewhere like that.
Or you can use Google’s autofill facility, where you type in the first part of a sentence, and it auto fills what’s trending for that particular subject. So you type in your subject matter. And it will autofill what it thinks you might be looking for because don’t forget, Google is in the business of trying to find you the answers to your questions as quickly as possible.
Don’t forget to use an incognito window though if you’re using Chrome or whatever the equivalent is on your browser, because otherwise Google will be tailoring what it shows you based on what it knows about you, assuming that you haven’t switched all your cookies off and that kind of thing.
So a couple of options there for you to either create the space or to go into places where you think there might be people talking about your subject matter, just as a way of finding extra information.
And of course, with the Google one, you never know what other spaces or what other resources you might come across. So the important thing is that you need to be listening to the people who are consuming the information, not the people who are putting the information out there. Because they won’t necessarily have put in the legwork to understand the language and terminology that is being used by the people who are talking about your subject matter.
This is a really important point from the point of view of marketing and selling your course. Okay. So once you’re in the space, either a space that you found or a space that you’ve created, if you have the opportunity to, the next important thing to do is to listen.
So you are listening and you are adding to the document that we put together in the previous How To video. So you’re going to add into that, you’re going to listen for, as I say language, terminology, ways that they’re describing things, any barriers, perceived barriers that are there.
You want to make sure that you’re picking up on the challenges, the obstacles that people are talking about. Do not be tempted to dive in at this point okay?
Your job at this point is to just sit back and absorb the information and only when you think that you have absorbed quite a bit of information or you might not quite be getting as much elaboration as you want, then you can use open questions.
To get more information. Please, please, please do not go into those groups and say, “Would you be interested in an online course on X?” Or “Would you buy an online course on X?” Whatever your subject matter is, people will never ever be able to answer that quoss, answer that question properly for you, and give you an answer that will actually be truthful.
And the reason for that is that when people are answering questions like that, as a general rule, even if you can get away with asking something like that, in the space, you have to abide by the rules and respect the rules of the space that you’re in action will always trump words, okay.
We tend to get quite aspirational when we’re answering questions like that. So people will talk about what they aspire to do, or they will answer a question from the point of view of what they think you want to know.
So it’s always better for you to think about what they’re doing. And perhaps a question might be, what have you explored to help you get over this barrier, obstacle, pain point, challenge, whatever the thing is that they’re describing? What options have you looked at, to get through, under over, this particular thing, around this obstacle?
Don’t forget an open question is any question that elicits anything other than a yes or no response. So just try and make sure that any question that you ask doesn’t feel like soliciting, so you don’t go against any potential group rules, it doesn’t feel like you are asking people to commit to something, you’re not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes, you are just seeking to listen and to understand at this point.
And then after you’ve done all of this of course, as I mentioned, you can add to your document. wherever that is, whether it’s notes on your phone, whether it’s a computer, electronic document, or whether it’s just a piece of paper and writing? Writing stuff down, it doesn’t matter.
All of this can add to that documents. So you’ve got really good understanding of not only the way in which your target audience is describing and talking about your subject matter, you’ve also got a great understanding of what are the sort of challenges they are facing when it comes to deepening their knowledge or learning the skill or whatever is pertinent to your particular subject.
Alright, there we are. That’s the How To for this particular lesson. I look forward to seeing you in the next section.