How to Create a 6-Figure Course Offer

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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I had to go through a lot of limiting beliefs about putting my work out there and believing that I could ultimately create a course that would deliver the same amount of value as working with me one-on-one.

After I went through all of the work on those limiting beliefs and served my clients at the highest level, I realized that one of the best things that I could do for my business was create this course.

The truth is having a course allows you to impact more people and that's always been the driving force for me and my brand. I'm very mission-driven, and I want to help as many entrepreneurs as possible understand the branding process and truly understand themselves more, which is my signature part of the branding process.

The only way to do that without trading my time and my energy for money was to create a course. I also realized that a course complimented my life pretty perfectly.

I love to travel with my family and I value my time as the highest value, and having a course allowed me to scale my business by creating recurring revenue that I knew and could pretty much count on every single month.

A COURSE IS POSSIBLE FOR EVERY BUSINESS

A course is a great idea for every type of business. I know people who have courses on dog-walking. So you could create a course around anything.

Some of my clients have courses around knitting, courses around mindset. No matter what you're doing in your business, there is an opportunity for you to create a course at some point in your journey.

Do I think everybody should just start creating a course right out of the gate? No, not necessarily, and we're going to talk about that today.

Now, the course that we're talking about today is my You! Branded course, which teaches you how to build a personal brand centered around your story so that you can attract your true fans and create a revenue-generating business.

I created this course in 2019 after following these five steps I'm going to share with you today.

After creating I continued to test the product and my marketing and continued to scale to a 6-figure cash offer in my business which has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs brand themselves online.

Step One: Master Your Framework

Your framework is really important.

To be honest, I did this in my business pretty early on and I've used it to be the driving force for all of my programs and courses since then. I developed it while working with private 1:1 clients.

It’s so important in business so it’s something I’ve included in my program You! Branded because I believe that your framework is part of the branding process.

So many people brand an offer rather than branding the business as a whole.

When you brand an offer out of the gate, then you have trouble with scalability, so what I want you to focus on is branding you, the entrepreneur, and then getting super clear on your framework.

Think of the ways that you support your clients.

Yes, even if you don’t have any paying clients yet you can map out the first version of your framework based on the problem your ideal customer is experiencing.

Everybody has a framework. I promise you that.

I started my business, offering coaching as a one-on-one service, and many of my clients start that way as well. In fact, I think it's one of the best ways to vet a course idea: Start working with people one-on-one, get feedback, map out your framework, figure it out, and then turn it into a course.

Do you have to do that? No, you don't, but many of my clients choose to go that route because it allows them to make money while they get their foundation and their footing started in their business, and then they're able to turn that into a course.

Regardless of if you choose to do a private service or not, understand your framework and what it provides your ideal customer is key.

The cool part about having your framework is that each of these different pillars, that make up the framework, can be broken down into individual courses, products, programs and offers or you could create a course that encompasses your entire framework.

An example of this is inside my program, Roadmap to Freedom I teach a large part of my framework, which includes:
Brand Foundations
Community Growth
Marketing (aka Attraction)
Selling with Authenticity

The only pillar left is Systems to Scale, which is focused more on my 1:1 clients. But, these 5 steps are my framework.

Inside of You! Branded I simply focused on providing one of the pillars and that’s my Brand Foundations.

This main pillar is then broken down into separate modules that support my client, which include:
Your Story and Niche
Your Ideal Customer
Your Messaging
Your Core Offer
Your Authentic Voice
Your Emotional Brand (Aesthetics)

As you can see, you can break everything down even further, but what this allows you to do is make sure that your courses always connect back to your brand framework and therefore create a client ascension model which improves client retention.

So, step one is to figure out your Brand Framework and then break that down, if needed, into your specific course.

Step Two: Build a Targeted Audience

The second thing that you want to do is build a targeted audience.

One of the things that I was doing for years was building an audience around the concept of personal branding, so when I launched my course, people were ready to buy because they were here for that purpose.

So if you've been building a business around this core idea from the beginning, you already have a community of people who are going to be interested in your course.

But if you haven't, and this is maybe a new idea, you can absolutely start building your community now and no it doesn’t have to take years to launch your course, but you’re going to need to W-O-R-K or pay money #truth

In fact, I recommend you start building your email list in your community long before the course is even ready so that when the course is ready, you can launch it and you have people to actually sell it to.

This looks like building your email list using the advanced marketing strategies that we teach over here at Brandmerry, on the Brandmerry blog and at Brandmerry Academy, on how to build your email list using SEO, Pinterest, YouTube and more.

Your goal is to bring in targeted people, the right ideal customer for your course.

That might look like a lead magnet specific to the course that you are ultimately going to be offering. In my case, I have a lead magnet called Your Personal Brand Roadmap that's all about your personal brand and what you need to do to create it.

That leads very effortlessly to my program and brings in people who are interested in personal branding.

When thinking of a way to build your targeted audience, think of something you can always offer like a video training replay, pdf download, checklist, audio download, or evergreen masterclass.

You’re going to want to run this continuously to make sure you have new subscribers daily in your business and use organic or paid strategies to drive traffic to your landing page for your free offer.

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Remember, the goal is to have an audience to sell your course to, so give yourself plenty of time here.

Step Three: Create a Waitlist

Number three is to create a waitlist for your course and then tease your offer like crazy.

If you know anything about me, you know that I love showing up regularly for my audience. That includes blogging, video content, email, Instagram, social media, all the things, and I have a very streamlined repurposing plan that lets me stretch my content out on multiple platforms.

But when I was gearing up for my course, or any launch for that matter, I always talk about the course and that the doors will be opening way before it actually happens.

For instance, on episodes of my weekly show Mondays with Michelle, I would say, "I have a new course coming out called You! Branded, and you can join the waitlist here.”

I want to make sure to talk about it constantly so that my audience is ready to go when the doors open and I could answer any questions and handle any objections before the doors actually open. This is also a great time to talk about topics that specifically relate to your course, here are some examples:

No matter what model you choose, whether it’s evergreening out of the gate (which I did not do) or live launching (which I did) you want to make sure you lead your audience to the sale with quality content.

For a live launch, I recommend spending the first 30 days minimum teasing your offer and promoting the waitlist.

I tell my clients that the selling doesn't actually happen when the doors open through when the doors close, it's happening 30, 60, 90 days leading up to that.

So one of the best things that I did to launch my course the first time built this anticipation for a new course offer that I had. I had a substantial waitlist, and then I was able to have conversations with those waitlisters, getting them excited and ready to sign up for the program.

Step Four: Live Launch Your Course

That leads us to number four, which is where I live launched the program.

So I personally didn't go out of the gate and straight to evergreen (meaning someone could join the course at any time through a Facebook ad, class or funnel). I know a lot of people who love to teach that and that might work well for you, but I personally want to test things before doing that.

I want to test my messaging.
I want to test graphics.
I want to get feedback from people who’ve bought and those that didn’t.

So live launching is my favorite thing to do, to be in it, to hear from people and to be able to test everything then use that data to spend money and evergreen later on.

One of the things that I did when I launched You! Branded, was I launched it for a lower price because it was the first time that I was putting it out into the world. I launched it to my email list that I had been growing through my marketing, through my content, and I got a substantial amount of people to sign up. It ended up being about a $10k launch.

During the launch, I stressed that this was the first time this course was being handed to anyone and that feedback was essential. So I would survey them frequently and say, "How is it going? What's going on?"

I would ask in emails, I had assessments, we asked for testimonials, and then that allowed me to really pack my course with testimonials and proof when I was ready to ultimately evergreen the program.

I recommend live launching and getting those testimonials out the gate. Although some people refer to it as “beta” I don’t because I feel like “beta” is kind of like a cop-out.

It has an “I’m-just-kind-of-launching energy to it and I believe in just going for it. If you’re going to do it, just do it! Offer a discounted price if you want, but get people excited and get those testimonials, get that social proof, and use that for when you're going to launch and possibly evergreen the course later on in your journey.

Now, when you live launch, a couple of things that I want to just touch on: You absolutely can offer support. Some of the programs that I've put out into the world for the first time, I also offered support, a Facebook group or weekly calls or something like that.

But when I launched You! Branded, I really just said, "Hey, here's the program, here's the course. There's a Facebook group. You can ask me questions if you need to," because I knew that I was going to do that with the evergreen course as well.

I wasn't planning on doing calls or anything like that, so I wanted to really test that model with that first live launch, prove it works, prove people could get results, and then use that to my advantage.

And if you want to know some of my top tips for building your course, which includes selling it through a launch and then building it, check it out here.

Number Five: Evergreen the Course

That really leads us to step five, which is evergreening the course. Once you have gone through this process laid out for you above, you have testimonials and social proof the next step and quickest way to a six-figure course that's recurring is through this evergreen model.

That basically means that someone can sign up through an email funnel, through a masterclass, through a challenge, through a video series, and it's 100% automated.

Now, there still need to be deadlines or ways to add urgency even though it is evergreen.

For instance, if you watch my masterclass, you'll get an opportunity to join You! Branded, but you're only given that opportunity for a short amount of time. We have technology and cool systems in place that actually honor that. You can't access the sales page after your deadline has expired.

This model works really well because we're consistently bringing in new leads through my marketing efforts to the masterclass.

You're getting an opportunity to buy You! Branded through my email funnel, so we're getting daily and weekly sales for this product.

That truly is how businesses build these sustainable evergreen models.

A couple of things you need to know about when you plan for this stage.

TIP #1: KAJABI

You want to make sure that your course is set up for distribution.

Y'all know I'm a big fan of Kajabi over here, and if you go to brandmerry.com/kajabi, you can actually try Kajabi out right now and get a sweet bonus from me all about live launching.

If you join Kajabi through my link at brandmerry.com/kajabi, you’re not only getting the amazing all-in-one platform to market, sell and deliver your product, you’re also getting a sweet bonus from me to help you launch your program (see Step Four)!

Kajabi is a great platform to put all your course materials in, including: your videos, your audios, your workbooks, your notes, all the things. Build out a membership portal so that when people join, they have access to everything they need.

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Remember, people are joining at any time with evergreen, that's the goal, so you want to make sure that they have access to everything that they need when they join.

With Kajabi, you're able to drip that content if you choose to do so and it's just streamlined and absolutely beautiful for your customer.

TIP #2: AUTOMATE YOUR ONBOARDING

Since people are able to sign up at any time, you want to make sure that the onboarding process is automated. You don’t need to be adding people manually at 3 am so they have their login information.

Again, we use Kajabi for this because we love the option of keeping it all in one spot.

From the second that someone buys the course, to receiving the confirmation page, to getting a confirmation email, to getting their login link, to filling out their assessment when they're done with the course, all of that is set up in Kajabi.

We even have emails that go out after someone completes each module, that say "Oh, my gosh, you're doing amazing. Keep going," and I really love that because even though it is an evergreen program, even though it's automated and you're not getting live support from me, it feels like that, that I'm supporting you every step of the way.

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Again, Kajabi is a great platform to do that, but you want to make sure that your client onboarding is automated.

TIP #3: SELL IT

Then the goal is to figure out how you’ll sell it on evergreen.

Are you going to sell it on a masterclass, through an email funnel, a video series, a challenge?

What does this look like for you?

Remember, no matter what you choose you want it to be recurring, so you want to make sure that it’s not something you have to do live all of the time in order to make sales.

You absolutely can live launch it a few times a year. I will open the doors to You! Branded a couple of times a year, and that feels amazing, but we have this recurring evergreen revenue coming in the back. It’s important to have that in order to scale your business - consistent revenue.

Then scaling your offer is about testing! As you get the feedback you can adjust your program and your marketing strategy to make it even better. Looking at your data is key to make those adjustments as well.

Be open to knowing you don’t know what you don’t know!
Test
Test
Test
And make adjustments!

I really can't stress that enough.

So many people just jump in, start throwing money at their course without knowing their numbers. Make sure that everything is functioning inside of your funnel before you start scaling it.

Then get super clear on how much money you can give every single month, looking at your numbers and saying, "All right, if I spend a dollar, I make $4 off of this course, so I'm going to continue to scale that." That's what you really want to look at.

Those are some of the things that we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy because we love data. So looking at your number and scaling and adjusting your budget or efforts is truly the key.

You will create an evergreen product and it will be successful, but it does come down to your numbers.

When you follow these five steps, you're setting yourself up for success so that you have all of the pieces in place and then you can continue to grow and scale and build and build and build and build using things like Facebook ads, Pinterest ads, and organic measures like we teach inside of the academy.

CONCLUSION

I want you to know that creating a course is 100% possible for you.

I highly recommend it when it is the right time in your business and again, I recommend testing your materials, making sure they are proven, that they work, that you've got testimonials out of the gate, and then just continue to scale from there.

That's truly, I think, how everything in business works: test it, scale it, test it, scale it.

If you're ready to take action now and start building your course inside of Kajabi, make sure you go to brandmerry.com/kajabi and get signed up.

Remember when you join through my link you’re not only getting a free trial period but also a complete Launching Guide to help you host challenges, webinars and plan your launching strategy!

Get signed up at brandmerry.com/kajabi.

Watch the full video below!

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com