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If your online course offers high value to your target audience, you're assured that the course will be a success. One way to add more to your course is to add supplemental bonus material. Add More without Going Too Long The ideal length for an online course is five to seven modules. If you make it much bigger than that, you're going to overwhelm your participants and your course may lose focus. It needs to be just long enough to tackle one learning task completely. Adding bonus material allows you to add to the course without extending it. The bonus material is a supplement. For example, you might find that you have too many modules. You can then look at your modules and pick one that's a bit of an odd man out. Remove this module and offer it as a "bonus report." A Little Off-Topic Bonus material allows you to add more something to the course that's not strictly on-topic. Good courses proceed in a logical order and help a student learn how to do one specific task. Your bonus material can offer something extra that's related, but not related enough to be part of the course. For example, you might offer a course on setting up and managing a successful blog. The modules start with the technical aspects of setting up the blog, and then cover how to come up with ideas for content and write, and finally some tips on driving traffic to your blog. If adding an audio version of your blog posts is a technique you've used to great success in the past, you might offer an additional report on creating audio posts. An Extra Bonus! Bonus content adds value to your course. It has a powerful psychological effect. If you have a course with seven modules versus a course with six modules and a bonus report, the latter will be perceived as having more value. The idea that it's an extra bonus makes the buyer feel like they're getting something extra, even if the volume of information is actually the same. Differentiate Yourself Finally, adding extra bonus material is a good way to set your course apart from other similar courses. It gives you just a bit extra over the competition and can be a unique selling point for your course. If you want to add bonus material, anything that provides valuable information or helps the buyer will work. The material can be:
It takes some work to create additional content, but it can be a great bonus for your course participants. It doesn't have to be anything involved, but just something valuable. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Schedule a FREE 20 Minute “Chat with Pat” HERE Running a business can be tough, but it doesn't need to be lonely! If you're craving a conversation with someone who truly understands what it's like to have business challenges…… Let's chat. 
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 Online courses are extremely popular today. Any business can create and run an online course to extend their reach, build their audience, share their expertise with the world, and turn a nice profit. Here are three mistakes that businesses often make when they create their first course. Creating the Course YOU Want (Not the Course Your Audience Needs) You may have a great deal of knowledge in a particular area that you can teach others. You might think you know exactly what kind of course your audience would like. But it's a fatal mistake to create the course you want rather than the course your audience needs. You may be able to create an excellent course based on what you think you should teach, but it's not likely to reach a great number of people or earn you a profit. And then, what's the point? You'll have a highly informative course that no one signs up for. Instead, you should start by considering your target audience. What problems are they struggling with? What do they need to know? What are their interests? Once you have some ideas, consider how you can help them. Try to match your audience's needs to your skills and expertise. For example, you may find out through surveys that your email subscribers want to know more about using LinkedIn. You can take your knowledge and experience with LinkedIn and create a course that teaches them how to set up a profile and use it. Making Your Course Too Long Naturally, you have a great deal of knowledge you want to drop on your course participants. It also makes perfect sense that a longer course is more bang for the buck. A long and thorough course offers more value to its participants. The problem is that if your course is too long, it might overwhelm your students. You might lose some of them along the way. The best courses are tightly focused. They teach what they need to teach in order for students to overcome the problems they're struggling with. Your course should be just long enough to do that. The ideal length for an online course is five to seven modules. Each module should have three to five steps or small sections. Each course has its own needs structurally, though, so this is just a guideline. If you find that your course is longer than three to five modules, try breaking it down into two courses. If there is a sequential relationship, you can make parts one and two. If the course is slightly too long and you feel the information is very valuable, you can remove one module and offer it as supplemental material, a bonus add-on, or an additional resource for participants. Putting All of Your Effort on the Course but Skimping on the Marketing It takes a great deal of work to put together and run an online course, but you can't forget to market it. Before you even get started, make sure that you have a solid marketing plan. How will you get your course in front of your target audience? How will you advertise it and put the word out? Which marketing channels will you use and how will you use them? If you have a topic that aligns with your target audience's interests, a tightly focused course, and a marketing plan in place, you're virtually guaranteed a successful course. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Schedule a FREE 20 Minute “Chat with Pat” HERE Running a business can be tough, but it doesn't need to be lonely! If you're craving a conversation with someone who truly understands what it's like to have business challenges…… Let's chat.   Are you thinking about creating an online course to offer to your audience? The first and most crucial step is to decide on a topic. The topic choice determines all of the other decisions you'll make as you plan your course, and it’s the single biggest factor determining whether you'll see high enrollment or not. The internet offers a wide variety of places to get ideas for your topic. Simple Google search and social media can help you find an excellent topic idea. But here are three great places for ideas you might not have considered. Feedly Feedly is a news aggregator application that brings you blogs and articles. It takes the work out of searching for you by bringing stories you're interested in straight to your feed. What sets Feedly apart is its ease of use; it brings you headlines that you can scan quickly to see what's new. You choose sources by simply clicking on an "add" icon and then mark the sources by priority. You can create categories and organize your feed to make it as efficient as possible. Checking your feed, you'll see blog posts and news in your niche. Feedly is available for various web browsers and mobile devices using iOS and Android. Quora Q&A Platform A great way to get topic ideas is to consider questions your target audience asks. What are the things they always want to know from you? Social media is useful for seeing conversations and seeing what people are asking. But Q&A sites like Quora are even better. You can search for questions that users are asking directly. Find a good question and base a course on answering it. You can also get an idea of how popular topics are. You can see which questions are asked most often on Quora. These high demand questions are good issues to tackle in your course. You can then read answers to get ideas on the kind of advice that's given. Reddit is a very active online community and message board with conversations on any and every niche under the sun. Users create "subreddits" for specific topics and questions. Like Quora, it provides a place where people can ask questions and other users can answer. You can search Reddit to find questions for topic ideas. When you're looking at these sources for ideas, here are a few things to consider: Look for pressing problems that your target market is facing. Your course should aim to offer one unique way to solve the problem. Try to consider length. Your online course should be about five to seven modules. Is this a question you can answer in that length? Choose a topic that's timely but also evergreen. If you teach something evergreen, you can run the course multiple times. Try to choose a topic you know about through experience if possible (but remember that you can fill in gaps by researching or hiring a writer). Make a big list of ideas and save the ones you don't use this time for future courses. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Schedule a FREE 20 Minute “Chat with Pat” HERE Running a business can be tough, but it doesn't need to be lonely! If you're craving a conversation with someone who truly understands what it's like to have business challenges…… Let's chat.   Everywhere you look online now, you see online courses that offer anyone who has a little time and money the chance to gain new skills. With no commute to a physical classroom, these educational opportunities allow anyone no matter how busy they are, or where they're located to learn. Here are five reasons why you should be creating online courses. People Need Help and You Can Provide It People get on the internet to find information they need. If you can address a need of your target market and teach them how to fulfill or solve it, you can help people. This benefits them but it also benefits you by building relationships. After people take your course, they'll continue to follow you and they may take future courses. You Can Become an Expert Creating online courses helps you to become an established expert in your field. Right now, you may not feel like much of an expert. What on earth can you possibly teach people? But if you think about it, there is a great deal of knowledge you've gained through running your business. This is knowledge you can easily teach others (and you can research to fill in any gaps). You'll become the go-to for information for your audience, and their go-to when they need your products or services. Catch up (or Surpass) Industry Standards There is a good chance that many others in your industry are not running online courses for their customers. If they aren't, this puts you in a unique position. Within your industry, you're more than just another business but also a valuable learning resource. This gives you a tremendous advantage. If others in your industry are already offering online courses, it's a good idea to begin offering them as well. Find a unique angle or a unique approach to what you're teaching. Profits Now and in the Future You can sell your online courses and profit from them. There are free courses available online, as well as a great deal of free information, but if you can provide real value, offer something unique, and market your courses well, you can charge a good price for them and you'll see enrollment. Even better, you can use your online courses as a way to build future profits as your courses build a relationship with your audience. Even if you offer a free course, you'll establish yourself as an expert and trusted source of information. There are many ways to profit from online courses, including running a short free course that leads to a longer premium course. You can also build a passive income by creating courses that students can take at any time and that are run mostly through automation It's Easy It's much easier than you probably imagine to create and run online courses. It just takes a bit of organizing and preparing. You can research to gather whatever information you need to fill in knowledge gaps. Your online course will exist and be managed on a platform specially designed for courses. And once you run one course, it gets much easier to do the next. Online courses offer a great way to reach your audience and if you're not doing it now, you're probably missing out on a great opportunity. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Schedule a FREE 20 Minute “Chat with Pat” HERE Running a business can be tough, but it doesn't need to be lonely! If you're craving a conversation with someone who truly understands what it's like to have business challenges…… Let's chat.   Online learning is blowing up. People are increasingly paying good money to attend courses through the internet and here are the reasons why. New Skills Online courses teach a variety of skills and areas of knowledge. It's a great option for people who want to improve their technical or job skills. There are many courses that teach you to do tech tasks like set up websites, conduct online marketing, use social media, and so on. No Commute The only commute to your virtual classroom is the steps you have to take from the couch to your PC. Online learning enables more people to gain skills and knowledge because they don't have to physically attend. This is great for all learners, but especially for those who live in isolated areas, can't get around easily, or have family or economic issues that make attending school difficult. Online Learning Is Cheap There are free courses, but even premium courses are much cheaper than an offline classroom. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed in recent years. Online learning allows those who don't have a great deal of budget to spend on their education to learn valuable skills. Every Topic Is Available There's an astounding array of topics you can learn about through online learning. You can find virtually anything you want to know, from simple everyday skills to highly technical and specialized knowledge. Perform a search on any topic you're interested in along with "online course", and you're likely to find some options. Learn in Your Pajamas It's probably not a good idea to attend an offline educational institute in your pajamas. But with online learning, you can be on the couch with a cup of coffee to sip, lounging around as you learn. There is no more comfortable learning environment than your own home. Maximum Flexibility Online learning gives you a chance to make your own schedule. Flexibility is one of the key benefits. Parents, full-time workers, and other busy people can take courses at their leisure. You may have deadlines to meet and group sessions to attend, but the schedule is usually mostly up to you. Opportunities for Interaction Many people mistakenly assume that online learning is lonely. You don't get the same face-to-face interaction with your classmates and teachers as you do offline. But with the progress of technology, this is no longer the case. Modern courses offer a great deal of interaction, including group sessions, webinars, and one-on-one coaching. In fact, taking an online course is a great way to network. Earn a Certificate Some online courses offer certificates of completion or college credits that are transferable. This can help with your education or career enrichment. As a business owner, you can create online courses and offer them to the public. This is a great way to build your audience of followers, establish yourself as an expert, help people who could use your help, and earn a profit. It's something that any business can benefit from. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Schedule a FREE 20 Minute “Chat with Pat” HERE Running a business can be tough, but it doesn't need to be lonely! If you're craving a conversation with someone who truly understands what it's like to have business challenges…… Let's chat  Are You Making These 5 Mistakes? When you start a freelance business, there is a great deal to learn. You’ll master your craft through trial and error. There are many mistakes people make when getting started. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes so you can avoid making them and speed up your learning curve. Charging Too Little When you first get started, you may feel like you’re living your best life ever. You’re getting paid to do what you love on your own terms. As a result, many new freelancers charge too little for their services. You may also charge less than you’re worth to secure more clients. This isn’t a good long-term strategy. The sooner you start charging what you’re worth, the better. There are three important steps that will help you set your rate:
Then, set your rates accordingly. If, at first, you don’t feel confident in your skills, offer more value. As you gain confidence, charging what you’re worth will start to feel more natural to you. Taking Every Job that Comes Your Way You’ll be excited to get new clients and line up work. One mistake people make is that they take on every single job offer that comes their way. The result is that you get too busy. Plus, you might end up taking on work or clients that aren't appropriate for you. When you get started, clearly define what services you offer and what services you don’t. Learn how to set clear boundaries with clients who ask too much. Look at your schedule and determine how much work you can take on at a given time and stick to it. Burning out The first casualty of any freelance business is work-life balance. You’re trying to do everything you can to get your business off the ground. You want to be available to your clients 24/7. The result is that you forget to take time for yourself, and you burn out. Be sure to put some leisure time and family time into your busy schedule. Define your work time vs. non-work time and stick to it. Turn off notifications and resist the urge to check email during your off hours. Forgetting to Do Your Marketing Once your business gets off the ground, you’ll get enough work to fill your schedule. This is great, but it leads many new freelancers to forget an important task – marketing. Your marketing takes time to build. When the work dries up and you need to get new clients fast, your marketing won’t be in place and you’ll have to start from scratch. Since it takes time to work up your marketing, start at the beginning and devote a set amount of time each day to building those streams, even when you’re up to your ears in work. Avoiding long-term planning This is your business. Like any business owner, you need to think ahead into the future. Where will you be a month from now, a year from now, or ten years from now? Even when you get busy, don’t forget to devote some time to strategy and long-term planning. You need to know where you’re going so you can grow. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.  The shift from working for others to freelancing full-time can be scary. When you make that leap, you’re taking your fate into your own hands, sink or swim. But there are some things you can do to make the leap less dramatic and ensure that your lift off is smooth and as risk-free as possible. Start by Freelancing on the Side The best way to launch your freelancing career risk-free is to start by freelancing on the side. Keep your day job and start building your career in evenings and on weekends. As your client list and income grows, you can quit when the time is right. Besides helping to reduce the risk, this strategy also gives you experience and knowledge gradually. You can master your trade by learning little by little. By the time you’re a full-time freelancer, you will have it down pat. Put Aside a Reserve Fund Another way to reduce the risk is to set aside some funds in advance. If it works better for you to quit your regular job and leap into freelancing, this fund will give you a cushion during the initial phase when you’re not earning. Before you get started, put aside about 3 months’ worth of income from your regular job. This will keep you covered long enough to start earning. You’ll have plenty of time to spare. Keep Costs Low and Avoid Debt Another way to reduce the risks of jumping into a freelance career is to keep your start-up costs low and avoid going into debt. For your freelancer website, choose a cheap hosting plan and upgrade after your business grows. Once you have established a regular client base, you can start investing more in your business. Start Building Your Network Long before you start freelancing full time, you should start building a professional network. The best work comes through your network and referrals, not from job sites or even your website. Plus, there are many people who can help you in various ways. Even while you’re still working your regular job and your site isn’t even off the ground yet, introduce yourself to people and tell them about the freelance services you offer. Become a Freelancer for Your Current Employer If you have the opportunity to do so, you can start by becoming a freelance worker or consultant for your present employer. See if there are opportunities where you can stay employed with your current company, but with a more flexible schedule. Plan Your Leap Whatever strategy you choose for starting your freelance business, set a deadline for earning a full-time income. Set the time you’ll quit your day job and officially become a freelancer. This helps to keep you on track and keep it from just being a dream. It also helps with planning the details. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.  Do you want to start a freelance business and work from home? The first step is to decide what kind of skill or service you are uniquely qualified to offer. If you are having a difficult time figuring out what to do, here are 5 freelance business ideas to inspire you and get you brainstorming. Web Content Writing If you like to write, you can create content for the web. Every single website you see needs written material, not to mention social media posts, blog posts, press releases, ad copy, product descriptions, and all the other text you see everywhere online. Content writing is one of the most time-consuming tasks for internet-based businesses. Even if an entrepreneur can write their own material, it’s often one of the first tasks they outsource as their business grows. If you can specialize in certain topics and frame yourself as an expert in them, you can earn more and stand out in the market. Graphic Design For the artistically inclined, graphic design is a great freelance path. Most online businesses can’t create quality graphics even if they want to, so this is a task that is often outsourced. You can design everything from images for content marketing to logos and brand design elements. Like content writing, you can boost business by specializing. You can specialize in types of work like branding, designing visual content, or product packaging. You can also get more work by mastering a variety of different tools, apps, and software for creating images and designs. Web Development and Programming Your programming and coding skills can be used to build your clients’ websites and apps. There will always be demand for these skills. It’s one of the most in-demand in the world because everyone with an online presence needs it. Different areas you can work in include building code into graphic interfaces on the front-end or working on the back end writing script and building databases. You can do everything from the initial planning of site architecture to working on the details of a software program’s functions. Teaching and Tutoring In the days before the internet, a tutor had to spend a great deal of time traveling to and from students’ homes. Skype, Zoom, and Facebook now allow you to impart your knowledge to your students from anywhere around the world. You can offer lessons in school subjects like math, foreign languages, or business skills to people who need it. You just need an area of expertise that’s in demand and some basic teaching skills. Virtual Assistant A virtual assistant is a professional who can perform a variety of tasks for business owners or individuals. You might be scheduling appointments, handling phone calls, managing remote staff, and performing a variety of work tasks for your clients. You can offer a bundle of services that include these tasks, but also include content writing or graphic design to make yourself even more valuable to your clients. If there’s any task at all you can do remotely for clients, you can build a viable freelance business. The first step is to decide what service you’re going to offer. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. Here’s How to Make Sure Do you have dreams of ditching your day job and starting a freelancing career? If you have a skill you can offer online, you can make a living working at home, setting your own hours, and living by your own rules. But before you get started, you need to make sure your idea is a sound one. Get Your Mindset Right There’s a certain mindset you need to have if you want to be a freelancer. You’re not just a worker, you’re also a business owner. Like any CEO, you need to handle strategic planning, branding, scheduling, and everything else your business needs. You also need to make your business grow. Are you ready to handle all these tasks on your own? Do you feel energized when you think about managing your freelance business? This is the mindset you need to have to be a successful freelancer. Is There a Market for What You Do? You have a service to offer, but are people paying money for that service? One of the most important things to test first before you launch your business is the market. Is there an audience for your services? Look around at freelancers offering the service you want to offer. Follow them on social media. Join groups where people who offer this service are talking. You can learn a great deal by listening to their conversations and also learn important things like the going rate, tips and tricks to land more clients, or how to handle difficult clients. Do You Have the Discipline? Working on your own as a freelancer means freedom. That’s one of the main reasons people do it. But it also means you need to have the discipline and motivation to do it yourself without needing to be nudged by a boss or co-workers. A good way to test this is to do a few small jobs before you launch your freelance career. Find a gig on a freelancer website or through your connections. This will give you some experience managing your time and meeting deadlines. Discipline is a muscle you can grow. A good way to build up this skill is to transition gradually from your regular job to freelancing, gradually taking on more work. Can Your Finances Handle It? There’s a bit of financial risk involved in starting your own freelance business. There’s a good chance you won’t earn much at first, and it will probably take some time before you’re earning what you earn now. There are two ways to handle this. One is to start doing some freelance work on the side while you keep your regular job. Once you have enough income through the services you offer, you can quit. Another approach is to save money and make the leap. Save about 2-3 months of pay to tide you over until you start to earn enough through your freelance business. It’s fine if you don’t have everything you need right now to start your business. As long as you’re willing to learn a few new skills and cultivate the right mindset, you can make it as a freelancer. About The Author Pat Simes is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality. |
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