E-Learning ~ Online Employee Training ~ Learning Management Systems ~ Virtual Online Education ~ Distance Learning ~ Remote Teaching

 

These are all names for the same basic training concept. Utilizing multimedia, the internet, and any smart connected device such as a computer, tablet, or smart phone, the education and employee training industries are experiencing a massive transformation away from the old school methods of lecture halls, private tutoring, and HR department orientation training sessions. Technology-based solutions are expected to become the norm over the next 20 years and we are at the forefront of developing and providing organizations with the tools needed to get in front of this paradigm shift. 

 

The market for online courses is massive (and growing!) as the online education industry continues to receive $300-billion-dollar-plus market projections by industry analysts.

 

• E-Learning Climbing To $325 Billion By 2025 UF Canvas Absorb Schoology Moodle

• Online Learning Industry Poised for $107 Billion In 2015

 

Individuals like you are making a living selling courses through hosting platforms like LearnDesk, Teachable, Udemy, and Thinkific, on topics ranging from illustration to card magic. The best-of-the-best instructors bring in six-figure incomes every month. Corporations are saving up to 90% of traditional training costs by integrating E-Learning within their organizations. A few companies like us are providing development services to assist content creators in launching their own training courses. 

 

With the growing demand for online courses, it’s no surprise that more people are becoming interested in how to start teaching online. But before we talk about how to create an online course, we wanted to back it up and ask a deeper question.

 

 

Why should you create an online course?

To start with, workforce automation is forecast to kill upwards of 40% of jobs over the next 10 years. Any job that can be done more efficiently by machine is at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence. Read these articles before you continue.

 

• Four out of 10 Canadian jobs to be lost to technology: report

• 'As well or better than humans': Automation set for big promotions in white-collar job market

• 42% of Canadian jobs at high risk of being affected by automation, new study suggests

If you have one of the jobs listed in those articles right now that can possibly be done a machine, you'd better start thinking about a Plan B. Teachers, instructors, financial planners, life insurance agents, mortgage brokers, accountants, lawyers, realtors, professional sales people, and others are all at risk of having video instruction by industry masters replace them in a heartbeat. For mere fractions of the cost of providing these personalized services one-to-one, a video tutorial can easily be produced and marketed to students or clients repeatedly, without paying out another commission or monthly salary, pension, or incurring costs for a group benefits plan. If you are currently an expert in your field, then be proactive and learn how to monetize yourself right now, BEFORE you are outsourced to Artificial Intelligence created by someone else!

 

 

There are 7 major reasons you might want to create an online course (and probably more!). Let’s start with the obvious and work our way through the list together.

 

1. Online courses can provide part-time (or full-time) income. Online courses are a great way to transform your knowledge into an income, and most people don’t realize how much easier and effective it is to monetize a course compared to a blog or a YouTube account. (Don’t believe us? We’ve done our homework and compiled a ton of data to share.) Read more.
    

2. Everyone has something to teach. Believe it or not — everyone (including you!) has an online course in them. We all have our own unique hobbies, passions, and skills that can translate into an online course, and you don’t need to teach programming or stock investments to have a successful course. We have profitable teachers with courses ranging from cake decorating to watercolor painting, and what matters is the quality of the transformation you’re sharing with students. Not just the topic. 
    

3. Courses are a reusable asset. Once you create your online course, you can repurpose, reformat, and resell your course for as long as you’d like. You can make an online course today and still be profiting from it years down the line. (Cha-ching!)
    

4. You are already an authority. Many people are afraid that they aren’t qualified to teach because they aren’t an “expert” in their field. Well we did a little digging to debunk this myth, and we’ve found that the best teachers are only a few steps ahead of their students. If this surprises you, consider the student’s perspective: an instructor who was a beginner themselves 6 months ago is often much better suited to teach the material than someone who reached “expert” status 10 years ago. 
    

5. You can help a massive amount of people at once. Online courses deliver content in a straightforward and easily understood format, and you can reach a large number of people very quickly and provide a lot of transformations. 
    

6. They have a high ROI. If you already have an online audience or content created, courses are a quick way to make money off of the work that you’ve already done. Even if you’re starting from scratch, the time investment into a course is still a fraction of an ongoing blog or video series. 
    

7. You can charge more for them. Globally, our culture values education. With university degrees in the tens of thousands, an online course that teaches a valuable skill can be worth hundreds and thousands of dollars. Compare this with an e-book, blog or subscription website. You'd be hard pressed to charge more than double digits, while online courses can cost $100, $1000, or even $10,000. (Yes. Seriously.)

 

Do any of these resonate with you?

Your “why” is just the beginning, and we hope you’ll take time to consider why you want to create an online course of your own.

 

How We Can Help

A typical online course platform setup involves several stages, and can vary substantially in cost and complexity, depending on the type of content being offered and the audience you are trying to reach. Here are the basic steps we go through to establish a virtual course on one of the most popular platforms called Teachable.

 

1. Profile. Create an administrative user name and password.

2. School Name. Choose a name for the school (typically your company name).

3. Branding. Add branding to the site including a banner, logo, website links, About Us section, introductory message about the school and the courses to be offered, and a biography of each instructor who will be authoring content. If any of this material needs to be created, our creative department can be hired to design it.

4. Payment Gateway. Setup of a payment interface to your bank account (if accepting and charging fees for any courses offered. Free lectures don't require payment gateways to be established). If accepting payments, then linkages to your bank account or 3rd party payment processors (PayPal, Stripe, Square, etc.) will be required.

5. Course Outline. Creation of each course outline and the lectures within. Content produced by us is extra; client-provided materials can be directly incorporated depending on the quality and format being submitted. 

6. Content. Each course requires systematic structuring into major topics and lectures within topics. Content to be embedded can include, video, audio, images, PDF's, PowerPoints, and other linked files or sites. This is a highly customizable process and is logically designed to progressively educate course attendees. 

7. Pricing. Establish a pricing structure for each course and set which lectures are free and which ones require a paid subscription. 

8. Video Intro. Creation of an introductory video to promote the course on the platform and/or social media. 

9. Coupons. Creation of coupons and incentives to encourage enrollment and referrals.

10. Website & Social Media Integration. Once the course has been completed, we must integrate it into your company website and social media gateways, where appropriate. 

 

Typical Applications for Online Courses

• New Employee Training & initiation programs

• Continuing Education courses for current staff

• Maintenance Courses for equipment end-users and technicians such as mechanics, machinery operators, plumbers, electricians, etc.

• Client Education on the latest industry trends and opportunities

• Special Interest courses for hobbyists and general instructors.

 

Industries that Can Benefit from offering Online Education

• Health & Fitness (gyms, sales associates, personal trainers, managers, clients)

• Financial Services (training of new staff, client education, new product promotion, investment tips)

• Life Insurance Agents (agent education, industry training, client education)

• Lawyers (internal training, client education)

• Realtors (virtual instruction, industry continuing ed, client listing and home-buying best practices, home staging techniques)

• Home Stagers (client education and staging techniques)

• Appraisers (agent training programs)

• Mortgage Brokers (training new associates, client tips and checklists)

• Arts & Entertainment (musicians, singers, actors, theatrical)

• Arts & Crafts (hobbyists who have a passion to teach a skill set)

• Esthetics & Beauty (hair salons to train beauticians, estheticians, makeup artists, etc.)

• Health & Medical (diagnostics, dentistry, massage, chiropractic, GP's, specialists, alternative medicine, nutrition)

• Information Technology (technicians, installers, programmers)

• Life Coaching (agent training; client mentorship)

• Sales Training (managers, agents, support reps)

 

Benefits of Hosting a School

• Financial Savings. Substantial savings over traditional training methods such as seminars, live instructor training, web-hosted webinars, broadcast, private tutoring, etc.

• Monetization. Ability to monetize your content with infinite scalability

• Repeatability of training material means consistency of message with your target audience, which is particularly important with internal staff training and product maintenance programs

• Digital Rights Management - the option for streaming-only settings allows you to protect your material from copy infringement, downloading, and unauthorized dissemination back to platforms like YouTube

• Ability to Restrict Access to certain groups only (employees, clients, paid subscribers).

 

Some Schools that we have Created

• AssetPro

• The Wealth Coaches | Wealth Academy

• ThoughtWurx

• TheTruthChannel

• Climate Change

• Videos on Demand

• Examples of Online Schools (created by other creators on the Teachable platform)

 

Why hire a Designer? Can't I build a course myself?

Absolutely you can! 

Until we started building them for our own projects, we had no training whatsoever in how these courses actually worked. But we got so good at building them and saw the potential to help clients grow their businesses, we decided to begin offering this as our primary service. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Here are some considerations in deciding whether to hire an expert designer or do-it-yourself. 

• Most e-learning platforms have video tutorials that explain how to build courses on their respective platforms and you can certainly become self-taught. However, ask yourself "how long is the learning curve?" We spent many weeks trying out different platforms just to assess which platform has the right features, price point, and ease-of-use for our application. Every content creator's needs are unique and not all platforms are suitable. Just deciding which service to use will take you several days or weeks to assess the pros and cons of each one.

• All platforms will require you to develop the content from scratch. That means creating video, audio, slideshows, spreadsheets, documents, PDF's, logo design, graphic arts, branding, a possible website to link back to from your school, setting up payment gateways (if you don't have one), purchasing a video editing suite (including camera, studio microphone, video-editing software, lighting package), and the list goes on. Do you already have the right equipment for the job? Do you have the design skills, real-world experience, and/or the time to learn them? We are already skilled in those areas and can do it all for you from scratch, or take whatever raw content you already have and improve on it to boost your overall saleable product. We can even provide the voice narration, videography, lighting, sound editing, and everything else needed to help you look your best. Just remember, You Never Get a Second Chance at a First Impression!

 

Typical Costs Involved

An average project cost is very difficult to estimate given the wide range of possibilities and course content that may go into creating a unique course. But whatever the cost, the long-term savings and/or revenue potential usually pays for itself many times over.

 

Assuming all content is written, scripted, designed, and provided by you, we can take that content and directly adapt it to the chosen platform and have your course launched in as little as 1-3 days. Such a project may involve 5-10 hours of work for a total project cost of $750-$1500. A more involved project will likely require some amount of content creation and design by us, and may run $5000-$10,000 or more, and may take a few weeks to produce. Large projects with ongoing development and maintenance over many months may run $20,000-$50,000 and up. 

 

The rule of thumb is the more content we need to design, script, produce, disassemble, and integrate into a coherent structured format, the higher the cost of the final project. But once launched, the course will begin to pay for itself as long as it remains relevant and used by the intended audience. 

 

Even if you have a limited budget to get started, we can develop your course in phases so you can begin earning money immediately. By revenue sharing with us, you can choose to pay for your development out of the course fees generated. We actually prefer a long-term piece of the action so, unlike any other design firm out there, we share the success risks with you. And we can do it within your budget. Try finding another company willing to do that! 

 

Optional Payment Methods:

 

1. Hourly Fee: We can bill for our time on an hourly basis.

2. Flat Fee: We can charge a flat fee based in the estimated amount of work involved.

3. Revenue Share: We can develop it on a revenue-sharing basis where we keep a portion of the ongoing course fees collected.

4. Lease: We can develop and maintain the school for a flat negotiated monthly, quarterly, or annual leasing fee.

5. Blended Fee: We can negotiate a blend of payment methods as required.

 

All options can be offered with or without an upfront deposit, and with or without a perpetual revenue share. This payment plan flexibility allows our clients to build substantial course offerings while minimizing the upfront cash outlay to get started. Where required (with paid course offerings), we handle the billing set-up and royalty breakouts while sharing in the success of the school on a long-term basis. Where used as internal training programs without paid offerings, we provide ongoing maintenance and updates on various fee plans. We thrive on triple win scenarios and welcome your business under your preferred method!

 

Click on the Service Intake Form button at the bottom of this section, fill in the detailed questionnaire, and we will get back to you with a estimated development plan and budget. The longer you wait, the greater the opportunity cost, so let's get you started. Click the button now.