As a busy Dad, I know it can be difficult to find time to make some extra cash.

But you can get started with an online course business in just 1-2 hours per day.

It’s just about being efficient and working on the right things.

One thing to understand is that it will take time, and consistent work.

BUT…

The payoff, once you crack it, is life-changing!

These are the exact steps I walk each of my students through, to get their online businesses off the ground.

The first step is to decide what the topic of your course will be (From here on out, to be known as ‘The thing’).

My recommendation is that you focus on something you can teach easily, and that you enjoy.

Look at skills you’ve learnt, goals you’ve achieved, and experience you have.

Have you run a marathon?

Are you a whizz at Excel?

Have you lost weight and got a 6-pack?

These are the sort of questions to consider when you’re creating an online course.

What can you teach others, or help others achieve?

The next step is to understand who you want to help to do ‘The thing’.

You need to understand them DEEPLY!

​I’m not just talking about who they are, but also:

You also need to know what their 3 biggest problems are, right now, related to ‘The thing’.

And… what their ultimate desired outcome is.

Basically, the more information you understand about them, the better.

All this information will help you connect with them, and create a course that appeals to them.

To learn how you can go deep on finding your ideal customer, check out my PDF:

‘How To Identify Your Dream Customers & Get Them Hooked On Your Courses’

Once you understand your ideal customer, you need to build an audience of people just like that.

First off, talk to people you already know, who fit that customer description.

Let them know about your course idea and ask if it could help them.

Ask if they know anyone else who might be interested too.

Next, start posting on social media.

You can start off using your own personal accounts, if you’re happy to.

Otherwise, you can set up specific accounts for the purpose of your new business.

Your posts should give information your ideal customer would find useful.

For example, if you’re helping people get ready for their first marathon, post:

Use stories from your own journey to make the content more relatable.

Adding personalisation to your posts will always attract more attention, and help your readers know you’re speaking from experience.

Once you have a couple of posts on your profile, you should create a community group, to send people to.

Inside that group, you can offer more in-depth information about your subject.

You’ll start to educate and engage with your group audience, which will help them see you as an authority on the topic.

Deliver highly valuable information that they can use immediately.

Once they get even a small result or benefit, they’ll see you as the real deal.

I have a Facebook group for helping Dads create an online business, so if you want to check that out, you can click the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinefreedomformula

I would recommend posting at least every other day, so you build consistency with your content.

Consistent posts, based on a particular topic, will train the algorithm of your chosen platform to understand what your content is about and who it should be served to.

This will increase the number of people seeing your content, and learning about you.

As people engage with your content, you can connect with them through friend requests and direct messages.

You want to create conversations with people you think you can help, so they learn more about you, quicker.

Don’t just start randomly spamming people with messages though.

Check out their profile and send them a message like you already know them.

For example, if someone likes one of your posts, click to their profile and see what they’re posting about, or if they have a commonality you can use to connect.

You can then reach out to them with a message like this:

“Hi [Name] - Thank you for the like on my post about ‘5 biggest mistakes new climbers make’. I see you’ve just climbed ‘The quarry’ in the Peak District? I’ve climbed there several times and really enjoyed it. What did you think?”

Once you get a response, you’re able to move the conversation in the direction you want to.

Don’t jump in with an offer immediately, but ask questions that will naturally lead them there.

The offer could be to join your group, to watch a training video, or to jump on a call.

Now you’re getting eyeballs and engagement on your content, you have people joining your group, and you’re having conversations, you want to get your audience off of social media and into a list that you own.

You do this by offering a small product, either free or low priced (around £7), known as a lead magnet.

Lead magnets are generally a PDF or a training video that shows your customer how to achieve a particular step of the process you will teach in your full course.

For example, I have a PDF that goes deep on identifying your dream customer, as knowing your audience is an important step in online business.

The idea of the lead magnet is to get the contact information of your ideal customers, so you have a direct way to contact them, offer more value, and make them offers.

You can create a simple PDF on Canva (https://www.canva.com), which is an excellent content creation platform.

If you would prefer video, you can shoot a training video and upload it to YouTube.

If you keep the video as ‘unlisted’, it can be embedded on a page and viewed by anyone.

Whichever lead magnet you choose to create, you can make it accessible using a 2-step funnel.

The first page is where you’ll advertise the benefits of the lead magnet, and place the form to capture your audience’s information.

The second page is a thank you page, letting them know their request is complete.

This page could also advise them where they’ll find the PDF or Video, or show it directly.

You should also create a series of 5 emails that will be sent to the customer after they receive your lead magnet.

This is a great way to introduce yourself properly, and get your customers to know about why you do what you do, and what you stand for.

I recommend to my students to create emails that tell a story.

At this stage, you are posting content every other day, you’re having conversations with your ideal customers, and you’re getting them to take your lead magnet.

Now, at this stage of starting an online course business, it’s important to map out your main course idea.

My recommendation is to do this on Trello (https://www.trello.com).

Trello makes use of ‘boards’ that allows you to map out the modules and lessons of your course.

It’s a great way to think about what you’ll need to teach, and the order you’ll teach it in.

Having your course mapped out ahead of time will give you something tangible to show prospective customers on sales calls.

The reason you should pre-sell your course before it’s fully created is to test the market.

You wouldn’t want to spend weeks or months creating a course, then get no interest in it when you launch.

So, you avoid that by getting people to show interest before you build the whole thing.

That way, you know it’s a course people are willing to spend money on!

During the pre-sell phase, it’s usually best to offer a larger discount on the course, or have an incentive for them to buy now, like a bonus.

The bonus could be more direct contact with you, like a couple of additional coaching calls, or a review at each stage of the course content (once it’s released).

You can pre-sell your course by making posts inside the community you have been building, or via email to the list of people who got your lead magnet, letting them know you have a special pre-sell offer available.

In the early stages of launching your first course, I would suggest asking those who are interested to have a call with you to discuss the course and the offer.

If they would like to make the purchase, you can send them to an order form, or ask them to pay via PayPal.
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Once you have a few customers, and you’ve validated that your course has legs in the market, it’s time to go ahead and build the full course.

Use the outline you created back in Step #5, and add all the modules and lessons into a course hosting platform.

I highly recommend Clickfunnels for hosting your course, running your email campaigns, and for creating your lead magnet and sales funnels.

It’s an all-in-one platform and you can get a free trial by clicking the link below:

Free Trial - Clickfunnels

Once you have your course modules and lessons added, you will need to shoot training videos for each lesson, and create any documents that you feel are necessary.

Once your full course is complete and available for purchase, you can continue to promote it to your ideal customer through social media, emails, ads, and any other advertising medium.

At that stage, you will want to remove the discount you offered during pre-sell, and decide whether you will remove or change the bonuses you may have offered too.
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Although these steps might sound like a lot of work, you need to remember these actions will take place over a few months, at least.

It does take a little bit of time to build up an audience, and get people to follow you.

Staying consistent with what you post and when you post is one of the most important things here.

As you’re doing this in your spare time, it’s important to be efficient and take it one step at a time.

The first stage is making a few key decisions.

Then you move on to the actions that will get you noticed, so you can build your audience.

Then you move to creating the assets that will start earning you money.

An online business is a very satisfying venture, and I wish you the best of luck.

Make sure to stay in touch by following me on social media.

​Or… join my Facebook group 'The Online Freedom Formula'