9 Reasons Why Your Course Isn't Selling

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the You Can podcast. Today we're going to be talking around why your course is not selling.
Okay, so you've put together some sort of course, so it's a some sort of journey program that a customer will go through to take them from one point to another. And this may take all sorts of different formats.
It may be that they go off and they listen to resources and information on their own. It might be that they do that, but they also spend some time with you.
It might be that you are working through with them and helping them to come out with an outcome, but based purely on bespoke and one-to-one working. The point is is that a course is a set program, a set approach that you are using that somebody on boards onto and goes through that process to get that outcome.
That is the point of a course, it's a systematized process but there are so many people out there with courses that are collecting digital dust, they're not doing what they hoped they would. They're not getting them out there as they hoped they would, either because they're not being marketed or a number of reasons we're going to go into on this podcast.
So where do I start? Well, I have sold thousands of copies of my course, literally thousands of copies of my course across the globe. Okay.
I know what it takes to make a course successful. Okay.
And that does not happen without having my own, um, highs and lows. Let's say, you know, I've had a few total flops from time to time.
I've put things out and they just haven't gone. I put things out and they've flown.
Um, you can learn a lot from both, but actually what gives you the time to learn are those which don't go so well because you have that time because you are not then implementing, you're not then onboarding people, you have the opportunity to reflect during the time where you hoped you would be doing those things. So here are nine reasons why your course isn't selling.
First up, the market doesn't want what you are offering. Now, this is always obviously a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.
But as simple as it sounds, if your target audience doesn't want or they're not prioritizing what it is that your course is offering, the outcome that your course is offering, for example, you know, it's very easy, you know, straight to mind comes weight loss. Okay.
If your audience doesn't want weight loss, which is beyond surprising, would be surprising, but you never know. Um, then they are not going to want to buy it.
And therefore you are, they are sat there. Your resources are sat there.
Your course is sat there doing nothing. Okay.
Next up, your course gives them what they need, but not what they want. And this is always a bit of an aha moment for some people okay it's similar to the the fact the market doesn't want it um but with a slight slight twist that you're selling people what they need but that's not always what they want that's not always they are willing to pay for okay going back to the weight loss idea you know lose 36 pounds in six weeks by tracking your food and eating like a rabbit and not having any coffee or alcohol that might get results, but that's not what people want.
And so that then would be a case of looking at your messaging. Okay.
How am I positioning this? Where is it going wrong? Because the communication of what your course can provide, um hitting home. It's not attractive.
They do want that an outcome. They do want to lose weight in this example, but they're probably not very enthusiastic about the route that you take to get there.
Okay. The next up is around the same sort of theme with the messaging, but it's around not having a big promise.
Okay. I talk to people on a weekly basis who have said to me, I say, you know, what, what will people get from this course? And they start saying, well, you know, they'll get a check in a week.
They'll get a resource area. They'll get, um, a workbook to work through, but they are all features okay and it's really really important

to be clear on this is a feature this is not an outcome okay so if you are able to say at the end of whatever you describe what that means is okay then delve that bit deeper what does that mean so having those resources having that information means that you've got all the information to hand to help you get that result. What that means is, is that you are much more likely to get the result, which means you are, this is your best bet to getting, again, stick with weight loss, why don't we? You know, that out hitting that 36 pounds.
So you've got all the resources that you need to achieve that goal of losing weight losing specifically ideally and that's the thing is is that does that promise have specificity to it that is in sort of another element it's like a 3a point okay so it's having that big promise but having the specificity so it can really bring it to life for somebody now people get really hung up sometimes and a little bit agitated by the need for specificity but for example i work with people a lot who are doing um happiness they're doing confidence they're selling all those kind of softer things it's like how do i put a value on that sarah well that is very very achievable and the thing is is that i've then got clients, rather than I help you be more happy or I help you be more confident, it's like after taking my course, people had an increase of happiness by up to 80%. Okay, now that is a lot more hard hitting.
It's a lot more compelling. It's going to encourage you to part with your money more because you're able to understand, okay's how much more so 80 percent more i'm going to feel 80 percent more happy is that worth whatever it is that the person's charging for it versus your competitor who's still going yeah i help you be more happy can you see um another one is like direction and fulfillment all those things um and so it's about measuring them and measuring them in a way that you can then talk to people about that outcome.
But anyway, I have kind of gone a little bit off pace. Back to my list.
Number four. Okay.
Number four is price. It can either be too high or it can be too low.
I know how annoying. It's like Goldilocks, isn't it? And a porridge.
But it's true. I've seen both.
I've seen it being too high too high i've seen it being too low often it's too high when it's the only offer you have and that's a major hint there on actually you know having courses and having resources at different price points um it's also um on a regular basis too low then customers don't value it enough they don't see the value in it they're not convinced that you can provide the outcome that you are promising at that price point that you are promising it at okay up next number five is you aren't shouting about it enough okay how often do you promote your course if you're not shouting about it on a regular basis no one's going to know about it and therefore no one's going to buy it that whole idea of i've created and then people will come they don't because they don't know it's there and there are so many opportunities out there in the market for them just to listen to somebody and take action that they know they're not going to go searching around for your offer between juggling client meetings managing your website keeping up to date with everyday tasks who has time to stress about website security? Well, with Kinsta, they take care of the technical stuff so you can focus on what you do best, which is probably not website security. So what is Kinsta? Well, Kinsta provides managed hosting for WordPress, so offering lightning fast loading times, top tier security, and unmatched human human only customer support.
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so a checkout page for a high cost course when actually they need more convincing than what a page will do,

especially if it's one you've written yourself and you're not a copywriter,

then you probably haven't done a particularly good job at convincing that person that this is the right thing to part with their money on.

Or you're avoiding speaking to that customer.

So, well, basically, you're sending them to a landing, probably because you are trying to avoid talking to that customer. So, you know, get into the DMs at the very least.
Ideally, get on a call if you need to, particularly in the early days, so that you can feel confident around your wording. And then you can take that step back and you can start with just, you can do with just the DM um we recently ran a a course offer um and that was for um 750 was pounds or dollars pounds pounds and um that we closed everybody in the dms so there was an early bird at 500 the after early bird was 750 and all those people were closed in the dms there was no sales calls on that whatsoever um but that's because we knew the product we knew the market we've got reputation there um and that's where listening to someone like me who's a little bit more established um and going oh yeah well i'll do that then probably isn't the best move because i'm in a different place okay and so my advice to you would be to start off with get them onto calls then from calls then not to do dms and then from dms maybe you could even look to do a landing page on something like that um I do like to do a bit of a send check that's the biggest challenge with this again I've gone off piece a bit but the biggest challenge with the landing page is that you're not speaking to that person until potentially they turn up on a call with you for me I'm just not that comfortable with that I would rather make sure and send check that person is the right fit for me and that it's going to work with us working together okay but that's number seven um for lower price courses oh yes so the other part of that is that for lower price courses you might need to send them to a landing page and you're actually putting too many steps in the way for them to do anything different.
Are you making it as easy as possible for that person to get the information they need and then to purchase? And that's what you want to be asking yourself about your sales process in a nutshell. So next on number eight is you aren't shouting about it to the right people.
So going back to shouting about your course, are you talking to the right people? Okay. It might well be life changing, but it won't be right for everybody.
And so are you definitely getting in front of the right people and sharing your message and how good it is with those people? Finally, number nine, is your messaging spot on, but you're just shouting in the wrong place? So what I mean by that is you know who you want to be talking to, but you're actually not where they hang out. So for example, I've got a client and she was saying to me, you know what, I want people who really value what I do, who see the value in using it in their business.
And so, but I'm just not getting traction. I care more than my audience do on Facebook.
And I was going, well, if you want people to value a professional service and all the experience that you've got behind you, then you should be on LinkedIn. And that's the thing is, is her audience on Facebook, they're not there to take this kind of thing seriously.
They're not there to take her credentials as seriously as she would like. So get onto the right platform where you are valued, where people do see the value in what you do.
It's a bit like that violinist who was playing a concert in London, I believe. He went into the underground to play there and he basically made like, it was a very minimal amount because people didn't see the value because he wasn't there in front of the right people.
But actually people were paying thousands for a ticket to be in the same room as him and here in play um total madness but a very very good example of where people see the value in you and therefore um where you want to to be so if you're struggling to get your course sales in and get that course really really running as it should and getting it in front of the right people so people can actually get the benefit of it to help you make your course as successful as possible i have created a 42 page guide in-depth guide on how to guarantee your course sells 100 copies right now you can get that for free all you need to do is drop me an email at sarah sarah at you can.online and put in the subject title uh free guide and i will get that sent over to you so just a quick recap for you guys you there are a number of reasons why your course isn't selling the way you hoped it would be it could be the market doesn't want it your course gives them what they need and not what they want there's not a big enough promise there's not a strong enough promise there the price isn't

right you want shouting about it enough you aren't shouting at it to the right people or in the right place uh you don't have enough proof or the sales process just isn't right it'd be one of those things that is standing in your way of your course really taking off and getting in front of the right people if you would like more help with that then do get that guide sarah at you can dot online or alternatively drop me an email with help and we can chat over how i can help you to get your course back up and running and in a good so that's it for me this week guys i look

forward to speaking to you again next week where we're going to be talking around beta testers and

why betas are so very very important i'm actually slightly obsessed with it uh in the meantime

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a lot that's it for me guys this week bye for now