Selling an online course is not about being pushy or having a huge audience. It’s about three things done in order: package an offer people actually want, prove it sells before you pour months into building it, then scale it with a system that runs whether or not you’re launching. That’s the whole playbook. Let me walk you through it.
Step 1: Build an offer, not just a course
Here’s the mistake that quietly kills course sales. People think a better offer means a better product, so they add more video lessons. But nobody gets excited about buying 10 video lessons anymore. The offer is the whole package, and the package is what sells.
Start by getting clear on the problem you solve, not your demographics. It doesn’t matter if your student is a 70-year-old man or a 22-year-old woman in Texas. If they have the same problem, your program is for them. Define the problem, your unique way of solving it, and the transformation you deliver.
Then build the package using what I call the bucket system. Five buckets. Aim to include at least one thing from each, and more where you can.
Bucket 1: Teaching assets. The core content. Video and audio lessons, masterclasses, guest expert interviews, workshops, how-to tutorials. This is what most people already think of as “the course.”
Bucket 2: Digital assets. The downloadables. PDFs, workbooks, ebooks, guides, planners, worksheets, roadmaps. These let people learn the material in a different format than video, the readers, the printer-outers, the binder people.
Bucket 3: Shortcuts. My personal favorite, and the reason I buy programs. Anything that helps students implement faster: templates, slide decks, fillable spreadsheets, calculators, checklists, copy-paste processes, toolkits. You gave them the knowledge in bucket one; this makes taking action easy.
Bucket 4: Interactive. The community and access piece. A private group, coaching calls, Voxer access, an accountability group, even an in-person meetup. You can sell a course without it, but you can charge more with it, and some buyers purchase for this alone. It also gets people through the program and gives you your best testimonials. And it doesn’t have to be a group; if your topic carries any shame or privacy (think emotional eating, or fitness), one-to-one access can work better than a community.
Bucket 5: Other. The miscellaneous extras that make it a no-brainer. A software tool or app, a certification, or a partner deal, like a coupon code from a tool your students will need anyway. (I once got a manufacturer to give my students a $50 credit. No cost to me, big value on the sales page.)
Buckets 3 and 5 make perfect bonuses, because they’re not essential but they get the result faster. Hit all five and you’ve built something well-rounded that appeals to every type of learner and buyer, instead of a ho-hum stack of videos.
Step 2: Prove it sells before you build it (the SOLD method)
You can do market research until the cows come home, but nothing validates a course like people actually paying for it. So sell it before you build it. I teach this as the SOLD method.
S is for Sketch. Nail the problem you solve and the A-to-B transformation, and roughly map the curriculum.
O is for Offer. Package it with the bucket system, decide your bonuses, and build a real long-form sales page. My students are consistently more successful when they’ve got that sales page doing the work of positioning the offer.
L is for Launch. Launch before you create the program. Get visible, talk about what you’re building, and run a simple webinar-plus-email launch. We’ve tested challenges, summits, all of it, and a straightforward webinar still wins over and over. The webinar builds trust, shows you as a teacher, demonstrates your method, and pitches the offer. Frame the pre-sell as an advantage: founding students get the best price it’ll ever be and the most hands-on coaching, because you’re delivering it live and in real time.
D is for Deliver. Build the course in real time with your founding group, dripping it out and taking their feedback. You’ll get your strongest testimonials and case studies from this group because you’re in it with them.
The resistance to pre-selling is almost always mindset. It feels safer to hide behind your screen and build in a bubble. But putting it out there before it’s built is what removes the risk of spending months on something nobody buys.
Step 3: Scale it with the triple-threat system
Once you’ve done your founding launch and have a program you feel great about, you scale with three layers working together. This is the system that carried my business past $1 million CDN in sales in 2022, and no, that wasn’t overnight; it was steady year-over-year growth since my first course in 2017.
Layer 1: The primary evergreen funnel. An email-based funnel (I like around 21 days) that presents your offer to every new lead right away. Not having one is like owning a jewelry store with no jewelry out to buy, making people wait for your next launch. This is your consistent, always-on sales engine, and it’s where paid ads should point.
Layer 2: Live enrollment periods. Layer in one to four live launches a year (not every six weeks, that’s overkill). Launches inject hype, new bonuses, and energy, and they convert the people who went through your funnel but weren’t ready yet. In my launches, about half the buyers are people who’d already been through the evergreen funnel without purchasing. Skip launching and you leave that revenue on the table. Bonus: launches also scoop up your Instagram followers and podcast listeners, not just your email list. You can run these even on an evergreen program, by attaching a new bonus or curriculum update as the launch’s urgency lever.
Layer 3: The long-term “forever funnel.” The part almost no one talks about. Strategic automated emails that go out intermittently over the long term, opening new pathways to purchase for the leads who didn’t buy from the funnel or a launch. Different offers, different angles, not just resending the same webinar and sales page. It takes little time to set up and quietly delivers ongoing sales. The cherry on top of a system that already works.
Put it together
Package an irresistible offer with the five buckets. Validate and sell it with the SOLD method and a founding launch. Then scale it with the evergreen funnel, live launches, and forever funnel. That’s how you sell an online course, and keep selling it.
If you want to actually do this with my help, from building your offer to running your founding launch, that’s exactly what I teach inside Course Creator School.
For more on the specific pieces:
How to Sell an Online Course (The Full Playbook)
