Unconventional Career Idea 💡 Make & Sell Your First Online Course

Online courses: they’re hands-down the best way to make real, REAL money. Otherwise known as “f**k-you money,” which is absolutely the term I’m privy to.

(See also: “That’s a f**k you house.” Or, “that’s a f**k-you car. Except these days all I seem to want is a f**k you garden. Maybe that should that be the title of my next book?!?!)

If you’ve been reading for the last, ohhhh, 15 years? You know the first course I ever gave was a creative writing workshop, in the year 2010, and my life would never, ever be the same.

I brought in $30,000 that month—big-ass bucks for a 26 year-old—and the beauty of S-C-A-L-E was born.

Scale is a stupid word. It’s not a sexy word. It’s not a word you’d know unless you’ve been working for yourself for fifteen years. (Or you’re an economist.) (Do we know any hot economists???)

But, here’s the skinny:

1. Business That Does Not Scale = your income is tied to the number of hours you work. 🥵 You stop working, you stop earning. Also commonly known as “freelancing,” and in some circles, even “tormented masochism spawned from some twisted desire to want to inflict as much pain on yourself as possible.” Bottom line: you making money is dependent upon your physical presence. Your money & your time are inextricably linked. You’re on a tight schedule. You’re working your tail off for clients. You can’t afford to stop working.
2. Business That Scales = your income is tied to the amount of value you create. You stop working, your business keeps earning. That’s because you’ve built the business differently than most people ever will: you’ve leveraged technology. You thought progressively, rather than just doing what everyone else does. You’ve created a modern online business, fueled by the 24/7 engine of the internet, that serves people from anywhere in the world—all the time. And, you’ve done it all on the computer. From a hotel room in London. While a man named Grimsby brings you a cappuccino. (Do we know any hot Grimsby’s?!)

And the best way to scale?

For the everyday individual?

Who isn’t running a billion-dollar corporation?

Is with online courses.

A simple math equation proves this point:

1. Math for Business That Does Not Scale = you work 50 hours a week (haha, conservatively), and you charge $50 an hour, so you make $2,500/week. Multiply that by 4 weeks in a month, and you’re at $10,000/month. NOT BAD. But then, you deduct 30% for taxes, leaving you with $7,000/month. Multiplied by 12, that’s $84,000 take home per year. STILL NOT BAD. The problem isn’t necessarily the money, it’s the opportunity cost of making that money. You must work longer than the average person, without any breaks, for 8 hours a day, including Saturdays. This is what burns most people out: if they want any sense of a calm, enjoyable life, they’d have to significantly reduce the number of clients they take on, which will then significantly reduce their income. Again, time + money are inextricably linked: one goes down, so does the other.
2. Math for Business That Scales: you work 20 hours a week, and you go from being the product, to making a product. That means that instead of selling your time, you sell your online course. (Which contains a lot of value for the people who need access to your brain.) Your online course costs $300. How many sales do you need to replace your income??? Just 34 sales a month. If you just sell 34 per month—that’s it—you will bring in $10,200 per month, for a grand total of $122,400 per year. (And with 30% reduced for taxes, the final take-home is $85,680.) That’s working a tiny fraction of the number of hours you worked before. Imagine all of the delightful things you can do with an extra 30 hours a week????????? Hello, f**k you garden! Hello, f**k you travel!
   

That’s the big difference: instead of YOU being the product with your brain, you CREATE a product out of your brain.

But, that’s not it.

Check this out:

• If your course costs $500, and you sold just 34 per month, you’d earn $204,000.
• If your course costs $1,000, and you sold just 34 per month, you’d earn $408,000.
• If your course costs $1,500 and you sold just 34 per month, you’d earn $612,000.
• If your course costs $2,000—which is a very common price point in this industry—and you sold just 34 per month, you’d earn $816,000.

ALL WHILE WORKING THE SAME AMOUNT OF HOURS.

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

That’s scale. And, now that I think of it, maybe it IS sexy!

But, it gets even raunchier.

Consider if you were to double your sales.

• $500 course x 68 sales = $34,000/month or $408,000/year
• $1,000 course x 68 sales = 68,000/month or $816,000/year
• $1,500 course x 68 sales = $102,000/month or $1,224,000/year
• $2,000 course x 68 sales = $136,000/month or $1,632,000/year

That’s more doable than you think.

This has been my primary business model for 15 years now.

And, no matter WHAT industry I get into, this will always be my primary business model—and that’s for a reason.

You get to give people value.
In a way that’s smart.
So you don’t burn out.
And you can have career satisfaction and life satisfaction.
While also earning prolifically.

It is life-changing.

Doesn’t matter what you do: from book editing to hair styling to dog walking and more, it’s all fair game. Because there is always someone who wants to know how to do what you do.

XOXO,