Defining an Online Business Framework
My work at the end of 2014 involved planning for 2015 and that helped me to bring my business into focus and to decide on my goals and objectives for the coming year. In addition, I was able to look at my systems and processes to see what I was doing, what was working and what was not. Bringing these processes into line with my Goals and Objectives has helped me to refine my business framework.
I am creating a series of video course modules about this to add to my Course Design Masterclass. I am developing a sustainable and scalable online business and I am documenting what I am doing (as I always try to do) as I go along.
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Online Business Management
I mange my Online Business with a series of spreadsheets – 14 in total at the moment. This helps me to know what I have done, where to find it and how it connects with everything else. The spreadsheets are titled:
- Monthly Targets
- Business Plan
- Business Management
- Times
- Scheduled Posting
- Video List
- Twitter Growth
- Course Lectures and Reviews
- Lead Pages and Links
- Autoresponders
- Pricing Strategy
- OLP Check List
- OLP Content
- Linkshare Links
I cannot go through all of these, which I do in the videos, in detail but I want to help you understand the importance of detailed processes and systems. Incidentally, there are another 20+ spreadsheets which I have designed and discarded in arriving at these.
Six Step Business Model
My starting point for my planning is recognising that I am effectively working to a Six Step Business Model – well what else would the Six Minute Strategist be doing???
1. Start with an Affiliate Business
2. Publish and Promote Courses
3. Create Complementary Products
4. 1:Many – Speaking and Seminars/Webinars
5. 1:1 – Coaching
6. Corporate Consulting
In the Course Creation Masterclass School I am developing on Fedora, this model will be at the centre of everything. The premise is simple; start an affiliate business to fund the establishment of your own course creation capabilities – principally investing in hardware and software, assuming that you have a half decent computer to start with.
Content Creation Framework
When creating an Online Course, many instructors think that once the course is created, their work is done. This is not the case as you can see from my Content Creation Framework below
- Planning
- Production
- Publication
- Proof
- Promotion
- Platforms
Once you have planned, produced and published your course, you still need to gain social proof, continually promote it and then get it up on new platforms to duplicate your monetisation from the same content. Make sure that you are ready to put considerable time and effort into marketing your online courses/products/services.
Brand Building
As I develop my Online Business, developing a strong and distinct brand is a critical part of the strategy. You should give careful consideration to this for your business.
- Blog/Website – Home on the Web
- Podcast
- Video Channel
- Social Media Marketing
- Offline Activities
- $ – Products
My website – https://jbdcolley.com is at the centre of everything I do on the web and it gets frequent updates, particularly from my show notes for my podcast. The Online Learning Podcast is a great channel for meeting new people and getting me out there. I would strongly recommend that you consider starting your own.
Video is at the heart of so much that I do and having a video channel on Youtube is essential. While my viewing figures are not spectacular, I expect them to grow in time as will my Youtube Channel subscribers.
I recommend that you are active on Social Media – creating and sharing content as well as marketing your products and services. I principally put time into Facebook (particularly Groups), Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and Youtube.
Offline activities can make a significant contribution to your brand, as I found when I spoke at UKPOD14 last year.
This all enables you to monetise your products so you must have something to sell. Know, Like and Trust comes before Pay!
Course Pricing
I have spoken about Course pricing many times but it is important to come back to it.
- Range of Products at Different Levels – make sure that you have entry level products as well as high end products. You will need both to make money
- “Step Ladder of Product Offerings” – this range of products can be seen as a “Step Ladder” where once you get a customer on the first step, you encourage them to keep climbing up and buying more from you.
- Progressive Upward Only Pricing Strategy – do not train your customers to believe they can buy your products cheaper tomorrow. This is the inevitable result of continually discounting.
- Avoid Over Discounting – Train your audience to expect only upward prices rises
- Need Complex High End Products to make $$$ – If you are going to make significant money online it is much easier to sell $497 products to a few people, rather than $10 to thousands of people.
Primary Objectives for 2015
My Primary Business Objectives for 2015 can be summarised as follows:
- Promote Online Learning
- Share my knowledge with my Audience
- Build my Brand and Reputation
- Increase Course Sales to $10k per month
- Get to 50,000 unique students
- Keep costs down = high gross margin
Primary Execution
Achieving these objectives requires detailed strategies and I would summarise these as follows:
- Create More Courses:
- Fedora Sales – Target $5,000 a month
- 6MS Academy
- Online Copywriters Masterclasss
- Course Creation Masterclass
- Udemy Sales – Target $5,000 a month
- Skillfeed Sales – Target $500 a month
- Affiliate Sales – Target $500 a month
- Skillshare Sales?
- Grow eMail List
- Grow Online Learning Podcast
- Speaking – Events and Webinars
In my video module I cover each of these in more detail as well as provide a break down of some of my income by course which demonstrates the 80:20 rule surprisingly!
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