Transcript
[00:00] How do you sell an online course in
[00:02] 2025? In this video, I’m going to show
[00:03] you how since 2016, we have sold over
[00:06] 10
[01:30] trillion industry. Within that, higher
[01:32] education accounts for 350 billion of that pie. Now,
[01:41] here’s what’s so laughable. in 2016
[01:43] again when everybody even then was
[01:45] telling us dude online courses are dead
[01:46] it’s oversaturated you’ve missed the
[01:48] boat people aren’t buying them like they
[01:49] used to in 2012 or 2013 etc again these
[01:52] were truly the arguments people were
[01:53] telling us in 2016 and almost stopped us
[01:56] from launching an online course but as
[01:57] you can see e-learning in 2016 made up
[01:59] for only a hundred billion of that 10 trillion
[02:43] pie is shifting hands at a rapid pace.
[02:46] As less and less people go to colleges
[02:47] and other formal higher education to get
[02:49] their education, something has to take
[02:51] place. And what is it? It is e
[02:53] education. It is online courses that
[02:55] people are turning towards and realizing
[02:56] you know what I can get the same if not
[02:58] very similar results and credentials and
[03:01] expertise in 3 to 6 months instead of 4
[03:03] to 6 years. And I can get it at 120th of
[03:06] the cost. sometimes 1/100th of the cost
[03:08] by joining online courses, coaching
[03:10] programs, memberships, and more. So
[03:11] again, to say that online courses are
[03:13] dying or they’re dead is preposterous
[03:15] because it’s like saying education is
[03:16] dying, and education has been valuable
[03:18] for thousands of years and always will
[03:20] be. It’s not going anywhere. The number
[03:22] of people wanting their education isn’t
[03:23] changing. The amount of value people see
[03:25] in education is not changing. What does
[03:27] change is the vehicle in which the
[03:29] education is delivered in. 300 years
[03:31] ago, preol, people got education from
[03:33] just hard skills. They’d go out and
[03:35] they’d plum if they want to learn how to
[03:36] plum. They’d chop down trees if they
[03:37] want to learn trees. It was learning in
[03:39] the home and just real life application.
[03:40] The last 100 years, my parents, your
[03:42] parents, they all got their education
[03:44] from college. It was the only way to get
[03:46] education. The next 100 years, people
[03:48] are going to get their education
[03:49] digitally. It is my strong belief in
[03:51] almost its entire form is going to
[03:53] become obsolete. Those who innovate and
[03:55] ride the wave of change are the ones who
[03:57] get ahead and can cash in on that and
[03:59] make the most money. Those who refuse to
[04:01] change and don’t understand what is
[04:03] valuable in 2025 are the ones who are
[04:05] going to get left behind and the same
[04:06] ones who are going to claim that online
[04:08] courses are dying. Their courses
[04:09] probably are dying. And here’s why.
[04:11] Let’s now get into what has changed
[04:12] since our first online course launch
[04:14] back in 2016. And to illustrate that,
[04:16] you have to understand that in 2025, you
[04:18] must build upon five core pillars. And
[04:22] in my opinion, the reason why creators
[04:23] like Pat Flynn are seeing such massive
[04:25] drop offs in the success of their
[04:27] courses is they’re almost entirely
[04:28] neglecting pillars number four and five.
[04:31] But with that, let’s jump into the first
[04:32] pillar that you must build your online
[04:34] education business upon. And that pillar
[04:35] is education. This is the most obvious
[04:37] one right here. Education is the
[04:39] foundational elements of an online
[04:41] course. This is the how to. Now,
[04:43] obviously, we are selling online
[04:44] courses, right? And so, education is
[04:46] what I refer to as the keystone of your
[04:48] entire product as a whole. If you look
[04:50] at an arch, the middle part is a
[04:51] keystone. If you take that keystone out,
[04:53] the rest of the arch crumbles. In the
[04:54] same sense, education is the foundation
[04:56] upon which the rest of your whole
[04:58] business and your product and offer as a
[05:00] whole is built upon. However, there are
[05:01] some large misconceptions about this
[05:03] education piece. Many people think that
[05:05] I’m going to film 10 hours of content,
[05:07] flip on my camera, I’m going to give it
[05:08] a course name, I’m going to slap a price
[05:10] tag on it, and boom, I am a course
[05:12] creator. I’m selling videos. That’s what
[05:13] it is, right? I’m just recording videos.
[05:15] I’m going to then sell those videos.
[05:16] It’s called the course. People consume
[05:17] it. It’s education. That is not and
[05:20] never has been what an online course is.
[05:23] And let me make something clear here.
[05:24] You could get away with that back in
[05:26] 2016, even 2020. Just because you could
[05:28] get away with filming a bunch of videos
[05:30] kind of sloppily put together, maybe
[05:32] disorganized, etc. Slap a price tag on
[05:34] it and sell it, doesn’t mean you should
[05:36] have been selling courses that way. And
[05:38] if you were, your course right now is
[05:40] struggling to sell. We, on the other
[05:42] hand, for over 10 years now, have been
[05:44] crushing it in online courses because we
[05:45] applied all five pillars. I’m going to
[05:48] talk about in some minutes. But yes,
[05:49] education inherently is in video form.
[05:51] Sometimes it’s in audio form, sometimes
[05:53] in written form, but it is the howto.
[05:55] However you want to get that across. By
[05:57] far the most effective way to do that is
[05:58] with video for the most part, but that
[05:59] is education. Our first course,
[06:01] Full-Time Filmmaker, looks like this.
[06:02] This is the educational piece. We have
[06:04] multiple different mini courses. We
[06:06] teach everything from cinematography to
[06:07] editing, the equipment to buy, how to
[06:09] film different types of videos like
[06:10] weddings and real estate, photo, how to
[06:12] master audio. This is all the education.
[06:14] It’s the how-to. For Course Creator Pro,
[06:16] we teach the start to finish guide on
[06:17] how to create, market, and sell an
[06:18] online course. From Facebook ads to
[06:20] YouTube ads, the marketing, the
[06:21] advertising, the R&D, everything in
[06:22] between. Your student comes in here,
[06:24] they watch some education. These are all
[06:25] videos. This is the education piece.
[06:27] Now, here’s a common objection and one
[06:28] that actually Pat Flynn raised in his
[06:30] video. He says, “Course completion rates
[06:32] are abysmal.” And that’s another reason
[06:34] why courses are dying. And this is such
[06:36] an interesting argument to me because
[06:37] creation rates have been abysmal for
[06:40] years. From the second we first launched
[06:41] an online course until now, they really
[06:43] haven’t ever changed. This to me is more
[06:44] of a human problem and not an online
[06:46] course problem. A perfect example of
[06:47] this right in the US 30% of collegegoers
[06:50] drop out in the first year. 10% don’t
[06:52] finish on time and their college
[06:54] experience ends up going years and years
[06:55] longer. So if people are willing to
[06:57] invest six figures over four years or
[06:59] more to get a degree and 40% of them
[07:02] either don’t finish or finish late. Yes,
[07:04] an online course that someone paid
[07:06] 3,000, 4,000
[10:36] plus, and they had terrible structure.
[10:38] and it left me feeling like, man, I
[10:39] could have gotten this content a lot
[10:41] quicker, a lot more effectively
[10:42] elsewhere or just for free on YouTube.
[10:44] So, if you do pillar number two wrong,
[10:45] it significantly impacts the quality of
[10:47] your product as a whole. And it's going
[10:48] to affect your students abilities to get
[10:50] the end result as quickly and most
[10:52] efficiently as possible. Structure
[10:54] creates a smooth, wellorganized, and
[10:56] chronological experience with no gaps in
[10:58] that information. It facilitates effort,
[11:00] gives direction to the effort, ensuring
[11:01] that the customers know what to do, when
[11:03] to do it, and how to do it effectively.
[11:05] Now, 2016 compared to 2025, what is the
[11:07] difference? I would say that structure
[11:09] made up about 10% of the overall online
[11:11] course business. Now in 2025, I'd say
[11:13] that's bumped up double to 20%. Why?
[11:16] There's more information now than ever
[11:17] before. We live in the information age.
[11:19] There's an overload of information. More
[11:21] information necessitates a far better
[11:23] guide, a far better direction in this
[11:25] excessively distraction-filled
[11:26] environment that we live in. So that is
[11:28] pillar number two, structure. Let's move
[11:29] on now to pillar number three, which is
[11:31] support and community. This is direct
[11:33] support from you or your team ensuring
[11:35] that customers can overcome obstacles
[11:37] and achieve their goals. A strong
[11:38] community or strong support systems
[11:40] leverage peer supports to provide
[11:42] answers, share experiences, and foster a
[11:44] sense of belonging. Now, again, real
[11:46] life examples. How did we deploy support
[11:48] and community? And every single one of
[11:49] our multi- figure ventures and online
[11:52] course businesses. Couple big ones.
[11:53] Number one, Q&A sessions. Once a month
[11:55] over at Fulltime Filmmaker, we would go
[11:57] live to our entire community. We'd give
[11:58] them a coaching session, answer
[11:59] questions for about 2 hours. Here at
[12:01] course grade 360, as a part of our
[12:02] subscription, I offer bimonthly coaching
[12:04] calls where twice a month with myself
[12:06] over 150 people join that call. We give
[12:08] 30 minutes of just training and
[12:09] education on the most up-to-date
[12:11] tactics, strategies, marketing efforts
[12:12] that work right now in 2025, followed by
[12:14] a full hour of Q&A from everyone
[12:16] collectively. This looks like privates
[12:18] online exclusive groups. Where you host
[12:20] that online group does not matter nearly
[12:22] as much as just having the group.
[12:23] Facebook, Slack, Discord, Circle, Mighty
[12:25] Networks, School.com, which has become
[12:27] popular over the last little bit, or our
[12:28] very own course 360 platform, which
[12:30] looks almost identical to school.com in
[12:32] both function and in aesthetic. We've
[12:33] also done in-person job shadows or
[12:35] events for full-time filmmaker, where
[12:36] people could come to an actual filming
[12:38] of some sort of event, a music video of
[12:39] some sort. They could watch how we're
[12:41] filming those videos, how we edit those
[12:42] videos. You see people like Clickfunnels
[12:44] throw these ginormous big events in
[12:45] person. These can also be more private,
[12:47] kind of tighter knit communities and
[12:48] masterminds with 20 to 30 people. This
[12:51] can be 24/7 chat support inside of your
[12:53] platform. Support and community has
[12:54] always and will always be a huge part of
[12:57] your online education business in almost
[12:59] every single one of our businesses we've
[13:00] launched over the last couple of years.
[13:01] It's always interesting to me to see
[13:03] that people will oftenimes say the
[13:04] community, the support alone is more
[13:06] valuable than the actual education
[13:08] itself. It's more valuable than
[13:09] everything else you've given me. The
[13:11] community is what I rely on. I've made
[13:12] connections. I've gotten help there.
[13:14] I've had unlocks in my head. The list
[13:15] goes on and on. People have always
[13:17] valued community and support. And it's
[13:18] for that reason in 2016, I would say
[13:20] that support and community made up about
[13:22] 20% of the experience and the offer as a
[13:24] whole. In 2025, I would keep it
[13:26] unchanged also at 20%. I do not think
[13:29] people value this more or less than they
[13:31] did 10 years ago. And it's also why I
[13:32] kind of have some beef with like
[13:33] platforms like School.com. You know, I
[13:35] love Alexi. I love the content he puts
[13:36] out, but he makes school.com seem like
[13:38] it's this brand new thing. You know,
[13:39] communities, they're brand new.
[13:41] Gamification, it's never been done
[13:42] before. This is the whole secret to
[13:44] launching a business. And it could not
[13:45] be further from the truth. We've been
[13:46] doing that for 10 years. There's nothing
[13:48] special about school.com or the concepts
[13:50] behind a community. Horoszi and Sam
[13:52] Ovens are incredible marketers and so
[13:54] they're packaging it as if it's this
[13:55] brand new opportunity when in reality
[13:57] nothing has changed from an
[13:58] implementation standpoint. It is always
[14:00] made up about 20% of your online course
[14:02] business and always will. And that
[14:03] ladies and gentlemen is the third pillar
[14:04] of an online course. I would say for the
[14:06] most part most of you are doing those
[14:08] three pillars pretty well. Again, I
[14:09] think there's a lot of room for the
[14:10] education piece to improve, making
[14:12] higher quality contents, right? Down to
[14:13] the way that you film your content, how
[14:15] it's edited to make it far more
[14:16] effective and efficient. I think some of
[14:18] you could improve on the structure side.
[14:19] Some of you have the sloppiest courses
[14:21] that are super disorganized, out of
[14:22] control. You kind of lazily put it
[14:24] together and it's now affecting the end
[14:26] user's experience. I'd say some of you
[14:27] could do a better job to have better
[14:29] community, better support from you or
[14:30] yourself, doing Q&A, hopping on
[14:32] occasional coaching calls, making a far
[14:33] more engaged community, whatever it is.
[14:35] But for the most part, I'd say you guys
[14:37] have those three pillars down. Pillars
[14:38] number four and five is where the
[14:39] biggest changes have happened since
[14:41] 2016. So what is pillar number four?
[14:43] Pillar number four is what I call done
[14:45] for you elements or DFY for short. So
[14:48] what is a done for you elements? Done
[14:50] for you elements are anything. They're
[14:51] resources, their tools or services that
[14:54] reduce or eliminate three things. Time,
[14:56] money, and efforts. Put another way,
[14:58] think of structure, pill number two, as
[15:00] a way to facilitate effort. It directs
[15:02] and organizes the efforts. Done for you
[15:04] elements reduce or eliminate that
[15:07] effort. far more valuable. Clone number
[15:08] one or education in a lot of ways is
[15:10] homework. I mean, think about it. Online
[15:11] courses are literally videos. It's you
[15:13] have to watch it. So, to get the value,
[15:15] you have to invest your effort, right?
[15:17] Sometimes courses, if you've designed
[15:18] them poorly, are 20 hours long, super
[15:20] long, kind of bloated. Well, that's a
[15:21] lot of energy. That's a lot of time. I
[15:23] have to make a lot of effort that may
[15:24] even kind of cost me some money because
[15:26] I'm burning my time. So, ironically,
[15:27] like courses, pill number one, education
[15:29] side of things, is meant to help us save
[15:31] money, time, and effort. And it may do
[15:33] all those things, but to get it, we have
[15:35] to invest money, time, and effort. And
[15:36] that's the whole irony behind education
[15:38] and why pill number one by itself is not
[15:40] enough to be an online course and it's
[15:42] certainly not enough for you to succeed
[15:43] in 2025. Now done for you elements can
[15:46] be kind of hard to understand unless I
[15:47] give you some real life practical
[15:49] examples of how this actually applies in
[15:50] the real world. So I'm going to give you
[15:52] two examples. The first example is going
[15:53] to be in my business and how we use it.
[15:54] And then second I'll make up a random
[15:56] example to show you and illustrate that
[15:58] done for you elements can be applied to
[15:59] any and all businesses. It does not have
[16:01] to be a business opportunity offer like
[16:03] I have. Yes, I help other people to
[16:05] create a business, to make money, etc.
[16:07] And people often say, "Well, it's easy
[16:08] for you, Stockton, to make done for you
[16:10] elements because you can make templates
[16:11] and things really easily, but as you'll
[16:13] see in a minute, it truly applies to
[16:14] anybody, any niche out there, whether
[16:16] it's piano teaching, underwater basket
[16:18] weaving, or dating coaching. It does not
[16:20] matter what the niche is. Anybody and
[16:21] everybody needs to and should be
[16:23] implementing these done for you elements
[16:25] in their offers. So, in 2019, we
[16:27] launched Course Creator Pro. We had sold
[16:28] over 25 million of our online courses
[16:31] through Full-Time Filmmaker. After
[16:32] having done that, people asked us, “How
[16:34] did you do that?” So, we built an online
[16:35] course, right? Pillar number one, we
[16:37] filmed a whole bunch of contents and we
[16:39] would teach people how to build a
[16:41] funnel, how to write an email sequence,
[16:43] how to build a curriculum for their
[16:44] course, how to do the market research,
[16:46] how to film really pretty videos like
[16:47] this one you’re seeing now. It was how
[16:49] to how to how to, right? The video
[16:51] contents. Now, that was 2019 again when
[16:53] you could get away with just having
[16:55] pillar number one and the education
[16:56] dialed in. In 2025, not only do we teach
[16:59] the how, but instead of just teaching
[17:01] you the theory, kind of the step-by-step
[17:02] click by click of what to do or the
[17:04] concepts behind a funnel, we just now
[17:06] give you the top 50 best performing
[17:08] funnel templates we’ve used to sell over
[17:10] 25 million in online
[28:31] courses, in communities, coaching
[28:32] programs, memberships, any sort of
[28:33] digital online products. We have been
[28:35] applying these for years. My prediction
[28:37] and my kind of conclusion here for this
[28:38] video is that as the years go on, these
[28:40] five pillars will not change. What is
[28:42] going to change is the amounts of
[28:43] efforts and energy we should be
[28:45] investing in each of those pillars. It’s
[28:46] my opinion that pillar number four and
[28:48] pillar number five are going to
[28:49] increasingly become more and more
[28:50] important while structure and education
[28:52] become less important. It’s never going
[28:54] to be not important at all, though.
[28:55] Education, structure, support, and
[28:57] community are kind of the three core
[28:59] pillars that you’re always going to have
[29:00] to have. It makes up kind of that
[29:01] keystone of the business as a whole. But
[29:03] pillar number four, especially with the
[29:05] advent of AI, any of you can go out and
[29:07] create a custom GBT using chat GBT. The
[29:09] amount of no code solutions out there
[29:11] for you to develop a very small or quick
[29:13] micro software or micro SAS is
[29:15] mind-boggling. No longer do you have to
[29:17] spend a year and a half, 2 years, 5
[29:19] years developing a software from scratch
[29:21] or some sort of really amazing done for
[29:23] you element or tool and six figures of
[29:24] your life savings to build it. And you
[29:26] can make it in a weekends or an hour or
[29:28] 2 hours to create these tools and these
[29:29] elements that are going to make the
[29:30] entire course business, your whole offer
[29:32] as a whole, 10 times more valuable. It’s
[29:34] going to help you to charge more. It’s
[29:35] going to create more word of mouth.
[29:36] People are going to love it. It’s going
[29:37] to get your students more results. More
[29:38] results for your customers and students
[29:40] means more people coming back. Sharing
[29:41] it with their friends, family, and more.
[29:43] And again to wrap it up, it’s why I
[29:44] think it is absolutely preposterous to
[29:45] say that online courses are dying. We
[29:47] are not even halfway up this wave right
[29:49] now. It is just continuing to get bigger
[29:50] and bigger. The ginormous displacements
[29:52] of higher education, formal education is
[29:54] being replaced by people like you and I
[29:55] who are creating online courses. And if
[29:57] you are looking to create, market, or
[29:59] sell your first online course, you’re
[30:00] looking to scale an existing one, you
[30:01] can click below and join a 30-day free
[30:03] trial to our all-in-one platform, course
[30:05] Creative 360, where we give you not only
[30:06] the tools, all the software to create,
[30:08] market, and sell your online course, but
[30:09] we give you all the education, we give
[30:11] you the structure, we give you the
[30:12] community, the supports, dozens of
[30:14] amazing done for you elements to create
[30:15] your curriculums, your funnels, your
[30:17] websites, your email copy, all the tech
[30:18] stuff you don’t want to take care of.
[30:19] And of course, the accountability to
[30:21] make sure that you actually get your
[30:22] course launched, you find success, and
[30:23] you start monetizing your knowledge
[30:25] online. If you want to see myself
[30:26] practice what I preach, again, click
[30:27] below in the description, join a 30-day
[30:29] free trial. Otherwise, enjoy this free
[30:30] content on YouTube or over on my
[30:32] Instagram channel. Keep crushing it, go
[30:33] out and create, and we’ll see you guys
[30:34] later.