3 Types of Online Courses to Scale Your Coaching Business

Offering online courses in your coaching business is a great way to grow and scale your business.

When you add online courses into your offering of services and products, you are expanding your reach and are no longer limited by the number of 1-1 coaching clients you can fit into your day or week. Adding online courses to your business plan allows you to work with and transform the lives of even more people.

However, before you jump into creating those courses, it is important to spend some time thinking through and intentionally planning out your course offerings. How will they fit into your overall business plan and goals? Is there a natural progression from one product or service into another?

There are many different factors to take into consideration when determining the right type of course (or courses) to offer that fits with your goals and the direction you are wanting to move your business in. Today, I want to look at 3 key types of online courses to offer in your coaching business.

It is not necessary to offer all 3 types of online courses to grow and scale your business. However, they can all work together to bring in even more revenue for your business, as they encourage students to progress through the three different levels with you.

1. Introductory course

The Introductory course is the first level in your offering of online courses, and this is the most common place to start for many course creators. Adding online courses to your coaching business can be overwhelming and daunting. Especially when you have to decide not only on the topic of content, but the type of course to offer, how you are going to deliver it to your students, and what learning management system you are going to use. That’s all before actually setting everything up in the system and launching and marketing the course. (If you are ready to set up your course in Kajabi, grab my free guide to walk you through the 10 steps.)

This first level is a great way to provide students and potential clients with a taste of what it is like to work with you. It is an opportunity for people to get to know you and your style of teaching as you give them a “quick win.” You are showcasing your expertise through a mini course, workshop, challenge or even an email or video series for a low price offering (or maybe for free). By offering that quick, tangible win, you can easily lead them to want to know more. And in order to know more, they need to keep working with you ... leading us to the second type: your Signature course.

2. Signature course

The Signature course (or Flagship course) is at the core of your course offerings. It is the course that you are known for and teaches students a step-by-step approach to achieving that transformation that your coaching business offers (and is known for). This type of course does require a lot more investment of your time to create a successful program, but it has huge potential of creating leverage and profit for your coaching business. This can even replace those 1-1 service offerings if that is one of your business goals.

Many coaches who have a signature course include a group coaching element and community space for students in addition to the evergreen content provided throughout the duration of the course. These elements can provide that relational aspect for a lower price than your 1-1 coaching services. As with all online course offerings, you are showcasing your expertise. With a signature course, you are establishing yourself as an authoritative expert within your specific field or industry.

Most signature courses offer a larger amount of content and require a higher investment of time and money from those who sign up for the course. As students work through the content provided in your signature course, they are moving fully into that area of transformation. Some people will be content to finish your signature course and move on. However, many people will want to move to that next level and continue to receive your support. This leads us to the third type of course to offer: the Membership program.

3. Subscription or Membership program

Yes, offering a Subscription or Membership is not just an online course but I am including it in this list because it is a great way to continue to provide support to those students who are committed to keep working with you. And this is a great way to add some recurring revenue to your business plan. The students in your membership have ideally gone through your signature course so they know the foundation of your teaching. And now you can continue to work with them on a deeper level.

Many membership-style programs provide monthly learning opportunities with a workshop-style event where the students have continued access to new content each month, a community space where members can interact with one another as well as you as the teacher, Q&A sessions, and review or feedback sessions. Adding in a membership program is a perfect option to provide that highest level of support that still allows you to reach more people than you can through solely focusing on 1-1 services.

There are many different ways that you can begin to incorporate online course offerings into your business.

Where you start will be influenced by the time you have available to put towards creating a course, how fast you need (or want) to add online courses into your offering of services and products, how quickly you want to generate new streams of revenue, and of course your business goals.

Which type of course(s) do you already offer and which one(s) are you wanting to add to your coaching business? Are you ready to get your online course set-up in Kajabi? Grab a FREE copy of the 10 Steps to Confidently Setting Up your Online Course in Kajabi and let me walk you step-by-step through getting your course set up and fully functioning in a simple and intuitive way.