Hi!
So you are thinking about starting your business online... and looking at courses as a possible way to go forward?

Maybe you're introverted as well like myself, and if you are there, know that you are having a great strategy direction to have in your business right now, because the online business world is great for us introverts and in particular about our online courses.

I've been asked to answer a few questions on this topic to help you decide if courses are for you.

My name is Susanna Reay and I do business the introvert way, which means I really look at what strategies are best for you as an introvert to set up and have success online. One of the strategies is to have an online course

1. Why did you create your online course? 

I've created several online courses, including my signature programme called the Signature Offer System. I created this programme so I could serve and have more impact with more women who are introverted to help them shine more online.

The joys of having online courses is that you can give a structure... behind your systems, behind your philosophies, behind your beliefs ...  that people can follow in a logical order, because often, as the expert, when you're particularly dealing one to one, you will flip between the different things that you have the knowledge of in your head. You'll be giving that person specifically what they need, at that point in time.

But many coaches do find there are base elements that all clients need to understand to achieve success, which means certain things need to be done in sequence along the way.

And that's one of the advantages of creating an online course.

2. Should other women create their online course?

Yes Absolutely!

Before you create a course, I'd really ask you to think about is

• what makes it unique for you? 
• what's unique about your business?
• how can you serve others with an online course in a way that transforms, creates a result and gets people where they wish to go?

without you giving the one on one support.

Because sadly, a lot of online courses, are mainly recorded trainings, and these don't engage the user as they haven't worked on how to make the course interactive and add in feedback loops. 

I would suggest, to always run a course "live" for the first few times you run it. Include live sessions with clients as they're going through, to check that the training makes sense and is gaining the traction you are aiming for.

I get that you are looking for the passive income goal, particularly for us introverts, who can get very worn out with lots of outward facing activity... unless of course it is right in our zone of genius, and that is where we gain our energy when we are talking about our expertise.

SECRET: Let me tell you that any online course, it's not a question of create it and they shall come. You still need to sell your online course. You need to market. You need to be out there. And there's ways that we can do that.

But it all starts by making sure you're creating the right course at the right point for your business.

I find, particularly if you're introverted and a bit a perfectionist, like myself, you will overthink a lot of things that you have loads of ideas in your head right now. But actually getting a course out there, taking that step to publishing it and being ready for others to buy it, can be scary. And that's where the Signature Offer System steps in and really helps you to do the background work that is necessary to have a successful course. At the end, when you launch your sales page, you are ready to market with joy and with ease.

Don't believe the ads of "create your sales page in a day"... as sales is far more than the page itself, that is the icing on the cake, but if you don't know the deeper elements of cake baking the experience just won't add up.

4. How has your journey been as an online course creator? 

It's definitely had its hard moments! And they normally came from when I tried to shoot from the hip rather than do things a bit more strategically.

I really recommend that when you're starting out, you start with a micro course, something that's small, short, fast, so you can validate your ideas and see that you connect with people who want what you're going to be putting out there.

You don't want to be spending hours and hours and hours creating a course before you've sold it.

You want to sell it first. And once I started doing that, my journey became so much easier.

5. What will be one message that you want to share with women who are on the fence of deciding to create an online course or not?

I would say do it, absolutely. But look for support from a mentor, a coach, a trainer or someone who's been there before you, because they will save you a lot of time making the mistakes. And it's so important, as I've already mentioned several times already, to pre validate your idea and make sure your wording and having the message behind what you want to do is very, very clear.

6. What online tools or software do you use to run your online course business?

Well, this is where I will be completely transparent and say I am a certified partner for an amazing course platform called MemberVault. And why I chose to link myself with MemberVault is unlike those big names like Kajabi and Kartra, which are all about the money, the image and less about the people...without much flexibility, white labelling or ability to mix in with your existing tech stack

MemberVault is a small start-up team that are based in the U.S. I'm based in the U.K, but this team really has your back and they've got a lot of great gamification settings that you can actually have involved in your course and a platform that is so mobile friendly you can create your course as an app on your phone for your clients to access.

MemberVault has an amazing forever free plan that allows you to set up everything and start earning money before you have to pay for anything... the only limit on the base plan is 100 users, but you can create as many products (courses) that you like, brand it 100% as your brand, take payments and integrate your mail client and video host right there. The admin and user interface is the simplest I have seen and is very mobile friendly. 

I hope that's been helpful.

Reach out and chat to me via @SusannaReay on every social platform or right here on my website click that pink chat icon in the bottom right which is my batphone!