Are you tired of trading hours for dollars in your service-based business?

In this exclusive interview, I (Jamie Trull, CPA & financial educator) sit down with successful online course creator Amy Porterfield—online course royalty and creator of Digital Course Academy (DCA)—to answer the burning question: Can an online course really replace your 1:1 client work or service-based income?

Whether you’re a freelancer, coach, consultant, creative pro, bookkeeper, or fractional CFO, this deep-dive guide breaks down the real pros, cons, and financial potential of pivoting to a scalable online course model. We’ll walk through how to validate your idea, calculate the numbers, avoid common mistakes, and choose a path that fits your life—without torching the business you’ve already built.

👉 Learn more about course creation and explore my curated resources.

Why This Conversation Matters Right Now

“Courses are passive income”… you’ve probably heard the phrase and rolled your eyes. You’re smart. You know nothing is fully passive. But here’s what is true:

• A course can transform your expertise into an asset instead of a time-for-money treadmill.
• A course can serve clients you can’t (yet) take on 1:1 … because of price, capacity, or geography.
• A course can become the foundation for predictable revenue, better clients, and more control over your calendar.

Amy and I have both lived this pivot. I phased out my 1:1 virtual CFO work starting in 2019 to build digital programs—and that’s why I’m able to show up consistently for you here today. Amy left corporate years ago, built a course-based business, wrote a bestselling book (Two Weeks Notice), and teaches a proven method for building and selling digital courses.

This isn’t theory. It’s a roadmap.

Who This Is For (And Who It Isn’t)

Perfect fit if you’re:

• A service provider with repeatable processes (coaches, consultants, designers, accountants, bookkeepers, copywriters, therapists, SLPs, PTs, OBMs, marketers).
• Capacity-capped and craving flexibility, higher margins, and better leverage.
• Getting inquiries from people who aren’t ready for your premium 1:1… but you still want to help them.

Probably not a fit if you’re:

• Still clarifying your offer and ideal audience (start with a few 1:1s first).
• Unwilling to create content, test ideas, or learn marketing basics.
• Dead set on staying 100% bespoke services (which is valid!—but a different path).

Myth vs. Reality: “Passive Income”

Let’s set expectations. A digital course isn’t a money button. What it can be is:

• Leverage: teach once, enroll many.
• Asset creation: build something that can be improved and relaunched (or sold evergreen).
• Scalable support: answer a question once in office hours instead of 100 separate emails.

The “secret” isn’t the information—you can Google information. The value is your framework, sequence, coaching, community, and accountability. That’s what moves people from consuming to succeeding.

The Big Question: Can a Course Replace Your Client Income?

Short answer: Yes—sometimes. Longer answer: consider one of these models.

1) The Hybrid Model (Most Popular)

Keep a small book of premium clients while launching your course 2–3 times per year (or putting it on evergreen). This gives you stability and runway while you build the course asset and your marketing muscle.

Why it works:

• Staged transition (no revenue cliff).
• You pick dream clients and raise prices.
• Course serves everyone else you’d otherwise turn away.

2) The Course-First Model

If you’re fully booked and very clear on your method, temporarily stop taking new 1:1 clients, carve out creation time, and launch a “v1” course as a proof-of-concept.

Why it works:

• Forces focus and speed.
• Validates demand quickly.
• Gives you data to iterate fast.

3) The Stair-Step Model

Start with a workshop or mini-course, then grow into a signature program. Use each step to fund the next, learning copy, positioning, and audience-building along the way.

Why it works:

• Low risk, quick feedback loops.
• Removes perfection pressure.
• Builds trust (and an email list) progressively.

The Numbers: How Many Sales Do You Actually Need?

Let’s do simple math. Imagine your goal is to replace $8,000/month in client revenue.

• Offer price $497
  • 20 sales/month ≈ $9,940
  • At a 2% conversion, you’d need ~1,000 warm leads per month.
• Offer price $997
  • 10 sales/month ≈ $9,970
  • At a 2% conversion, you’d need ~500 warm leads per month.
• Offer price $1,997
  • 5 sales/month ≈ $9,985
  • At a 2% conversion, you’d need ~250 warm leads per month.

What determines price? Depth of transformation, support model (DIY vs. cohort vs. coaching), and your market. Start where your confidence and promise align, then optimize.

Pro tip: You don’t need massive audiences—you need the right message for the right people and consistent invitations to join.

But My Clients Are Unique Snowflakes—Will a Course Work?

Yes—if you codify what you do. Amy says it best: if you find yourself having the same conversations, asking the same questions, or walking people through the same checkpoints, you already have a framework. Your course organizes that framework into a path most people can follow, with:

• Core curriculum for 80% of needs
• Office hours / Q&A to bridge edge cases
• Templates & checklists to accelerate execution

If you love some 1:1, keep it! Many creators run a premium 1:1 or mastermind at a higher rate—by choice, not necessity.

Step-by-Step: Your Client-to-Course Pivot Plan

Step 1: Choose a Course Topic You Can Stand Behind

Look for the intersection of:

• A painful, expensive problem you can solve
• A track record (even informal) of helping people solve it
• A clear before/after transformation you can describe in one sentence

Not sure? Think in niches: “Tax readiness for Etsy sellers,” “90-day brand foundations for health coaches,” “Cash-flow confidence for solo attorneys,” “Grant-ready in 12 weeks for nonprofits.”

Step 2: Validate Before You Build (Market Research)

• Hold 5–10 short interviews with ideal students.
• Pre-sell a cohort or founding-member round (bonus: they’ll forgive imperfect slides).
• Or start with a paid workshop to test demand and messaging.

Step 3: Map Your Framework

Break your client process into milestones (modules) and checkpoints (lessons). Keep it focused: fewer, better lessons beat content bloat.

Step 4: Design the Support Layer

Pick a support model that fits your bandwidth:

• DIY + community
• Cohort with weekly office hours
• Hybrid: DIY curriculum + twice-monthly group coaching

Step 5: Create Minimum Viable Content

Record tidy, clear videos (screen share or talking head), include templates, checklists, calculators. Done > perfect. You can re-record later after student questions surface.

Step 6: Build Your Sales Engine To Make Money Online and Start Selling

You don’t need a complicated funnel to start. Pick one of these:

• Live workshop → offer
• Challenge/bootcamp → offer
• Webinar → open cart
• Email waitlist → private invite

If you’re an online course creator, you may find this guide to affordable and user-friendly tech tools helpful.

Repeat what works; tweak what doesn’t.

Step 7: Launch, Learn, Iterate Your Course and Marketing Strategies

Your v1 is about learning. Collect feedback, improve lessons, refine messaging, and strengthen your promise. Then relaunch—or move to evergreen when performance stabilizes.

The Time Problem (And How to Actually Make Time)

“I don’t have time to build this.” That’s the most honest objection—and the best reason to start. Try:

• Capacity rules: Stop taking new 1:1s for 6–8 weeks while you draft curriculum.
• Time-blocking: Two 90-minute creation sprints, three days a week, for 6 weeks.
• Batching: Outline one week, script one week, record two weeks, polish one week.
• Leverage tools: Use AI to brainstorm outlines, subject lines, and lesson names—then add your voice, stories, and proprietary frameworks. (AI is an assistant, not the teacher.)

Messaging That Converts (Without the Sleaze)

Your audience doesn’t buy information. They buy outcomes and certainty.

Answer these clearly:

• Who is this for (and not for)?
• What problem does it solve?
• What’s the tangible outcome? (E.g., “File taxes in 5 days with zero panic,” “Enroll your first 5 clients in 30 days,” “Get your first draft in 8 weeks.”)
• How is this different? Your method, your sequence, your support.
• Why now? Cost of staying stuck vs. upside of moving now.

Launch vs. Evergreen: Which Should You Choose?

Live Launch Pros

• Community energy and urgency
• Higher conversion rates
• Real-time feedback to improve curriculum

Live Launch Cons

• Intense energy windows
• Calendar-dependent

Evergreen Pros

• Sales any day, any time
• Great for busy seasons, travel, parenting, or caregiving
• Compounds with content and SEO

Evergreen Cons

• Requires dialed-in messaging and traffic
• Lower urgency (unless engineered thoughtfully)

Best of both: Launch twice a year, let a smaller evergreen trickle run in between.

Real-World Pathways To Course Creation (From Our Community)

• The Fractional CFO → “Cash Flow Confidence” Course
  Kept two premium clients, launched a $997 program, and replaced 50% of 1:1 revenue within two launches. Moved to evergreen for a steady trickle, raised 1:1 rates, and started taking only dream clients.
• The Therapist → Confidence for Women
  Loved 1:1, didn’t want to quit. Raised private rates, kept a limited caseload, built a course aligned with her expertise but not identical to the therapy room. The course scaled her impact—without burning her out.
• The Editor/Book Coach → Notes to Novel
  Turned a repeatable editorial process into a $997 course and stair-stepped from full client load to course-first revenue while staying selective with clients.

The throughline? Codify your method, start small, and let data tell you what to double down on.

Common Objections (And Honest Answers)

“My clients want me, not a course.”
Some will—and they’ll pay a premium. Others want a guided path they can afford and access on their schedule. A course lets you serve both.

“What if my course flops?”
Then you just paid for an education in your market. You’ll know which promise missed, which module needs more depth, or which audience needs clarity. Iterate and relaunch—every great course had a v1.

“I’m not a marketer.”
Neither was I. You’ll get reps writing simple emails, running a live class, or hosting a challenge. Messaging is a skill you build. Keep it honest, specific, and student-focused.

“Isn’t the market saturated?”
Information is abundant. Transformation guided by a trusted expert isn’t. Niche down, promise a clear outcome, and deliver support.

Your First 30-Day Action Plan For A Profitable Online Course

1️⃣ Week 1

• Choose your topic & promise.
• Interview 5 ideal students.
• Write a one-sentence transformation: “I help [who] get [result] in [timeframe] without [major roadblock].”

2️⃣ Week 2

• Map modules and milestones.
• Outline a 60–90 minute workshop that previews your method.
• Create a simple lead magnet (checklist/mini training) to grow your email list.

3️⃣ Week 3

• Announce your workshop. Invite your email list and social audience.
• Run the workshop and make a founding-member offer (limited seats, special price, extra support).

4️⃣ Week 4

• Onboard students, deliver week 1, and start collecting feedback.
• Document questions—these are improvements for v2 and your future sales page FAQ.

👉 Want a curated, always-updated hub of course creation resources?

Start here: jamietrull.com/coursecreation

Where Amy Porterfield Fits In (and Why I Recommend Her)

Amy is the mentor who helped me move from service-only to a course-based business.

If you’re serious about doing this right (topic validation, list growth, launch messaging, and delivery), her trainings are gold-standard.

When her next bootcamp or training series opens, I’ll post it here so you can join with my special bonuses: jamietrull.com/amy

Want the shortcut? Combine your expertise with a proven launch framework. It’s the fastest path from “idea” to “enrolled students.”

Bonus: How Courses Protect Your Profit (CPA View)

• Capacity ceiling: Service work caps revenue at your calendar. Courses uncap it.
• Margin lift: Your course COGS are low; each incremental sale is mostly profit.
• Asset value: A dialed course becomes an asset you can relaunch, evergreen, or even package with your business if you ever sell.
• Client ladder: Course → group program → 1:1 creates a healthy ecosystem and lifetime value.
• Cash flow smoothing: Launch pulses and evergreen trickles even out the feast-or-famine cycle.

Final Word: Creating Online Courses To Replace or Redesign Your Income

Can a course replace your client work? For many, yes. But even if you never go 100% course-based, a single great program can reshape your business: fewer clients, better margins, more freedom, and bigger impact.

If you’ve had even a tiny nudge that a course could work for you—follow it. Start small. Validate fast. Learn in public. You’ll be shocked how quickly momentum builds once you take the first step toward planning for profits.

👉 Explore course creation resources (tools, checklists, and my favorite trainings): jamietrull.com/coursecreation
👉 When Amy’s live bootcamps/trainings open, grab your spot + my bonuses here: jamietrull.com/amy

Sponsored Disclaimer

Disclaimer: this post is sponsored, but as always—we’re only sharing tools and resources we personally use and love. Your support helps us keep showing up and supporting our small (but mighty!) team.

Transcript Note:

Selling Online Courses

They say courses are passive income, but is it really true today? I’m really excited because I’m gonna take a little bit of a divergence away from my typical content about business finances, to talk about something that’s actually pretty personal to me, and that is my journey to become a course creator.

Now, if you don’t know. One of the main reasons that I can actually show up and make these YouTube videos for you all is because of the fact that I don’t have clients anymore. I used to, but I moved away from a one-to-one business model back in 2019, and I’ve never looked back.

And if you’re wondering how I did it and you’ve been maybe thinking about doing something similar yourself today, I decided to bring on my mentor turned friend, Amy Porterfield, who is really the.
Person you want to listen to when it comes to course creation.

She taught me everything I know, not just about how to create a course, but also how to market and sell it.

So whether you’re thinking about it or just wanna hear a little bit of the behind the scenes of my journey, definitely make sure to stick around.

And if you are curious about course creation, make sure to stick around until the end because Amy’s gonna tell you exactly what you can start doing today that’s gonna help you reach those goals.

And just to help you jumpstart your journey, I’ve compiled all of my favorite course creation resources over at jamierull.com/coursecreation.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with the amazing Amy Porterfield.

Alright, I am here with the amazing. Amy Porterfield, she is here. She comes back every year. We like to have her on around this time to talk about one of the things near and dear to my heart, which is course creation.

So I am a digital course creator, as both of you know, it’s something that I love, and I learned literally everything that I know from this woman right here.

So, if you don’t know Amy, if you’ve been living under a rock, this is Amy Porterfield.

Amy, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, first of all, thanks so much. You are a. Star student. We have a really crazy story that before you were even my student, I interviewed you on my podcast to show people how to interview someone that you want to be your ideal customer.

Like we go way back, which is so fun. We not, you build this business and thrive is like my most favorite thing. Mm-hmm. And I don’t. Any credit, so thank you for that Nice comment. But you are a hard worker, my friend, and you get it done.

So I teach people how to create and launch digital courses. I was in corporate forever and 16 years ago. Then I went out on my own to build my own business, I just wanted to be my own boss.

I wanted that freedom, I didn’t wanna be told what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. I never grew up thinking I’m going to be an entrepreneur.

We didn’t even use that word in my household, but I knew that I wanted more freedom, so I took the leap, uh, terrified the whole time.

Online Course Profit and Margins

And a few years in it started to work. If you fast forward to today, I, uh, wrote a book called Two Weeks Notice How to Quit Your Job and Build an Online Business.

And I help mainly women, uh, make money online so that they can create freedom and build a business by their own design. I love it. Yep. I’ve got my book on my shelf over here. It’s a great read.

I am one of the case studies too, in that book, which is very exciting.

So I’ll, I’ll use that as a claim to fame. Um, yes. I love that. I’ve, we’ve had the whole story of this documented, like having that podcast is like. It’s like a time capsule of where I was.

And it actually really speaks well to this topic we’re gonna talk about today because when I go back and, and listen to it, I’ll make sure to put this in the link below.

So if you guys wanna listen to me circa, gosh, this was, uh, six years ago, about this time honestly, was when we recorded that podcast episode and I was knee deep in client work, I was exhausted.

I had started my own business for freedom.

I felt no freedom, I was getting no sleep. Um, and I had a toddler and a baby at the time.

And so, uh, it was going through this process of, you know, learning how to teach and learning how much I loved it. Then, you know, working with Amy to figure out how to create a product that people would want to buy and be a part of.

And that just changed everything.

So that’s like literally why I’m here today, literally why this YouTube channel exists. It’s very much because of Amy and your influence.

So, um. So on that note like this, we’re calling this, uh, can a course replace your client work?

Because a lot of my audience are in that, whether they have a team or it’s just them, they are the one delivering the work, right?

So talking specifically if you’re in a service-based business. Maybe you’re a coach, maybe you’re a consultant, maybe you’re, you know, doing any kind of one-to-one services an accountant, right? Um, that’s what I was doing. I was a virtual CFO working one-to-one, right?

So whatever that is, a lot of them are wondering, I think in the back of their mind, kind of like I was circo 2019, like. Is there something else I could be doing?

Is there a way I could be doing this differently that might give me a little bit more freedom in my life?

Um, and what would you say to people kind of who are in that spot, they’re just, they’re tired. Yes. And they’re wondering if there’s a better way.

There absolutely is.

Social Media Marketing and Selling Online

And if you have just a inkling of. Could this work for me?

I really want you to be open-minded as Jamie and I go back and forth with this topic, because I’ve seen it work over and over again. Jamie’s a perfect example.

I’ll share a little, uh, few more stories with you, but here’s what I want you to know. If you are in a service-based business, a lot of times what happens is.

You think, well, Amy, I do the work for them. Like I need to show up for them.

There’s a lot of one-on-one pitching and catching lots of conversations, and it’s very personal to the client I work with. How could that ever work inside of a digital course?

And what I tell my one-on-one service-based provider students is that. You have a pattern, a framework, a roadmap that you use, maybe even more so than you realize.

There’s different questions, you’re always answering, there’s different frameworks you use, different models you use with your client. Um, conversations that you’ve had over and over and over again, and you just kinda wanna scream like, I don’t want to talk about this again, but you need to.

That is all an indicator that you could create a course because even though you want to say, yeah, but, uh, my customers or my clients, they’re, they’re unique snowflakes.

Each of them are so very different. At the end of the day, it’s about your expertise, your skillset, and your knowledge, and that doesn’t change.

Course Creator and Course Idea

So you can take what you do one-on-one and you can build it into a course so that that knowledge, skillset, and the experiences you have. Could reach one to many.

Sure it’s a little different, but absolutely doable.

Yeah, I think that was my concern too when I first was looking at, at doing a course is like, how, but I work so intimately with people, right?

Yes.

And how am I gonna make that translate? And so going through a process of trying to figure out, okay, what is, what is my framework? What is my process?

I haven’t thought about it maybe that way, but I do have one. Right. Like we all have things we do. You onboard a new client and what are the steps that you take them through? And really thinking about that.

And I also think for people who are worried about. How am I gonna customize this? How am I gonna make this work?

You can have a course and have an element that includes, um, you know, being able to give them more one-to-one help, but it’s on a, it’s, it’s one-to-one, but it’s scalable, one-to-one, right?

Selling Online and Course Sales

Yeah. So we always did that in our main programs.

We had an ability where they could ask a question and only a percentage do, you’d be surprised.

Um, a lot of them don’t, and we would answer all of their questions, especially as a smaller course creator. You probably can do that, and you can probably do it in 45 minutes instead of answering the same question to a hundred people once or a hundred times.

You answer the question once. Right? True. So there’s a lot of ways that you can actually help people.

You know, uh, make this work for them. Right. And customize it for them specifically. So, um, yeah, I definitely think that that is a barrier of like, how am I gonna do this?

Right. Right. And it’s absolutely doable. Yeah.

And what would you say too about thinking about ideal clients? ’cause I think a lot of people are like, well, my clients aren’t gonna want, like, they want me.

They don’t want a yes.

Oh, I’m glad you brought this up.

Sales Page, More Money, and Profit Margins

Okay. So there will absolutely be some clients that say, no way. I, I just want Jamie, I just wanna work with Jamie. And if Jamie decided, you know what? I’ll take one to three, one-on-one clients a year and then supplement the rest of the revenue I wanna make with the digital course.

To me, that is. Such a perfect fit because a lot of my students, they’ll come to me and say, Amy, I’m so over being a service provider. I don’t wanna do one-on-one.

I’m like, great. Let’s fully transition. Not overnight, but let’s transition into a digital course.

But some of my students love the one-on-one.

They love working with the people they work with. I have a therapist I’m thinking of, and she loves to go into the office and sit with her clients and work one-on-one.

She just doesn’t wanna do it so much, and she wants to raise her prices. So what she did was she raised her prices.

She meets with fewer people, she gets to be more selective.

Selling Online

We all know that we have clients we would love to fire, so she doesn’t work with those clients anymore.

Only the one she really wants to work with. She takes less. She charges a premium because she only takes a few. And then the rest of her income comes from her digital course.

The woman I’m thinking, um, she also, her, she’s a therapist, but her course is about confidence for women. So actually she didn’t take exactly what she does in the chair. She, she took a spin off of it.

That’s another way that you can look at it. So you could do both.

You could just do. You could take your service space and put it in a course and not do service anymore, or you could create a course. That’s not exactly what you do one-on-one, but there’s alignment also, I wanna say one more thing.

There’s a client that only wants to hire you. They’re willing to pay a premium. There’s tons of people who cannot afford you. You may not wanna work with them or they just prefer to learn on their own that will buy your course.

These are two different audiences sometimes, and that’s a good thing. So that’s why both can exist.

Yeah. And I think that that’s one of the, one of the mistakes I’ve seen people make sometimes is assuming their current client is their ideal client for a course.

Yes.

And it’s not necessarily true. Yeah. Right.

And so you are gonna have the, per the person who, you know, your ideal client for your service work, right. Is probably somebody who wants to work.

One-to-one who will pay a premium price to work one-to-one, and the person you’re, you’re gonna be targeting a different person when you’re targeting a course, and that’s okay.

It just might mean we have to put a little bit of work behind, okay, how do we find more people in our audience? You probably have those people though.

Maybe it’s somebody who wanted to work with you, but they’re not at the place yet.

This was the case for me, right? What actually. In, in large part also spurred me making a course was people were coming to me that I wanted to help that couldn’t afford to work with me. Exactly.

And it broke my heart.

Yes. Because I wanted to help them, but I couldn’t. I did. There was only one of me.

I didn’t have the time to be able to give them what they really needed and so.

Online Courses

You know, creating a course was a way to serve people that I wouldn’t have been able to serve one-to-one. And then I was able to charge more for the people that I did that could afford it to do the one-to-one.

Um, and that was kind of an interesting offshoot that I didn’t expect that even in the midst of this I could, as I was rolling out a course, I also could increase my prices.

For my one-to-one people and cut it down to just the ones I really wanted to keep.

It’s like a beautiful thing.

You know, you just made me think of one of my students and I, I know you, uh, know him from our community, but, um, his, his name is Mark and Mark. Was a CPA still is a CPA, and he worked in an office for somebody else.

And around that time he got call. He got a call and said, Hey, could you come on my podcast and talk about how resellers like people that sell on Etsy and Amazon and Poshmark, how resellers. Deal with their taxes.

Like we’re in a special group and we wanna make sure we don’t mess up our taxes. Will you come on my podcast and talk to my audience who are all resellers? Mm-hmm. And he had specialty in that.

He is like, absolutely.

So we went on and realized, wait, there’s a whole world of resellers out there. This is something that I could teach. And so being on that podcast made him think this is, there’s something here.

So what he did is he created a digital course. Specifically teaching resellers how to, uh, manage their taxes. Mm-hmm. Five years into this digital course, he hit $1 million in revenue from just his digital courses.

And so I say this to say, you might not even know what your course could be right now ’cause you’ve never even thought about it. Be open to the fact that you already know the information that’s going to be in your course. Be open to what might it be.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s so many different avenues, and that’s the thing.

Course Sales and Course Creator

People, you can also change it, right? So that’s the thing. Like mine has, I, there have been iterations, um, of my courses and the things that I offer in my business based on what people are wanting at the time.

And so you don’t have to overanalyze.

It’s just a matter of doing the thing, putting something out there and then knowing like, okay, I’m gonna take lessons and learnings from this. And then, you know, continue down the direction and eventually it’s, it’s shocking what can happen in your business.

And so I first started, I was, I was, uh, had that problem.

So, so one problem I know a lot of service-based people run into is. But I don’t have time to create a course because I am serving all of these people and how am I supposed to do that at the same time?

So, yes, I know what I would say, but what would you say to them, Amy? Okay.

Well, I would love to know what you would say, but, um, first of all, the fact that you don’t have time to do this is the perfect reason why you need to do this. That’s exactly what I would say.

Okay, good, good. Because if you feel like you don’t have time to, to build a better business, to create more freedom for yourself and your family, then there’s no better reason to figure out and make the time.

Online Course, Sell Online Courses, and Social Media Marketing

And I’m not saying that’s easy. I have a lot of students that. A mother of four or a single mom or um, parents that are, uh, shipping their kids everywhere across the country for baseball or whatever it might be. And so I get that life is busy. It’s not easy, but it’s doable.

And I remember when I first started, I left my corporate job and before I left my corporate job, though, I wanted to start this business every morning. I got up at 5:00 AM and from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM.

I started creating the business before my boys woke up, and then when they woke up, I was mom making breakfast, all that good stuff. And then on the weekends I would take advantage of a few hours to do it as well.

So you find these little pockets of time and it starts to become just a little bit easier. So that’s one thing. But also, let’s talk about AI for a second, because do I believe you could just show up to chat GPT, type in a few things and have it regurgitate a digital course for you? Don’t do that.

You will get lost in the sea of online noise and no one will pay attention because it will be so watered down. Anyone could do that. So the courses that are working today are ones that. You’re telling your own story.

You have a perspective, you have an idea you die on a hill for, and you’re willing to show up and support them in office hours once a week for a month or something, like adding that personal touch.

That’s what’s working right now, and it doesn’t take a lot of time. However, using AI to help you get started with your outline, using AI to make your emails better, using AI to do your research all day long.

Like if you’ve waited to create your digital course and you’ve thought about this for a while, you are so lucky you waited because it’s never been easier if you know how to use ai, right?

So it doesn’t take away all the magic.

Course Idea, Sales Page, and More Money

I have been saying the same thing to other course creator friends. Good. That, that I’m like, man, I, I had to write all this from scratch.

I didn’t have this like amazing assistant that could help me refine my messaging brainstorm.

I mean, it’s so good at brainstorming, like ideas for webinar titles or for the, my course name or all these things, right? There’s so much more available. There’s, there should never be a time anymore where you’re just sitting and, and have no ideas, right? Like agreed. Great for bringing those out.

I agree. It’s definitely a support and augmentation tool and not something to replace humans. ’cause it’s very obvious. We all know we, we can spot it from a mile away, right? Absolutely. Yeah. It’s so easy.

All the, all the m dashes you’ll throw the M dashes. I, it’s driving me crazy. Why it not not do that, but I tell it no m dashes and it’s. Still, like, okay, no, that’s you anyway, here’s another one. Yeah, exactly.

But it’s, it’s very easy to spot when it’s just overused.

And again, I, I utilize it absolutely, I’ll be honest about it, but if you wanted to create an entire course, it would be really watered down and people are gonna want your personality.

Course Sales and Profit Margins

I think, I think it’s even more important these days to have, um, you know, to have that trust of your audience. It is really, really critical. Yeah.

Um, they don’t, they’re not buying for the information, especially now the information is at their fingertips and even the organization of their, the information can be easier to get to with chat GPT. Yes.

But not you and the way that you teach it and the way that you, you know, verbalize it. That makes sense. Right. So, yeah. Yep. So I love that.

So then how do people get started in terms of. Okay, I wanna make this happen. I can carve out some time. You know, should I, do I need to like get rid of all my clients? Do I, right?

What’s the best way to do this?

Okay. If I wanna make that shift, I’m a big fan of Baby Steps.

So if it were me and, well, let me tell you a story about Savannah and then will use her as an example.

Savannah was an editor and a book coach.

She literally worked on people’s individual books and she helped. Edit them. Mm-hmm. And she did this for a very long time and she was really good at it.

But she came, became maxed out with so many clients and knew there’s only so many hours in a day.

Online Courses and Selling Online

Like when you do service-based work, you will always hit a ceiling unless you grow a really big team.

Which if that’s something you wanna do, then of course do it. But if you don’t wanna do that or you’re a solopreneur. You’ll always hit that revenue in time ceiling, and that’s what happened to her.

She thought there’s gotta be a better way, but what she didn’t do is say, I’m gonna create a course and then fire all her clients and stop doing any of the one-on-one work.

What she decided to do is say, okay, I’m gonna keep these clients while I’m building my course.

And little by little I’ll stop taking clients and start selling this course. So it’s just a gradual shift until she fully goes all in with courses. ’cause that was her choice. Mm-hmm.

So she took the system that she uses as an editor and as a book coach, and she created a course, it’s called Notes to Novel, helping students go from idea to outline to their first draft.

Course Creator and Sell Online Courses

And the cool thing is she charged $997. So it’s not like it was a cheap course. She launched, it made $40,000 the first launch.

Now, if you make 40, I can’t promise that, but if you make $40,000 your first launch, you’re definitely going to say, you know what? I’m gonna start taking fewer clients at this point. Mm-hmm.

The next launch, $54,000. She’s like, okay, I can give up a few more clients. And her first year, she brought in 170 5K in sales and she was able to take.

Only the client she wanted, but she didn’t give it all up. Mm-hmm.

So that’s what I want you all to hear.

I would never come on here and say, let ’em all go create the course. Let’s do this gradually where your confidence starts to build up. And if you wanna take that leap eventually, by all means do so.

I totally agree with you.

That’s how I did it too, is I, you know, I wanted to clear some time to have some time to create the course and really embrace it.

So I did stop taking, you know, new clients on, and I was, most of mine were under a particular contract, so I just didn’t extend their contracts if the contracts went up.

So it kind of was this gradual thing where I ended up with just the clients that I really, really wanted.

Online Course and Selling Online Courses

Um, but I, I did my first launch, um, and it was 44,000, and then I was like, well. I mean, I mean, there might be a future here. Yeah.

You know, you kind of start to think like, maybe, you know, when you think about how many clients and how much work and how many hours would take me to, to make $44,000 that I could make with a course, and yes, there was time investment.

Like that’s, I, I think people need to know, right?

There is an investment involved, but that upfront investment. Is one that can hopefully then, it’s not just time spent, like sometimes service based, it just feels like, you know, you’re not, you’re not helping yourself in the future.

You’re just kind of getting by today. Right, right. Whereas investing in creating a course is creating an asset. It’s really, you know, I’m a CPA, it’s, it’s an actual asset, whether it shows up on your balance sheet or not, but it is an asset.

You own it.

And you can utilize it and get a return on it, you know, into the future. Um, and so I think that that helped me as an accountant to really think about like, no, I’m building something that’s more sustainable.

Because I think sometimes people think service-based is more sustainable, and I’m like, no, no, no, but, but service-based. You know, if you it like you don’t have anything left, at the end of the day, there’s nothing that you’ve created. A digital asset is an asset and I’ve created it.

That’s a great point.

I’m glad you brought that up because one of the ways that I teach digital courses is we’re not going to create a digital course. And launch it into the world and then move on to something else.

Right?

I hate starting from scratch and it slows you down and it’s hard to make money if you’re RO always starting from scratch. Mm-hmm.

And so when you create a course, and this is what you and I have done in so many of my students, you create that course.

Once as an asset in your business, and now you can launch it over and over and over again, or you could get it on evergreen and literally, and I’m not joking, make money while you sleep because people are finding your course at any time of day.

Course Creator, Profit, and Margins

And so that’s another thing to think about. We’re not recreating the wheel every single quarter.

It’s the same course.

I have launched the same course since 2019, and every year it gets more profitable and more profitable because I get better at, um, promoting it. Yeah. Which you become a better marketer as well.

Yeah, and it can be, I mean, you’ll probably rerecord it and things like that every once in a while, but it’s much easier, right.

When you have art, the, the heavy lifting is in that front end and you can use it for years, and that, to me, I’m really in the zone of, of my life. Maybe it’s being in my forties.

I’m like, I am in the. Working smarter, not harder zone. Yes. Like how can I set things up to work for me? We have fully embraced Evergreen for so many of our different products now, and that has been a great change, right?

Launches are great and I still launch and they still work.

But Evergreen, when you wake up and you have sales notifications there, it, there’s nothing better when you’re on vacation.

Those sales notifications come through.

It’s like, okay, you know, again, there’s work to get that all set up and there’s time and trial and error and all of those things.

But I, looking back now again, I mean, it’s been six years since you know, you and I spoke that fateful day that then set this trajectory going.

Selling Online and Course Sales

Right. I look back and I’m like, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life is so much. Better and more.

I, I get, I get like teary-eyed thinking about it, but it’s just so much fuller now.

Yes. Um, in a good way. Yes, I totally agree. Not in, not in the bad way, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

That’s what’s so special about courses.

It could change your life as a course creator and change the lives of your audience as you teach them something new. Help them with the transformation, get them past a huge challenge. Mm-hmm.

And so it’s, it’s a win-win.

And I do think that’s a beautiful part of it. It’s, it is, and again, like I said, I love it too because I get to serve the people that I wouldn’t be able to serve on a one-on-one basis.

But I can do it in a way that it works for me and it, it gives me, uh, that fulfillment that I was really looking for.

So, I think this is true for a lot of service providers, if you’re turning away people because you’re like, oh, they can’t quite afford me yet, or, you know, I really wanna work with them, but it doesn’t, I don’t have capacity.

That that’s who you start with.

That’s where you start with building like, okay, well, you know, I can’t work with you directly, but.

Course Idea and Sell Online Courses

This course would be a great place to start.

And then it also could even eventually be a stair step into your services too, right? Yes. To help get people, if you wanna use it that way. I think that’s a beautiful way to use it too, right? Absolutely.

I have a student that she came into my world and, uh, cr uh, to learn how to do digital courses, and she’s been in my community for years and years, and now she, I take one, one-on-one client a year who pays me a hundred thousand dollars.

For a year of coaching and now she is my one-on-one client.

She started with a $2,000 course in my world. So you never know what might happen. You never know, and they’re gonna trust you. They’re gonna want it to be you and no one else, right?

Yes. They’ve been with you that whole time. So I think that’s amazing.

Okay, so now I wanna get to all the resources because, uh, hopefully we’ve convinced some people that like, okay. I really wanna look at this more.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, Jamie.

I heard you talk about it last year and I didn’t quite jump in, but maybe this year might be the year. Yes.

And if that’s you and if you’re service-based, uh, first we do have, um, just going really well along with what we just talked about is your free guide, which is the client to course pivot, or it’s a free checklist, right?

Sales Page and Selling Online Courses

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that’ll even go a little bit more in, in detail about the checklist to switch over.

So that’s a great place to start. You can grab that at jamietrull.com/amy. Great. I’ll put that down below. Um, and you can check out too, tell tell them a little bit if they’re watching this on the day it comes out tomorrow is when the bootcamp.

Yes.

So tell a little bit about my favorite every year is the bootcamp.

I am really excited for this. Okay, so on September 11th, we are launching something I only do once a year. It’s live and it will help kickstart your first digital course.

So essentially I’m gonna walk you through the first few steps of what it takes to get a course up and running so you understand.

The big picture and the steps you need to take to get it going from choosing your topic, to validating your topic, to figuring out what would you even charge to making sure you know who your audience is and how to grow an audience while you’re creating your first digital course.

These are all the things we’re doing in the bootcamp. It’s just a week long. I’m live, I do four live trainings. All of them are recorded if you can’t make it.

Course Creator and More Money

But here’s the cool thing, you’ll walk away with clarity and confidence thinking.

Okay. I wanted to create a course or I thought this might be good for me. Now I know and I have a good sense of how to move forward. Here’s the cool part.

It’s one of the cheapest things I offer all year. It’s just 47 bucks and it’s an amazing live experience.

Yeah, it’s definitely worth it. And the energy in there is just, it’s electric like there.

It’s really cool to see all the people in there just excited about building their courses. You’re gonna get ideas, you’re gonna get accountability. ’cause it helps, right?

Sometimes we just, we wanna do it, but we just need to. To find the time to focus on it. Yes. And that’s you. If you’re like, I don’t have time to focus on it, great.

Join the bootcamp because it’s only, you know, it’s gonna step by step, walk you through for, for a week some deliverables, things to to do to keep you on that track and help you decide if it’s right for you too, which I think is great.

That’s another thing if you’re like, I’m just not sure if this would be right for my business, spending $47.

Selling Online Courses and Profit Margins

To know if it is or isn’t will save you a lot of money and time in the future.

So if you created it and then realize, I don’t wanna do this, well, let’s figure that out in a $47 bootcamp so we don’t waste any of your time. Yeah. Also, there’s a private community and so you’ll be surrounded by other people that are also creating courses.

Or my coaches who have already created successful courses and will support you along the way.

So it’s a great experience. I hope to see you and you have all the way until the end of September 11th to sign up. So I know we’re, we’re coming out the day before, but if you hear this, jump on it.

Jump on it, and if not, it’s okay if you missed it and you’re like, oh man, I can’t believe I missed it. That’s okay. We have other resources. Yeah. Thanks for you to join other trainings.

Just go to jamietrull.com/amy. We’re keeping that updated, so even if you’re watching this six months from now, go there.

We’ve got plenty of resources for you to jumpstart your course creation journey.

Course Idea, Sales Page, and Selling Online Courses

Uh, I’m really excited for this. It’s gonna be a great one. This is one of my favorite times of year.

Well, uh, with all this, it, it, it really. It often spurs me, like now I start getting ideas of like, Ooh, I wanna revamp this course. Right? Um, that’s what I really enjoy, just being around that energy.

And that’s, I think, to your point, the community is so wonderful to be around other people who are, uh, chasing the same goals. And I think that’s, there’s something beautiful in there.

Some of my literal best business friends are from your community, Amy.

So love that, that makes me so happy, Jamie. I literally talk to them daily, so it’s kind of crazy. So cool. Um, so anyway, anybody who’s joining who’s, who’s watching this at any point, go check out jamietrull.com/amy.

Also, if you do decide to set up for the bootcamp, if you’re listening in time to sign up, um, definitely do it from that because I have some special bonuses too, because of course I do.

Oh, I love that.

So make sure to go check those out over at, uh, that at the link below, and I hope to see you in there. I’ll be in there. Great. Thank you Jamie, so very much. I love chatting with you.

Thanks Amy. Same to you. You’re the best.