The first time I ever made money from one of my online courses, I was standing in line at the grocery store. 

*Ding* 

My phone buzzed. It was a notification that I had just made $3,400… while grocery shopping!

In the following week, I made over $18,000 from selling my first online course. As a service-based business owner, I realized I could generate more revenue in one week selling an online course than I could in a few months of trading my time for money with one-to-one services. 

To date, my company, Bucketlist Bombshells, has generated over $5 million dollars of revenue from our online courses that have taught 10,000 women worldwide how to successfully start and grow an online business from scratch. One of the things that I always tell our members inside our monthly business-growth membership that teaches women how to grow their business to 6-figures is that the key to scaling your business is to stop trading your individual time for money.

Maybe you currently have a service-based business, and you’re maxing out on the number of hours you have to serve your clients. Instead of offering your services one-on-one, you’re curious about packaging your expertise into an online course to sell one-to-many. Plus, by offering an online course, you can maximize your business’ reach, mission, and impact.

But what does it really take to successfully launch your own online course? Here are five steps you can take to successfully launch your own online course and add a significant revenue stream to your business.

1. Choose your online course niche

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first step is to decide on your online course topic or “niche.” Some ideas to get you started on choosing your online course topic are to brainstorm: 

• What expertise do your customers currently come to you for? 

• What are the top questions you’re constantly asked? 

• What topics are you an expert in?

• What results are you excellent at getting people?

Your online course niche doesn’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. There may be plenty of online courses on your exact topic. However, your students may choose your course because of your past experience, teaching style, or your unique way of doing something. 

For example: If you’re a book illustrator, you may want to create an online course that teaches others how to become a book illustrator using your years of experience and your unique creative methods.

2. Build a community of potential students

Now that you’ve decided on your online course niche, it’s time to begin building a community of potential students. 

There are many different platforms to host a free community. One of the easiest and arguably most accessible is by simply starting a free Facebook group around your topic. 

Not only will your Facebook community be an amazing source of future customers as it grows, it will also provide invaluable insights to your target audience. Pay attention to the struggles that your community members have around your topic. What questions are they constantly asking? Maybe even run a poll to gather their feedback as you start building your course.

Quick tip: Gather email addresses when members request to join your group to start building your email list, too. When it’s time to launch your online course, you’ll have an entire group of potential customers to sell to!

3. Create a waitlist page

Don’t wait until your online course is created to begin marketing it!

By creating a simple waitlist page, you can begin to gather leads for your new online course. If you already have a business website, I recommend adding a link to “Get on the waitlist!” for your new online course coming soon. 

As you execute other marketing strategies in your business (like blogging, guest podcasting, creating YouTube videos, etc.), you should always link to your waitlist page to continue building your list of future students.

4. Create your course content

Now for the extra fun part: actually creating your course content! 

In a nutshell, all you need is a microphone and a computer to create your course content. 

One of my favorite brainstorming techniques for creating a new course is what we like to call “The Sticky Note Method.” Using sticky notes, write down all of the concepts you’d like to teach in your course. Next, group similar concepts together to define your course “modules.” Think of your modules like chapters in a book!

While there’s no “perfect” amount of content you should have, keep in mind two important things I’ve learned the hard way:

• Stick with bite-sized videos, as people tend to have a short attention span.

• Avoid overwhelming your students with too much content. 

For a very user-friendly and all-in-one platform to create and host your online course, I recommend using Teachable.

5. Launch your online course

It’s time to launch your online course! 

Using the leads from your waitlist page and the members of your Facebook community, it’s time to execute what online course creators like to call “a launch.” 

Your online course launch should have:

• A sales page

• A deadline to enroll

• An exciting and special sales offer (i.e., a discount, bonuses, etc.)

This is officially your time to strongly market and sell your online course to your community. Remember to focus on the results your online course will help someone achieve rather than focusing solely on the digital product itself. How will your online course add value to their lives? What pain points will it help someone avoid or breakthrough? What goals will it help them to achieve?

By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to successfully launching your own online course, too.

About Shay Brown

Shay Brown is the COO and co-founder of the Bucketlist Bombshells, an online community that equips women with the confidence, skills, and business foundation to start and grow a thriving service-based online business. She’s been featured on Forbes and CNBC for teaching over 10,000 students around the world to successfully launch their own businesses. If you’re ready to grow your business to 6-figures, learn more about their monthly business growth membership here or tune into their top-rated Freedom Filled Life Podcast™.