by Case Lane

When researching how to become an entrepreneur, many people watch and listen to the pitches for online courses made by a variety of ‘gurus’ who claim to be able to get you to a million dollars, in ten minutes, doing nothing – if you just pay for their multi-part program.

Course are offered for everything from how to make money on Instagram to how to launch a product.  These courses often come from successful millionaires with plenty of testimonials and ideas around – their ‘proven’ system that anyone can emulate. 

And there lies the catch.  The course program often comes from the creator’s process that led to success. 

But how do you know if it will work for you?

An online course is a shortcut. Instead of trial and error, you follow a step-by-step process that has a proven record of success. But people rarely finish the entire course, or they do finish, but are discouraged by the results. This disconnect can be avoided by understanding a few points about the process.

The Value of Online Courses

Online education in general is growing and critical to the way we function in the 21st century.  Learning from successful people who have done the work you wish to do is highly valuable. But most people can only reach those great teachers through an online course.

The course price ranges from free to thousands of dollars, with access from one-time to lifetime, and the time commitment from fifteen minutes, to months. The results are just as varied and unyielding.

Some include plenty of additional materials, some provide access to a private Facebook group, some provide coaching, some keep trying to upsell you additional modules, some are subscription based – and everything in-between. 

For an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to use an online program of study to learn how to start a business, the value for money offered by the program is important. This article covers this type of experience and intention, and covers how to evaluate a course, and use it to your advantage.

Courses provide aggregated information and save time in researching blog after blog or watching video after video about a specific subject.  Many are set-up around processes you can follow to create and launch a business based on the topic you have chosen.

When it comes to online courses that make a promise for your business – like how to build an audience, sell more product, or grow X times – it is important to consider these four factors when deciding to whether or not to move forward with the course purchase:

1. Listen carefully – Do you understand the context for the promised success?

2. Do the work – Are you prepared to do the course work?

3. Hold the course creator to the promise of the course

4. Measure your ROI – How much will you need to earn to recover the cost of the course?

Audio fans! Prefer to ‘listen’ to the content of this blog. You can check out the podcast of the same name, Episode 48 of The Ready Entrepreneur Podcast is available at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

Before you start…

Keeping those four points in mind, there are also common ‘technical’ factors you should consider.

Price

If you are taking the course to learn how to start a business, you will have no idea if the course will be worth the money.  Until you have seen the course, gone through the work, and applied it to your business, you will not know the benefit.

If you are buying the course because you saw a webinar or online seminar from the course creator – and that material was solid – you can have some confidence that the whole course will be good.  At that point, you can consider the money an investment in your education like the $100 grand you spent on college.

Testimonials

Course creator will inevitability use testimonials to encourage you to believe in the value of the course. Go beyond the course creator’s word for feedback on the course.  Sometimes this is difficult to find because people with buyers’ remorse are reluctant to confess they spent thousands on a course that turned out to be useless for them.  But sometimes you can find the information you’re looking for if you look at forums or Facebook groups where people are posting comments

Time

Once you make the dollar commitment, you must set aside the time to work on the material. If the buy offer is time sensitive, you have to decide quickly if you intend to keep the course. Often there are money-back guarantees, but only if you act within a certain timeframe. So make sure you are ready to work right from the day you buy. More on this below.

1. Listen carefully – Do you understand the context for the promised success?

Many how-to types of courses are based on the course creator’s own experience, which is great.  But you have to decide if that experience applies to you.  When the course creator is promising success, listen carefully for the context that the creator is telling you about especially when they give background material about how they created the process.

Is the creator an expert in the field based on work or experience?

Has the creator taught others offline, and therefore applied the process in the real world?

Did the creator have a once-in-a-lifetime event like a specific mentor who propelled the business along?

Listen for what they’re not telling you.  What part of their background story has been left out? If they seem to have gone from 0 to $1 million overnight, ask about that.  Many presentations have Q&A sessions where you can ask about the details.

Take advantage of this time, or send an immediate e-mail to the facilitator or directly to the presenter’s business e-mail. You may be told the the answer is in the course, but you have to decide if the story makes sense to you.

Does the proposed path to success fit the circumstances of your life?

2. Do the work – Are you prepared to do the course work?

Sometimes a course creator will guarantee a refund within a specific time if you can prove you did the work.  That is valid.  If you’re going to spend the money at least do the work before complaining that the process does not work.  Start from the beginning, and work through every module and exercise.

Determine the ‘extras’ you have to do to make the process work.  For example, if the course is about how to use Facebook ads that will grow your business – does it include how to write copy, select pictures and create clever headlines? Or will you have to learn that separately or figure out how to outsource the work?

As you’re watching the videos or reading the documents, pay close attention to every step that you have to do. Keep a step-by-step list of exactly which resources you will need, and estimate how long each step might take. If you’re not sure about a step, send them an e-mail and ask for clarification.

For example:

If their example has images – make a note that you will need to look for images related to your product (and that takes time).

If the recommendation is to create an e-mail list, an account will be required, so you will have to sign-up.

If they are showing you software or apps, you might want to take a separate day or two to review all your options before picking the one they show you in the video. Often the course has a discounted offer, but you may not like the features, or it may not be the best option for your business.

Keep track of all these extra steps.  Believe me when they tell you it will only take 5 minutes to do a particular step – it never does.

One way to get a good overview is to review every video once just to understand the general intent, and go back and do the work in ‘real time’ with my own business. 

If you took solid notes on the ‘extras’ you’ll be prepared, and not overwhelmed by surprises.

3. Hold the course creator to the promise of the content

A good course should absolutely provide you with a support email or process for contacting the creator or course organization.  Make sure you follow-up on any questions you have. You can send e-mails every day about the course materials.

Some creators may try and prompt you to their ‘coaching’ offering. But if you are asking questions specifically about the course materials (not your business), you should be able to get direct answers.

Especially ask questions if you followed the process to the letter, and it still did not work for you. Maybe policies have changed, or an application became super expensive, or any other reason that separates their method from your success.  Although courses can be upgraded, materials are all created in the past, and can become outdated.

These clarifications are helpful to course creators who should want to know if there are mistakes or outdated material.  Also by taking advantage of their support process by pointing out a disconnect between the material and the current marketplace, you might get an extra bit of coaching or assistance included in the price.

4. Measure your ROI – How much will you need to earn to recover the cost of the course?

Make sure you keep track of exactly how much you spend on the course, including any ‘extras,’ and therefore how much you want to get back in the form of increased revenue to your business.

If you’re just starting out and trying to learn as much as possible, you probably won’t have an ROI, but you could be saving money in the future because you are learning shortcuts that will help you in the business. 

Keep track of these ‘wins’ to decide if the course is really valuable.

If you have been doing a lot of individual research and decide to do a course – compare the process of reading blogs and watching YouTube videos to having everything in one compact place.  There are some courses that provide hints and ideas that do not appear anywhere else.

Courses are a great way to get started, gather a lot of information related to your business, and learn a path for moving forward. But you do not need to believe the promises made by the course creator.

Instead, you can methodically approach the material, and make sure it delivers to your expectations.

If you would like to ‘listen’ to this information. Check out the podcast on this subject, Episode 48 of The Ready Entrepreneur Podcast is available at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.