Has the online course bubble burst? How to adapt to the future of selling knowledge based content.

Is there still money to be made from selling online courses? A while ago, online business expert Pat Flynn argued that online courses are in decline due to oversaturation, low completion rates, and the availability of free information online. He’s not wrong but in this episode of the podcast I offer my own insights on the future of online courses and strategies for course creators, membership owners, and coaches to adapt to the many changes that are happening in the online business space.   KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST   If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.   LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa's email list,  Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter   Transcript Are online courses dead? They are oversaturated. People aren't completing them and sales are low. And let's face it, you can get free information anywhere on the internet. And with AI, do we really need to buy another online course? And if you're a course creator, Is it even still a viable business? Today, I discuss all of these things. Pat Flynn did a YouTube video a few months back that talked about why he is stopping selling knowledge based things. And I am going to unpack the things that he said and also give you my opinion on what I think about what he said. Do I think horses are dead or do I think there are some things that we can do to help combat some of the really valid points that he shared? Whether you're a course creator, membership owner, or a coach, this is going to give you a really valuable insight to the online industry and what is happening right now. And some of the things that you can do to help ensure that you maximize your sales and create products and [00:01:00] services that your customers are going to want to engage with. And most importantly, gives them the transformation that they're looking for. This is not an episode to be missed. Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. An international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in. In each episode, I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we'll be diving into some mindset tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of your dream business podcast. [00:02:00] I'm Teresa Heath Wareing, your host, and I'm here to help course creators, membership owners, and coaches grow their online businesses. Teresa: We have so many people come into the online space, the space that I've been in for 10 years now, and yet, so few of them seem to grow it to where they replace their done for you and one to one income or give themselves a substantial income that they are hoping for. So my job with this podcast is to help you grow an online business to the level that you want it, be it five figures, six figures, seven figures, or even more. So today's episode is all about online courses. and the possible demise of them. Let me explain. I have become a bit of a YouTube fan. Rather than sitting down and putting the TV on and watching normal TV or binging Netflix, I appear to just be watching YouTube stuff. Now, don't judge me, but my husband and I love a bit of homesteading stuff. So [00:03:00] we watch a lot of that. And if it's just me on my own, I often watch business stuff or personal development stuff. And A couple of months back, I was watching some videos, which surprisingly, it's taken me this long to do a podcast about it, but I think it's really useful to do it. It was a YouTube video from Pat Flynn that was titled stop selling info and do this instead. And basically why he thinks courses are dead. So what I'm going to do in today's episode is I am going to take you through what he said. I'm going to give you my opinion, and I'm also going to give you my thoughts and some of his thoughts around. what you should do instead if courses are dead. And even if you're not currently selling courses or have no plans to, I really think this is still going to be super interesting because it actually talks about the shifts that have happened in the online space and why they may affect different things that we do as online business owners. So one of the first things he talks about is the fact that people aren't buying online courses [00:04:00] anymore. Now I have a saying in the club, which is you don't need another course. So I am almost backing him up with his theory here of you don't need another course, stop buying online courses. I have bought my fair share of online courses. I have sold a fair share of online courses and I have helped Many, many, many, many business owners sell their online courses too. And what Pat was saying and the, the graph he showed was that during the pandemic, his courses hit an all time high in sales. Now I can attest to that, that during the pandemic, the online business space really thrived because. Suddenly the whole world is online and therefore it made perfect sense that we were going to suddenly do a lot more online stuff and this attracted a whole load of new people in to the space and they discovered the online world so during the pandemic I did not at any point put my feet up and furlough myself. I [00:05:00] worked really hard because it was super, super busy. And then what he showed was after the pandemic, his sales dropped dramatically. Now, I also concur to this because not only, and I think this is the key thing, not only is it that the core sales dropped, I think online stuff in general dropped. And there are many reasons for this. One of them is that we had spent the last year or two online and people were tired of doing online stuff. They were tired of Zoom meetings and courses and sitting at their computer 24 hours a day. Although I have to say, interestingly enough, I ran some in person events after the pandemic and they weren't working as well as they were used to either. So honestly, I think the whole industry and business and marketing in general was going through a real change and shift, but basically it has [00:06:00] decreased. People who buy online stuff has decreased, but I don't want you to worry about that for the time being. So let me go on to one of his other points as to why he feels like courses are dead. People don't complete them. And again, this is exactly coming back to my, we don't need another course because people buy courses and, and we're really good at selling them. Okay. People in the online space are very clever. We have some really cool marketing tactics that basically sell an online course, like it's going to be the dream and it's going to fix all your problems. But the truth is, you have to do the work. And I don't just mean go through the course, which it's a thing in itself. I mean, actually then take action on the stuff that you've learned and people aren't doing it. In fact, the stats for people in the online space, completing courses is really low, like three, four or 5%. Like, Not very high at all. Those are the people who [00:07:00] fully complete a course. So if you imagine if someone is selling a course, they sell a hundred places. There is a really small amount of people who are actually doing the work. And the thing is, if you're a course creator, you want people to do the work because if people do the work, then you get testimonials. Then you get to prove your concept and then you get to help sell some more. So those were two of his kind of big points. The other thing he talked about, which is a really fair point, is it's saturated. The information industry is completely saturated. When I started my online business back in, well I don't know what year it was, but it was 10 years ago. I should be able to work that out. Quick maths, 2004. No, 2014. Oh my goodness. 2014. That's right. It's 2024. Hey, listen, you're not here for my math skills. FYI. When I started my business, it was unknown. Like in the UK in particular, this online thing was really like, what is [00:08:00] this? And I actually would say in parts of the UK, It is similar. Like there is still, there is still parts and industries and people in the UK that still don't know about the online business world. However, it is way more saturated than it used to be. But more importantly, it's It's not that the online world is saturated. It's the fact that the knowledge is saturated. As I said at the beginning of this episode, I...