What Online Course Platform Is Right for You? Part 1

A lot of business owners teach what they know using materials and methods they have developed. They have proven they have a program people want. Now they start thinking, "I can offer this as an online course."

Not a bad idea.

This enables you to:

• reach a larger audience,
• teach people that want what you teach but won't pay what you charge one-on-one, and, just as important,
• grow a new revenue stream for your business.

One question that quickly comes up is what learning platform will you use. There are so many options. Let me go over the options to help you decide which one is the best match for you.

Things to Consider as a First Time Course Builder

When someone is building their first online course, I recommend picking a platform that works and doesn't get in your way. By this I mean select a platform you and your team, if you have one, can manage without having it be a distraction from what's really important at the start.

I've seen a lot of first time course builders select a platform that's beyond what they can handle. They haven't hired an outside team to guide and support them. They end up with a project that could have been launched in a month or two. Instead it becomes a long, frustrating, stress-filled, painful six to eight month experience with a course launch that isn't as polished as you had hoped.

In the process of struggling with the technology, you were distracted from what's really important:

• selling the course,
• confirming you can sell it at the right price and
• fine tuning the course so it best meets your member's needs.

This this in mind, let's discuss the different teaching platform options.

Option 1: Software as a Service (SAAS) Platforms

For a first time course builder, a SAAS platform can be a good idea. In my Breakthrough Course Selling System, a program I've designed for first time course builders wanting to launch their online course for the first time, I recommend using something as simple as a private Facebook group. That 100% removes the technology platform from being a distraction. That's how strongly I feel about this.

Private Facebook groups do have their shortcomings. You have to sell the course and give members access manually. You are limited to what a private Facebook group has to offer. It's a good option if you want something easy know know you will change later. It's a good option when what you want is to test drive your content with an initial set of beta users. Visit my Breakthrough Course Selling System page so you can understand why I recommend simple technology when you are starting.

There are many SAS teaching platforms out there. Among them are Kajabi, Thinktific and Teachable. One option people fail to consider is using Highlevel. It's a CRM with very complete membership and course building features. It has the e-commerce, automation and video hosting you need when building your course.  Contact us if you are interested and we'll give you all the information you need to consider that.

SAAS platforms are built with the goal of meeting with the needs of 50% to 80% of the online course building market. Exactly what they include depends on the decisions made by the SAAS team. You want to select a SAAS solution that meets ALL your short term needs. SAS platforms tend to be easy to configure making it a good choice for first time course builders.

You also want to investigate how the platform will support you as you grow. Some SAAS solutions charge you based on your sales. If you believe you sales will grow, this can be an inexpensive solution when you start and the very expensive as you scale.

Regardless of which one you select, assume your SAAS solution will be an interim solution. It will support you for a good amount of time. After that, if you are successful, you will need to upgrade to another platform.

One story I want to share is what happened to a customer of mine when I first started building online course sites. The customer had two options. One was a SAAS solution with a set of features that met their short term needs. The other was a Wordpress based solution like the one I will describe later in this article. The Wordpress based solution gave them many options as they grew their programs. The SAAS did not.

The customer got advice from a partner business owner that highly recommended they go with the SAAS option. It went against our recommendation because we understood how the customer was planning to grow their business. We worked with them on their SAAS solution and it worked perfectly. The a few months after launching it, they asked if we could add a new feature. We could not. The SAAS solution did not offer that function. A few months later, they requested another feature. It wasn't one the SAAS provider offered.

Our hands as a course building teams were bound. We could only do what they SAAS platform allowed us to do and they wanted more. The only solution for them was to rebuild.

This was a while back and online course SAAS solutions have come a long way. My message here is to think through what you think you will need short term, a few years out and then 5 years out. Will the SAAS solution support you and how long will that serve your business needs.

In part 2 of this series, I'll discuss Wordpress-based platforms and when that approach is a good option for you.