How to Presell Your Course and Get Paid to Create It with Eli Natoli

In this LMScast episode. Eli Natoli discusses how she got started in the field of course creation. Also how she chose to launch her online courses through pre-selling.

She also talks about how Udemy, one of the major sites for publishing and launching courses, has helped her. Eli underlines the importance for efficient marketing and promotion and calls attention to the fallacy that just creating a course will draw students.

Eli’s expertise lies in helping course creators navigate the challenges of the course creation process, especially in terms of marketing and validating their course ideas. She discusses the changing landscape of the online course market, increased competition, and the importance of creating result-driven courses that provide value to learners.

Here’s Where To Go Next…

Get the Course Creator Starter Kit to help you (or your client) create, launch, and scale a high-value online learning website.

Also visit the creators of the LMScast podcast over at LifterLMS, the world’s leading most customizable learning management system software for WordPress. Create courses, coaching programs, online schools, and more with LifterLMS.

Browse more recent episodes of the LMScast podcast here or explore the entire back catalog since 2014.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of L M S Cast. I’m joined by a special guest. Her name is Eli Natoli. She’s a course creator herself, she is an expert in pre-selling. She’s also on Udemy a business and entrepreneurial growth coach. I meet very few people who are as obsessed with course creators and systems and business and validation.

So I know this is gonna be a great conversation. Welcome to show Eli.

Eli Natoli: Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Badgett: Let’s, let’s kind of give people a little context of who you are. What got you so into the course creation space?

Eli Natoli: Oh, that’s a really good question. So I actually started out as a project manager in a software design and development company.

And at some point my husband and I, who’s also works for the same company, he’s a user experience designer. We decided to start our own business. So we started our. Like a small boutique software design and development firm. And fast forward four years into that journey. We were dealing with all of the chaos that a lot of small businesses deal with, right?

The unpredictable hours being changed your desk in computer all the time working around the clock, evenings, weekends, on vacation. And at the end of the day, not having that predictable income stream. So this was about a decade ago when there were just some buzz around online courses and passive income. And I just became so obsessed with the passive income side of things.

And I convinced my husband to jump in and create our first course hoping that maybe that course is gonna bring us that. Extra, I don’t know, a couple of thousand a month that would actually give us a cushion that we needed to get out of that rollercoaster of where is our next paycheck or client or project is gonna come from.

So that’s how my journey started.

Chris Badgett: In this whole course creation space, did that course go up on you, Demi, or how did, how did you get that out there?

Eli Natoli: So at that time, actually, there weren’t that many platforms out there. To publish your course, to launch your course on, and Udemy was one of the main platforms.

And believe it or not, we were like, probably course number, I don’t know, 49. There weren’t that many courses needed me either. And And you know what was true then? It is true still now too, right? At the time I thought that, you know, we’re gonna, the hard part is like putting this course together, together and then putting it on Udemy and then they have their own marketplace and hopefully we get students and, you know, here comes passive income.

But for sure once we launched it, we realized that build and they will come is not true at all.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s, wow. We have a lot in common. I was a project manager for a software design company and I also started my own at the same time. And I started putting a course on Udemy about 10 years ago.

I don’t think I was that early, I was probably a little bit behind you. I was around course 1000 or something like that. It was, it was actually a. A cooking class, a cooking course. I’m making omelets of all things, but that I didn’t know that

Eli Natoli: That’s funny. So how did you, I mean, what, how, what made you decide to do something completely different than what were you doing, what you were doing, out of curiosity?

Chris Badgett: Well, similar to you. I kind of got obsessed with like passive income, a scalable information product, a the ability to access the whole world. And I’m, I’m used to trying different things. Before I was in software. I used to run sled dogs in Alaska, so I’ve done a lot of different things, but mm-hmm.

I just challenged myself to get a chorus up on Udemy in a day. So I actually went to the store and I got ingredients to make six different omelets. And then I you know, set up my video camera and I made the shot the course and got it up there. And some people, some people bought it. It wasn’t like the best quality or anything I.

And then later. I turned it free and it’s just been sitting up there and I did some more like WordPress courses and other courses on there. But kind of got going around the same time as you.

Eli Natoli: And I’m gonna go check that out actually. That’s very impressive. It took us like six months to put together that first course.

So really, really impressed. One day to lunch a course.

Chris Badgett: That’s really great. Well, honestly, it was pretty quick and dirty. I mean, it’s nothing great. Yeah, it’s called the poet omelet method. Perfect. Omelets every time. So I’m checking

Eli Natoli: that out for sure. After this. That’s where I have, I, you, I’m

Chris Badgett: like, you know, during that time, and this is like the heyday or the early days of online courses, um mm-hmm.

On you, Demi, you’d see like the person selling the course on Excel and they have like millions of students or. You see these off platform launches and people launching $2,000 courses and things like that, it probably got you excited, just like it got me excited. But a lot of people, kind of like we were talking about your story, and as I was saying, I was like, I only had a couple people buy my cooking course.

And, you know, you, you’ve, you’ve become really focused on launching in a way that works pre-selling. How did the interest in pre-selling come up?

Eli Natoli: So actually I didn’t start pre-selling till about, I wanna say, four or five years ago. And at the very beginning, the first six years that we were selling courses, I was just all, I, I was really obsessed about the marketing part of things because I knew that I have had to promote and market.

Courses. And so once I got into the marketing part of things and eventually we started putting out more courses we went like 70, 80% passive income. I, I wanna say three, four years past that initial launch of our first UDE E course. And as I was working with clients, helping them to launch their courses, I realized that number one, the main thing that a lot of people were struggling with, especially for people who were new to course creation or just in general in online space, selling their expertise online.

One of the main things that were struggling with was the marketing part of things. And we all know the marketing is not that easy. It’s, it’s time consuming, and you need a lot of moving pieces to get there. And to do all of that while they’re creating their course at the same time was just such a huge, complex endeavor for them.

And just a lot of moving pieces and and a lot of ca cases, even if they, you know, stuck with it and they. Build all those marketing pieces around their online course. I felt like there was still not a very reliable or predictable way for us to know whether or not the topic that they were picking for their course was going to sell.

Especially again, for people who didn’t have a proven offer, they hadn’t been selling that thing online, you know, as a one-on-one type of. Even though we did all the research and we had all these evidence, like backed by research that the topic is in demand, there still wasn’t a, it wasn’t reliable, it wasn’t bulletproof.

And so this whole like pre-selling or piloting the idea of that course and then build a marketing around it, Before you actually, you know, spend what, 3, 4, 6 months creating a course. It was just a very, like a streamlined, faster way of getting them there and doing it in a way that was a lot more predictable.

Chris Badgett: That’s amazing. What what does it look like or what are the failure points if somebody doesn’t, they just kind of wing it. What, what ends up happening? In your experience, what do you see out there in the course creator space?

Eli Natoli: Winging it. As in just jump in and create a course and then Hey, let’s see what happens,

Chris Badgett: and then I’m gonna, let me find somewhere to sell it or, or do whatever.

Yeah.

Eli Natoli: That’s a really good question. So I, here’s the thing. I, I feel like market has changed anyways for online courses. It’s still really, really great. Especially after pandemic, we we’re seeing like this other big wave of like in this industry in general. But market has in general changed as well since, let’s say a decade ago when you and I got into this space in in a way that, well, I mean, we all know that there’s a lot more courses than just about any topic that you can think of.

So as a result, you’re competing with, I don’t know, hundreds, sometimes thousands of courses in your very, very specific topic. So that is working against you. And then the other part of the problem is that your audience has also taken problem. Only one or 10 other courses on that topic as well. And the truth of the matter is, it’s just the way that a lot of people go into course creation.

There are a lot of courses out there that are not result driven, that don’t really deliberate results, so then your audience hasn’t been able to get the result that they want it to get. So you combine those two together, and here you have a lot of things working against you. So by jumping in and creating a course without really knowing that you have a differentiator in the market and you’re going to stand out above everybody else and without even knowing whether or not the content that you’re putting together is going to be result driven, is gonna give the promise result.

Now you’re creating this. You know, all these ambiguities and all these roadblocks that is gonna keep you for actually gaining the momentum that you need to be able to sell effectively, get testimonials, which are like the thing that you need to be able to, you know, get to that passive income or to consistent passive income.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And we’re gonna keep digging in here, but if you haven’t noticed yet, if you’re watching this live or you’re watching it as it’s replaying on social media Eli has a training come coming up called Pre-Sell your Online course and Get Paid to Create It. There’s a link around here. It’s lifterlikes.com/ellienatoli, that’s E L I N A T O L I.

So go check that out and register for the upcoming training. It’s gonna be awesome. Pre-selling and getting paid to create it. So tell us what that actually means.

Eli Natoli: So again, instead of what a traditional way that we’re taught to go around course creation, right? Where you have this idea for a course or you have this expertise or you have passion, and then from there, You’re just going to this or modules and lessons and record it and edit it, and then launch it and then go find people to buy it instead of doing all of that, which, you know, all of it is very unpredictable.

Use the idea for that course and use the idea to basically there’s like sort of reverse engineering the whole process. You’re using that idea. To pilot a course and build a marketing infrastructure around it, right? And sort of like working from the other end of it. You come up with a very targeted, a piece of free, something for incentive that is very related to that, you know, paid course that you wanna create and you use that to go to market and say, do you want this?

And if they said yes. Then you upsell your course to you know, the idea of your course. And again, you’re doing a pilot version of it. And by that I mean you show up live, you teach it live for the first time. When you’re doing that, if people actually jumped in, they bought it. Not only you’ve built that momentum, you’ve built an audience around it.

But at the same time, you validated, there’s proof that this course is in demand. And when you launch a course like that and when you source as a pilot and you show up live, actually you increase your likelihood of people saying yes to you because they know you’re gonna be there to help them get the results.

So it’s not this pre-recorded course that they’re not even sure of themselves. Your audience are not sure of themselves whether or not they’re gonna get results once they go through the self-pace course. Self-paced course. So because you’re there to help them holding their hand, you’re increasing the likelihood of them saying yes to you and jumping in and in a lot of ways and I teach that on the webinar, I talk about that there’s a specific method that you go about it where that audience is also helping you co-create the contents of the course.

So as you can see, like you are taking all the guesswork out of this whole thing. You’re not guessing whether or not this topic is gonna be in demand. You’re not guessing whether or not the content that you’re putting together is something that your audience is actually gonna get results. Every step that you’re taking is a validation in itself, and by the time you’re done, you have this really well-rounded, robust type of evergreen course that you can.

Sell for years to come.

Chris Badgett: Wow. So is it, is it creating the course during the pilot phase? Does that content, the recorded live calls, Become the evergreen content or is there a step where it, or you try, do it again without a live audience or massage it or what, how does

Eli Natoli: it work? I mean, the sky’s the limit.

However, I’ve had, I’ve had clients to just take the recording from their sessions and and, and mind you, it’s not there’s a process in every single part of that. Also, it’s not like you just jump in and teach whatever you want. So there’s, there’s, there’s process in every. Part of this, these different pieces.

But yeah, I mean you could potentially just take the recording of the sessions that you’ve done live and turn that into evergreen. And a lot of ways that’s actually very engaging as well versus just this very stiff type of course of recording where you’re just facing the camera and recording it that way.

And I’ve had clients who, you know, they’ve gone through it. Once or twice live and they worked out all the kinks on all the, you know, all the areas. They weren’t sure how it was gonna come together or what to teach, or how much to teach or, because that’s also a big part of it. Like where do you draw the boundaries?

You know, how much do you include or how little. Do you include? So once you figure out all those different things around this big puzzle, then you have the roadmap that you can come back and script and record it and sell it as evergreen. So, I mean, it’s all depending on what you prefer to do.

Chris Badgett: Do you have are you one of the, the take the stance of discounting the pilot, do you recommend doing that or, or how do you think about pricing or even letting free people in, or what, what are your thoughts just around that first transaction?

Eli Natoli: So, my whole thing around pricing is, It’s just as hard to sell a $10 course as it is, let’s say $3,000 course. There’s really no difference. And when I say that, people look at me like, really? It is really just as hard to get someone to plot their credit card and pay you. 10 bucks or $3,000. So I’m not a big fan of discounting.

I don’t discounts. I really do think that when you do it as a pilot, because again, you are there, you’re telling people that you’re gonna hold their hand through the process, you’re gonna answer their questions, you then they know you’re gonna be there to get them to That result itself is believe it or not, really valuable to people especially.

In the space that we are right now when it comes to online courses. Again, like I said, like pe, your audience have probably taken many courses on that topic and they’re still stuck and they’re still struggling and they want that outcome. So knowing that you’re gonna be there, there’s no reason for you to discount it or, you know, bring your price down.

But obviously you need a sense of urgency because you know, we’re all human. And if we don’t have it, just the fact it is, you know, if there’s no urgency, people will just. Don’t take that step. And the way I do the urgency around my pilot programs you can either use the fact that you’re gonna be live and you’re not.

Next time, it’s not gonna be live and you’re not gonna be there. That’s an urgency right there. You could limit the number of seats. That’s an urgency. And again, because you’re live, you’re not gonna be able to take what, hundred people or 50 people. You might be limited to 10 people or 20 people at the time.

So that’s a good urgency. And sometimes I use bonuses as an urgency, and those are like the pieces that I know they definitely need to be able to get the, you know, to get there faster or to get better results. And you can add, add those bonuses as an urgency. So next time around, not only, this is not live, but these bonuses are not there.

So, yeah, no discounts your price.

Chris Badgett: Any mindset advice. I know some people, especially if they’re not like already a professional speaker, or even they don’t even have like training as a teacher. And they’re, they’re a little nervous about this whole thing. How do you get them going? Because this is such a crucial step, and if they do it right, it can really change their life.

But I know there’s a lot of, you know, in negative internal self-talk or beliefs that have to be overcome. What do you advise?

Eli Natoli: Yeah, I, I agree with you. I mean, I personally, me as person who English is not my. Native language. I had the same issues when I launched my first course, and actually I recorded my entire course and then I went back and rerecorded everything again because I was just like getting hung up on all these li little different ways that I was pronouncing things or just be getting tongue tied and things like that.

But believe it or not, like now how many courses I’ve probably launched up to now over 12 courses and then God knows how many pilot programs I’ve done, you know, live with people. What I tell my audience, and this is a big issue, and it doesn’t matter what your background is and what you’re teaching and how many certifications or what expertise you have.

Seems to be a big issue almost for everybody like that imposter syndrome. It seems to be for everybody. And the biggest advice I have is, number one, your audience is not there to. You know, to see if like you got tongue tied or you said something right, or you showed up and you know you like your showmanship was right on point, they’re there because they want to get results.

So as long as you make sure that you are taking the right steps, you are covering the steps in a way that is actionable, it’s result driven, and they will get the outcome. That’s all they care about. So, That’s the first thing to keep in mind. And the second thing is your audience doesn’t know the perfect version of that course.

They don’t know what that is, you know? So again, you know, just make sure that you are focusing on giving them the results and they will be absolutely happy, you know, by the time you do that. And, you know, and when it comes to creating courses and recording and things like that, I know we all make mistakes on camera.

And I guarantee, I tell people like, don’t go back and re-record it because I guarantee you, even if you don’t make that mistake that you were rerecording at four, you gotta make another mistake. In that same video, I recorded a video where afterwards I realized I had my shirt inside house. Believe it or not.

How did this happen? Happened? So, I mean, it happens. So and the course that I told you, my first course, I. Rerecorded the entire course. It was six hours, and it took me, gosh, almost more than a week to rerecord it. And then I went back and I’m like, okay, there’s still many areas that I made a mistake. So it’s like endless.

 Yeah. So make peace with it. Just focus on giving results. That’s what your students want.

Chris Badgett: Well, you’re, you’re nailing it with the result and the outcome. That, which for a subject matter expert, maybe they, they’re just, they’re kind of new to leadership or coaching or teaching. What advice do you have people to, whether they’re delivering it live or recording something, to, to really keep the result in focus?

Without kind of getting into the, I’m just gonna spill my guts, everything I know about the topic kind of thing. How, how can people figure out how to navigate that if they’re feeling a little lost?

Eli Natoli: Yeah. So I mean this really comes out of having a framework to go by. I mean, you know that Chris, cuz you’ve gone through this process many times, creating your courses, having the right framework, and to me, a frame, a right framework is like I personally take my students through a very specific path to be able to figure out what that result driven process is.

And the path is like we do what I call gap analysis. Like you start out with what are the unmet needs in your market, and you need to have that information to be able to figure out like, yes, you have this. Area of expertise. And there are all these people and they’re dealing with all types of problems, but which problem are you gonna go after?

So when you figure out like unmet needs, you can say, okay, these are the gaps. I’m gonna go fill this particular gap with my solution. And then of course, the other piece of the puzzle is the you in this whole thing, right? What do you bring into the table? And by that I don’t mean like the information you have in between your ears, right?

Everything. What do you bring into the table? What are your past experiences, your personality traits, everything you’ve been through your passions? Believe it or not, like every one of those areas is very, very relevant into whatever it is that you’re teaching. So I see a lot of people like com compartmentalizing themselves and say, well, this is my expertise and I’m gonna go teach that.

No, bring it all in. And that’s how you’re gonna come up with this, like a unique solution that only you could have come up with that solution. So now you have a gap, and then you bring in the you into the picture to fill that gap, and that becomes your solution. And from there, what you do is all right.

How do I get there? And easiest way I can explain it or talk about it is, you know you know, this particular audience. Is at a certain place right now, right? They’re standing confronted with a certain situation and you wanna take him to another place where to them is that’s a win. I’ve got that outcome.

I’m experiencing a better life right now. So what’s the easiest, most efficient You know, path between where they’re at to where they want to be, and that’s what you wanna do. I, I tell people like, don’t take your audience through like the scenic route. Take them through a very fast, easy to follow path.

And when you do that, it’s all about you getting them there. And no matter what you do, it’s always gonna be result driven because your focus is getting them to that like outcome. So I don’t know if I clearly explained this or not.

Chris Badgett: You did, you did. Another thing just obviously you’re a pro at is getting clients.

And I know there’s it’s very different trying to scale up versus launch and validate. I’m looking at your Udemy page and you’re almost getting ready to cross 40,000 total students. And I guess it is a two part question. First part, how do we get those clients for that first version and then, For more broader scaling marketing, what do you recommend later?

Eli Natoli: So in general, I mean, when you wanna do one to many offers, right? Online courses, memberships, or like group programs or whatever it is that is in a one to many format, you definitely need to have some sort of a marketing infrastructure in place and that’s some sort of marketing infrastructure. I mean, You need to have a vehicle that allows you to get in front of the right leads, right?

Right. People who would be interested in the thing that you wanna sell. You need to have a way to engage with those people once you get in front of them, and then once you engage with them to nurture them. And you need to have a way to convert them to say yes to you and to buy your course. So that marketing needs to be in place and that is you know, that that is something that you need to spend, spend the time to make sure it happens.

Because without those four pieces, you’re not gonna be able to sell anything. And if you do, it’s not gonna be predictable. And you know again, it doesn’t have to be complicated and I see a lot of people strategy hopping, you know, going from one thing to the other, or tactical hopping oh, let me go on Instagram and try that.

Oh, this didn’t work out. You know, somebody said, webinars work and let me go try webinars. Stay away from that and take a step back. And again, just. Figure out how do I get in front of the right audience? Where do they go hang out, right? To get the answer to their problem. Show up there, what do I need to do to get their attention to engage with them?

And a lot of ways I mean the best way to do that is by something free, like a free lead magnet or incentive you give to them. Once you get them. Now they’re on your side, on your, you know, in your inbox, on your email list. What do you need to do to nurture them? And then how do you keep that relationship going?

How do you build trust with them to be able to get them to say yes and buy from you? So you, you know, you work on the strategy part of it and the tactical part. It depends on you, what you’re comfortable with, what your audience resonates with, right? Whether it’s on, you’re gonna be on LinkedIn, or you’re gonna use webinars to do that, you know, engagement, whether you’re gonna get ’em on your email list.

That doesn’t matter. Nail the strategy part of it and then stick with it. Be consistent and you will get results.

Chris Badgett: You, you mentioned earlier, like the before you do the li the offer for the, the presale, you said to do something smaller. Is that are you thinking a lead magnet there, a free thing or a little paid thing or what, what is that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do we get that initial signal? Like what, what is it?

Eli Natoli: I’m like, I love doing webinars and I like inside my program, which is the fix, like the, the piloting. That one streamline path where I help people pilot their next online course. I recommend to my audience, my students to do a webinar as well, but there are many different ways you can do it.

Now, the reason I really love webinars is because you are live and you can, you know, interact with your students. So it just sort of shortens that engagement and nurture part of things like when I’m live on a webinar. Before I’m even done with my webinar, I see enrollments come through and you can’t really build that engagement, let’s say, through an email sequence, not like that.

So when you have that initial engagement on a webinar, it’s just so much easier even afterwards when they see your emails because they form that bond with you. So I recommend that. But other ways you can do life challenges or maybe just a little mini training where they see you live or. Maybe it is pre-recorded, but they see you like how you, you know, you come alive and, you know, it just builds that connection.

So those are my favorite ways, but you could truly do this any, any way you want. You could do, I don’t know, a pdf, a downloadable, something you could And to create a checklist, cheat sheet, whatever it is that you feel comfortable with, it’s just you know, if you create a free something that doesn’t give you that engagement, then that means you need to add additional nurturing in there to get your audience to build that trust and relationship with them.

Chris Badgett: Do you have a pro tip for, let’s say the webinar in terms of should it be like a mini topic or more like an overview of our, our system. Or just like the most important part of the system. Like where, what kinds of things should we focus on for the webinar? Because it’s only, we only have an hour or so or less.

Yes. So what, what, what, what should we teach?

Eli Natoli: So the way I love to do it is one or two ways, right? Either it has to be obviously tied to the paid thing that you’re selling. Otherwise, there’s just, if there’s no correlation there, Then you’re gonna lose your audience. So I normally do it one or two ways.

Either I if I have this, I don’t know, my process is like this gigantic 10 step thing. I might cover two or three steps of it, but show them the high level of what the steps all are and then say, okay, if you want the other steps, then I’m doing that inside my life training or my, you know, my online course or what have you.

You could do that or you could just stay high level and say, these are high level. I’ve done both ways and they both work. Like these are 10 steps, high level that you need to keep in mind to be able to get there. But if you want someone to get you there, you can go ahead and enroll in my course or, you know, jump into my life training program and I’ll show you, I’ll take you through it myself.

Every step of the way. Again, either way it works. The biggest thing, and I see this a lot with webinars or in general with leap magnets don’t cheat your audience. You know, like they gave you their email address and nowadays, I mean, maybe like a decade ago, leap magnets were like, not as widespread as they are now, but like people are fatigued by giving their email address and getting nothing in return.

So truly show up and give them value. And make sure that, you know, they, they don’t feel like, oh, it’s just all fluff and promotion, and then they got pitched at the end. Like they really walk away with that perspective change, because that’s also a huge thing. Like your audience probably is thinking about your topic or you know, when it comes to whatever it is to your topic.

They look at it from a different perspective and you’re looking at it from all perspective because you have that advantage to see the situation from all different perspectives. So even if you just shine a light and say, you know, these are things you’re not thinking about that is enough for them to look at you and say, oh, this person is an authority, or This person knows what they’re talking about.

And when you do, then invite them to work with you. It just makes it so much easier for them to say yes.

Chris Badgett: Now let’s help the non-sale professional. So we’re on our webinar, or we’re writing at the end of the lead magnet, and we need to like, make the turn into the pitch for the, the paid pilot. How, what’s the kind of the messaging there.

If you could just kind of generalize like how to make that turn. Because I know a lot of people get comfortable teaching and sharing, but then when it comes down to cell, like some, some get a little nervous. So what how do we make that turn?

Eli Natoli: I mean, honestly, there’s nothing to be nervous about. Like I come from a mindset of I have this whole thing I call marketing your truth, right?

That’s, that’s one of the biggest things that I’ve always sort of led with in everything that I’ve done. And it sort of comes through everything that I do. And really marketing your truth is you have this. Zone of genius, this thing that you know is gonna impact people and you. If you don’t push yourself out there and if you don’t let them know that this is going to help them, you know, experience a better life, you are doing a disservice to that audience, right?

So if you come at it from that mindset, now you’re on a webinar and you just did just that. You know, you’re telling them, look. You know, if you go about it, about X, Y, Z, that’s, you know, related to your area of expertise, you’re gonna run into these pitfalls. Here is another way to go about it, that you can experience the outcome that you’re looking for and you’re gonna get there much easier.

And guess what? I can help you if you need help. I mean, there’s nothing sellsy about that. You don’t have to feel comfortable or icky or yucky or, you know, none of that. Yeah. You know, a lot of times, I mean, that’s exactly how I transition. I mean all the time. That’s exactly how I transition. You’re inviting them.

You know, and I, I say it now, one of the ways I do is at the beginning of the webinar, I say today, and this is a good thing to do, so people know where you’re taking them. Today, I’m going to show you X, Y, Z. And then at the end of that, at the end of that, I’m gonna show you. How I’m able to help you to actually put this into place.

Is that okay if I do that and people are no. Their heads yes. And who’s gonna say no? Yes. So that’s it. You know, you actually open the door and that’s it. You just go through your process and at the end you say, now do you remember I told you, you know that if you need help, I’m here. I have a way to get you there.

Well, I have a program that does exactly that, so it doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

Chris Badgett: That is awesome. I’m putting it up on the screen. If you’re listening and not watching go to lifterlikes.com/ellie nato, that’s e l i n a t o L i. She’s doing a training on how to pre-sell your course and get paid to create it.

A couple more questions for you before we go today. Ellie is What is, what’s different? What’s changed? You’ve been in this industry for a while maybe around pricing. You mentioned competition is higher, the market’s a little saturated, less likely to give you your email and stuff like that. What’s, what else has changed and where, where do you see us heading in the course creation? Industry here?

Eli Natoli: Well, in general I, I, I think people, like I said, because there’s just so, in just about any topic, there’s so like hundreds or thousands of other courses and on the other side of the aisle, aisle, like I mentioned before, your audience have also taken courses that are not getting resolved.

So in general, I don’t believe. That courses by themselves are going to sell just like that, right? Unless you have a tremendous amount of street cred and momentum where your audience has, you know, they’ve been with you, they’ve gotten results, and then you put now at this other online course around the specific topic where it’s gonna take them to that next level.

So if you are at the beginning stage, especially, I don’t believe just creating a course, I’m putting it out there, is going to. Give you that passive income that you’re looking for. And so you definitely need to think about adding three things when you put a course out there. Number one, an element of like collaboration There.

So like networking type of thing. And you can easily do that by, you know, putting a group together, a community together, because we’re all social creatures. And when you put people together, they actually, people love that. I, I, I do this all the time and it is just, The, the partnerships that come out of that, people help each other, they motivate each other.

So definitely you need to have some, an element of networking or collaboration in there. I would also add an element of accountability because self-paced courses, even if your audience comes into your course with the best of intention yes, I need this, I’m gonna, you know, this seems lined up with outcome that I want.

The truth of the matter is they get derailed by life and because it’s just a self-paced thing, it’s a, they just don’t get through it. And we see this across the board. You know, you have, people have very low completion rates. That’s doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. So by adding an element of accountability to help people, you know, to motivate them to move forward.

And, and you can, again, you can do that in a lot of different ways. Maybe throw in weekly and a sessions where they show up and, you know. They report back to you what they did or they, you give, you know, they answer questions, you answer their questions. So that’s also a key that I would highly recommend adding to, to your online course.

 Other than that, I feel if you put. Just a course out there, you’re really pushing a rock up. A very big hill, and you’re gonna have a hard time where we are right now with, with this industry. You’re gonna have a hard time, especially courses that are above $500 to be able to create that, you know, passive income that you’re looking for.

Chris Badgett: You mentioned premium pricing. Do you recommend for somebody’s gonna create a course to doing that, you know, more than $500 or $2,000 or? You know, especially if it includes some live sessions like you mentioned.

Eli Natoli: I mean, I mean, you know this Chris better than I do as well. I mean, you can’t pull a price out of a thin area there.

Yeah. So it’s based on the value that you’re getting. So you’re sort of gauging okay, this is the, however you wanna put the monetary value on it. This is a life. You know, like better version of a life or the value they’re getting once they finish this course or the outcome they’re walking away with.

And based on that, you’re putting a price on it. And yeah, I mean, if you have those other pieces added to it, which is, you know, the collaboration piece. The networking piece, and especially if they, there is some handholding there as well, then you definitely are able to charge premium price. Because you’re there to help them and you’re giving them everything they need to succeed.

So yeah, for sure.

Chris Badgett: Let’s take the technology excuse off the table. What’s like the minimum setup, like a PayPal account and a Zoom account and a and a Google doc. That’s kinda I can make it a sales page or an offer on a Google Doc. I can take some money over the internet and I can deliver live training through a Zoom and I can record it, right?

Eli Natoli: Yeah. I mean, this is why I love this piloting your program, your next course. Because that’s exactly, I mean, you nailed it, Chris. I mean, you nailed it. You don’t need, you know, all these complicated platforms and nothing. You’re right. Just the Zoom and I will, and consistent that’s it. And yeah, PayPal. In fact you know. The webinar that I’ll be, the training that I will be doing there’s a case study in there that that I did actually on myself.

Where I just showed up with a PayPal button, just like you said, and a Zoom. And that’s how I was able to pilot a program. I, I did it as a case study and it turned out to be such a great eye-opening thing for myself as well. And I, and I use it all the time in my to, to tell my audience like, don’t overcomplicate.

 This at all. As long as you know, you follow the right steps, that’s all it matters. You don’t need fancy, expensive tools and platforms and putting more roadblocks and stuff in front front of you that that’s gonna derail your delay. You, yeah. There’s no need for that.

Chris Badgett: We’re landing the plane here. What, what makes you so passionate about helping coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs?

And you, you’ve been in this industry a while. So it’s obvious to me that there’s a, there’s some alignment, attunement, some purpose. Like what, what makes you so excited about these people and serving them?

Eli Natoli: That’s such a fantastic question, and here’s what it is. Like everybody who comes to me and on the surface they’re like, can you help me launch?

 I wanna get this passion or idea and launch, like create my course. But underneath of that, They’re, what they’re doing. It is so unique and I, one of the things that I do is I’m really good at bringing, you know, like their, the, the you out of them and putting it into their course. And I just, it gets so fired up because what they’re doing, it doesn’t matter what topic or what industry I have yet, come across anybody who’s had, you know, something that they.

Feel like it’s gonna impact their audience’s lives, you know, positively. And I get so excited that I’m part of that co-creation process and I get to bring it into life. And I’m also, you know, by helping them succeed in a way, you know, I’m also involved in all those other lives that they are going to be impacting, right?

So it’s to me it’s, there’s nothing more fulfilling than that.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Well, I’m gonna be at Ellie’s upcoming training. We’re, this is the live broadcast. You may be watching it later, but as of right now, it’s coming up in five days and 20 hours. And go to lifterlikes.com/ellie nato, that’s e l i n a t o l i.

Any final words for the people or other ways they can connect with you while we close out the podcast here?

Eli Natoli: Well, I mean, the final words I would say is if you are truly, you know Thinking about creating an online course and or if you have a course that’s not selling. I highly, highly wanna gonna encourage you, recommend to you to come to this training that I’m doing next Wednesday.

It is really a better way or a more predictable way for you to be able to launch your next course and make sure that you are monetizing it. Cause it breaks my heart. When I see, you know, people are passionate and they have all this excitement around turning it into an online course, and then it just flops, it just sits there, it never sells.

And and at the end of the day, the thing that I hear the most, like underneath all of that is that elements where they feel like. Maybe there was something wrong with me. So I wanna put an end to that. There’s nothing wrong with you if you’ve launched a course and it has not solved. It’s just you’ve been let down this path that it was not meant for you, or it was not meant for anybody.

It just doesn’t work. So I wanna show you another way to get there. So I hope to see you next Wednesday so I can show you how to pilot your next training program.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. It’s on the screen, folks. It’s lifterlikes.com/la nato. Ellie, thanks for coming on the show, and thank you for shining your light and, and really serving this course creator community.

Not just with your positive energy, but with a system you’ve developed over a long time that actually works. So I’m really excited of what you’ve created and what you’re sharing with the world. So thanks for coming on.

Eli Natoli: Thank you so much for having me. It was, it was a blast. Thank you.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMSCast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you [email protected] slash gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning. Keep taking action, and I’ll see you. In the next episode.