How to launch a 6-figure course in 15 steps

DEEP DIVE

I’ve made more money from selling courses and information products than I’m comfortable sharing publicly.

I’ve also helped GrowLetter clients add $100M+ in sales collectively. Over half of those sales are from education and information products like: Courses, memberships, coaching, and paid subscriptions.

Yet, when most people launch a course it crashes and burns.

15 rules for a 6-figure course launch

Here’s how to create and sell a course the right way so you don’t waste your hard earned time and money:

1) Pick a topic you can teach unprepared

The topic of your course should be something you could teach unprepared for 60+ minutes. If you can’t do that, you don’t know enough to teach a course on it.

And yes, you will still prepare curriculum and materials for your course. This rule is simply a filter for what you should create.

2) One value proposition

Have one clear value proposition that provides an ROI on students time and money.

Courses that fail are too broad. They try to teach a dozen different things and don't succeed at any. Your first course should be short, narrow, and small.

The most successful courses focus on one of the “big 3” value propositions:

• Get paid (make or save money)

• Get laid (dating, relationships, & marriage)

• Lose weight (fitness & health)

3) Build a waitlist

As soon as you have a name, topic, outline, and value proposition for your course, start building a waitlist.

• Spin up a simple 300-500 word landing page with an email capture form.

• Tell your email list about it and ask them to join the wait list “with 1-click” (save landing page clicks in a segment you can market to later)

If you can get 500-1000+ people on a waitlist you’re much more likely to have a successful launch.

4) Pick the right structure

Start with a cohort-based course. This means you teach the content to students live and share the recordings after.

This is important for a few reasons:

• It creates a built-in presale. Students must buy the course before you “create” it. This reduces risk and saves you time because the course isn’t fully created until after you sell it.

• Immediate live feedback. Every student goes through the program at the same time and you get questions and feedback live on the calls.

• Higher student completion and success rates. People are more likely to attend and complete short, live courses.

• It’s personal. With a cohort of 50-100 people you’ll get to know almost everyone, their goals, challenges, and situation.

This creates a better experience for students and allows you to improve the course faster. After a few cohorts, it’s simple to transition from live learning into a self-paced course if needed.

Rules for live cohorts

The course should be 3-5 weeks, max.

You should be able to deliver the promised outcome in a short period of time. If you can’t, narrow the outcome or improve the course materials so this is possible.

I highly recommend you keep your first cohort to 2-4 weeks. You should get the first cohort done asap so you can apply your learning to the next one.

2 live sessions per week.

2 sessions per week is the sweet spots. 1 is too little. 3 is too much. This means you must deliver the value proposition within 2 sessions per week for 2-5 weeks.

~90 minute session structure.

Teach for 45-60 minutes, then do Q&A for 15-30 minutes. It’s is the best format I’ve found.

If you don’t need 2 sessions per week for teaching you could do:

• Session 1: Teach for 45-60 minutes + Q&A for 15-30 minutes

• Session 2: Q&A, feedback, and coaching for 60-90 minutes.

• Then repeat this for 2-4 weeks total.

1-3 resources per session

Each session should provide a few resources to help students save time, follow best practices, and improve their likelihood of success.

These could be examples, templates, swipe files, and more.

1 homework assignment per session or per week

Provide assignments that make students take what they're learning and apply it to the real world.

1 theme per week, 1 topic per session

Each week should have 1 theme or goal outcome. Each session should be focused on 1 topic, idea, or strategy. Don’t overwhelm students.

5) Complete the homework, get the result

The homework assignments are just as important as the course materials.

If students complete the assignments you give them they should be able to realistically achieve the main promise of your course.

If they can’t, your promise is too big. Promise less, overdeliver.

People aren't expecting to become overnight millionaires by taking a course. They just want a tangible outcome within a few weeks.

6) Pricing

Your course should fall into one of these pricing buckets:

• Low ticket course: $299-$499

• Mid ticket course: $999-$1499

• High ticket course: $1999-$2999

Avoid pricing below or above these benchmarks. It will make your product look too cheap or too expensive.

Also, avoid “no man’s land” pricing, the prices between $499 and $999 and $1499 and $1999.

Pricing a course at $750 or $1750 makes no sense. You’ll generate more profits if the price is $250 less or more.

Optional but recommended: Offer one option to pay in installments. 3 monthly payment installments that cost 20% more is best.

For example:

• One time fee: $999

• Or 3 monthly payments of $399 ($1198 total)

7) Guarantee

You must have a guarantee. There are 2 options you can pick:

A) Unconditional guarantees - Provide a refund with “no questions asked.”

I recommend choosing a 30 day or 14 day money-back guarantee with a 5%-10% refund fee to protect your intellectual property.

This is the type of guarantee I prefer. It’s simple, it's favors your students, and there's little back-and-forth with customers on whether they qualify for a refund or not.

B) Conditional 100% money back guarantees — Provide a refund only if clear conditions are met within a timeline.

There are 2 conditions that work best:

• Complete all of the course materials within X days

• Or, complete all homework assignments within X days

If you're going to have a conditional guarantee, I recommend it’s based on completing all homework assignments within 30 or 45 days.

Tracking course completion rate is tricky, especially with live programs. Homework completion is simple and clear.

8) Include a community

If your course will have 20 or more people, include a community for free.

The experience is better when students can ask questions, share wins, and get to know each other in an online community.

My favorite tool for this is Circle.

It allows you to have the course and community in one place.

9) Always presell

Always pre-sell a course before you create it.

Don’t waste months creating a product people may not buy.

Always do a pre-sale to see if people want it. This is the only reliable way to determine what your audience wants.

Surveys, polls, and interviews may give you an idea of what they want. But many times, buying behavior will be completely different! People vote with their wallets.

This is why cohort-based courses are awesome. The presale is built in.

10) Get testimonials before you sell a course

Social proof is a must-have. Your audience needs to see you can deliver results before they buy. But, until your course is done you won’t have testimonials for it.

Here’s a workaround…

There are 2 types of testimonials:

• Product testimonials

• Character testimonials.

You don’t need product testimonials before your first launch. You can ask for character testimonials instead.

Reach out to 20-50+ friends in your industry, clients, past employers, loyal readers, etc — and send them an email like this:

If you can get 3-10+ character testimonials before your launch to use on your landing page, you’ll see a much higher conversion rate.

11) Ask and incentivize product testimonials

You must ask and incentivize customers to share a testimonial. It’s obvious, but most people don’t ask enough and provide big incentives.

It's worth having a dedicated tool for collecting and saving testimonials. I use Senja.

Here’s how to do it:

• Pick the right time: Graduation session and final session of your cohort course. Or final 2-3 sessions of your self-paced course.

• Make it easy: Use a tool like Senja and share 1-3 questions they can answer that prompt a positive response.

• Incentivize with money: “Share a testimonial and you’ll be entered to win 3-5 $100 Amazon gift cards randomly”

• Incentivize with content or support: “Share a testimonial to get access to an exclusive live coaching session / course module / extra resource / lifetime access to the community / etc.”

• Follow up: Ask 1-3 times in the course content. Then with 2-3 follow-up emails and/or community announcements.

12) Sell with a live webinar

Prospects need to spend time with you, learn from you, and trust you before buying a $500-$1000+ product. A webinar is the best way to do that at scale.

A great webinar can convert 5%-10% of live attendees who come from cold traffic into customers. It’s like having a superpower for selling courses and educational products.

Read the chapter on webinars in Expert Secrets.

This will teach you 80% of what you need to know.

13) Create a sales page with long copy

To sell information, buyers need information about all the benefits and features they get from the product.

Your sales page should be 2000+ words. Here’s an example.

14) Use real scarcity and urgency

If you can have a real deadline or a limited number of seats for your course, it will make selling much easier.

Mention the deadline and limited seats constantly in your marketing.

15) Create a turn-key system

Make your course feel as “done for you” as possible.

People don’t want to learn or work. They don’t want a course, a book, or a coaching program — they want results.

To use an analogy:

People want answers to the test. Not the textbook. Not the study guide.

Your product should deliver the most valuable and immediately actionable information in the fastest and most efficient way possible.