In this episode, you’ll learn 9 questions to ask before you pick your online course hosting platform. This is one of those things you want to get right from the beginning. Changing later could create a huge headache… not only for you, but also for any students who are halfway through your course. Should you use Kajabi, Thinkific, Teachable, Wordpress or something else? This episode will help you decide!
In this episode, you’ll learn 9 questions to ask before you pick your online course hosting platform. This is one of those things you want to get right from the beginning. Changing later could create a huge headache… not only for you, but also for any students who are halfway through your course. Should you use Kajabi, Thinkific, Teachable, Wordpress or something else? This episode will help you decide!
LINKS MENTIONED
Get the scoop on Kajabi and the free bonuses I give away when you sign up using my partner link. Go here and get on the list.
Really on a super tight budget? Then check out Thinkific's option to sign up to host one course for free (as of July, 2021. It may change in the future.).
Considering Wordpress? Make sure you get Wordpress managed hosting with really good support. Here's the host that I have used for years - LiquidWeb. Their phone support is amazing!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Ask yourself these 9 questions when you are picking a course host:
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Hey there and welcome to the 50th episode of the course creators HQ podcast. I am so glad you're here. And today, you know how, when someone tells you a secret and you just have to hold onto it and not share it, and it's so tough. Well, that's what I've got going on today. So I want to tell you a little bit about what I can share and then next week I'll be able to tell you more so,
so glad you're here. Let's get to it. Welcome to the course creators, HQ podcast, helping you navigate the latest techniques for creating and marketing online courses. And now here's your host Julie Hood. So today I want to talk about where you should be putting your online course where you should be hosting It. And the reason I'm talking about it today is that one of my very,
very favorite tools, Kajabi has an incredible special coming up. The best one I've ever seen them offer. And they have put us all on lock down. We can't share the details yet, but they have told us about it. And I'm so excited. So Here's what I can tell you go to coursecreatorshq.com/50 that's coursecreatorshq.com/50. And on that page,
there will be a link to sign up for more information about Kajabi. And I will make sure as soon as I can possibly share the details with you, I will be spilling the beans, but let me just say, it's one of the best offers I've ever seen from them. And I guess I have to stop right there. Okay. So let's get into Today's episode.
There is so much good stuff that I want to make sure that you think about before you pick what course hosts it is that you're going to use. So first let me explain what do I mean by a course host? So whenever you create your online course, you create all these files, whether it's audio files or video files or PDF checklists or documents that you want to share with your students and all of this stuff has to be put in a logical order and put somewhere so that then your students can access it.
And that it gets restricted to only students who have signed up and paid to be in your course. So where you put all of those details as what is called a course host, or sometimes people will say the platform for your course, and there are tons and tons and tons of them, probably hundreds, honestly, if, if I really sat down and counted them all out,
and some of them are way more well-known than others, and there's lots of different options, it can kind of send you over the edge. I'll be honest trying to figure out which one it is that you should use. So that's why today I've got nine questions that I want you to start with and ask yourself, because it will help you eliminate some of the tools and determine what's most important to you because I don't believe in a one size fits all solution.
Like I'm not going to tell every single person that I work with, that you need to use this tool because everyone is at a different place in their business. And you may have certain pieces of your online business already set up to where if you used this tool, it would be more than you need kind of like using, you know, you need a hammer,
but you got a screw and it just doesn't work. So I try to help my students figure out what is the most important thing for them, and what's going to fit best with what they're doing and the positioning they're in right now for their business. Okay. So the very first question I want you to ask for any single tool that you are using is,
does it host your video? And here's why I want you to check on this. There are some really nice tools out there that do lots of wonderful things, but they don't host the videos. And the problem becomes with those tools when you get bigger and you're trying to put your videos somewhere, the video hosting can get really, really expensive. So I had a student who,
and actually it's one of my clients who was using one of the video hosting tools with their own website to host their courses. Well, they got really, really big and got lots and lots of students. And the video hosting got incredibly expensive. So they could have just paid for a hosting platform to put their course on instead of having to pay for all this expensive video hosting.
So they had to move to something else and it was time consuming and a big headache. So I want you to pick one of the tools that host your video for you, and they let you put as many videos as you need. It's unlimited course hosting. So look for that. When you're looking at your different tools, Kajabi does this, Teachable, Thinkific,
they all have video hosting for you. Some of the other tools do not. So that's the first question. The second question I want you to ask is does the tool work with your email software program without you having to do a lot of extra gyrations to make it work? And what I mean by this is, let's say you have your email newsletter on convert kit and you already have people signed up.
You've got a big list on there. You need that tool to work with your course hosting tool, because you want people to be able to sign up and have the names on both lists, both on the course host and on your convert kit, email list So you want that integration to work together seamlessly. So some of the tools you may have to pay a little bit more to make that work.
Other tools, you may have to use something like Zapier, which is a connector that operates in the middle and will connect. Let's say your course hosting tool with convert kit. So just ask the question as part of your investigation, does the email software that I already have set up, does that work with this specific tool or not? The third question I want you to ask is,
and this is for long-term of your business. You may not need this right now, but this is important, really, really important for the long-term version of your course. And that is, does the tool have an affiliate program? So let me explain what this is when you're selling your course, most of these course platforms will set up a sales page for you where potential students can come to the page.
They find out about your course, they click the button to buy and they pay you through the tool. Well, an affiliate program tracks, and lets you set up people that you work with who will then send potential students to you. The students will come to that page. They will sign up and the affiliate program will give them a commission off of signing up through you.
So let's say I was a partner of you and I'm promoting your course. When I send a link out to my audience, it is a very special affiliate link. So that then when someone from my audience assigns up through that link, the affiliate system will track the fact that I sent the person to you. The fact that they signed up, it gives them the course.
And then it tracks back for you that you need to pay me a commission because I have sent this person to you. And that whole setup of tracking all that and getting the custom links for each of your affiliates and keeping track of who you need to pay and have you paid them and how much traffic did they send you and how much is their commission this month?
All of that is what's called an affiliate system and affiliate program that will track all of these details for you. And so a lot of the different course hosting platforms have that built in. And depending on which tool you're using, it's either included or it's an upper level. You know, you, you upgrade to the next level so that you can incorporate an affiliate program.
And the reason I like these so much is because it's one of the best ways to build your courses and get more students. Because when you could have me sending you students and you can have 10, 15, 20, 50, a hundred other people sending you potential students, that is a great way to fill your courses. And the best part is you don't actually pay until the students have signed up.
So it's not like Facebook ads where you have to pay at the beginning and pay for the ads and kind of cross your fingers and hope that somebody buys on the backend because you've already paid for the Facebook ads and the money's out the door. You have to hope that you get sales to recoup that the way affiliate programs work is usually you set them up in that you only pay the commission after the refund period is over and then the person gets their commissions.
So it's a really fantastic way to build your audience and build your students. But you want to make sure that whichever tool you have includes this because trying to set it up separately can, can turn into a headache. So whichever course hosting platform you pick, you want to make sure that there's an option for an affiliate program. Even if it's an upper level that you have to pay a little extra for,
by the time you need it, you can upgrade to that, but make sure they have that built in for you. So question number one was, does it host your video files for you? Two, does the tool work with your email software program, your email newsletter program easily? Number three, is, does the tool have an affiliate program, even if it's an upgraded level?
Okay. Question number four is what is your break even point now y'all have heard me talk in the past about how I used to be a CPA and not anymore. Thank God. But one of the things that we talked a lot about was this concept of breaking even, and the way the math works on this is you figure out this is how much something is going to cost and here's how much I need to sell in order to cover that costs or break even.
So let me give you an example. Kajabi, the level that I have right now is $199 a month. I have an upgraded level. And because of that, in order for me to break, even I would need to sell one, $197, $199 course every month in order to break even and cover the costs of paying for Kajabi. And the reason I want you to look at this is this is an investment when you're investing in these tools.
So this is not one of the things that I want you to skimp on, or look for the free option or do this as cheaply as you possibly can, because you want to have the longterm tool that's going to work the best for you. And the reason I say that is let's say you decide a year from now that the whatever tool you pick today,
you've decided you don't like it doesn't work, right? You want to expand into some new features. So you're going to switch over. So a year from now, maybe you have 50 or a hundred students who are already in your programs and have gone through and they've clicked some complete buttons and they've unclicked others. And they haven't gone all the way through everything,
moving them to a new platform. You're going to lose all of that history. They're no longer going to know what they've completed and what they haven't, you'll lose, whatever it is you've done between now and a year from now. So the lesson there is, I want you to pick the one that you can use and stay put so that your students can have their access and you don't have to move students to a new tool.
It's just such a much better experience for your students. And you'll notice here, I didn't ask you about what is your budget, because I don't want you thinking from the budget standpoint, because right now, if you're just getting started, you probably don't have a huge budget. You haven't pulled in any revenue yet, but let's think about what is the break even point?
How many courses do I have to sell in order to cover this cost? And is that a good decision or not? Now I remember when I first started back, way, way back in the day I had just quit my corporate job. We were on a super tight budget. And so I would have tried to pick the very best tool at that point,
but I would not have picked a Kajabi at that point. I'll be honest. So there's another tool. It's the only one I've found that I really like it's called Thinkific. And you can find out more, at coursecreatorshq.com/thinkific. And I'll put all these links in the show notes, they offer you one free course and you can get started for free with the one course you'll have to pay when you want to do your second course,
but you can get started for free. So for all my folks who really, really can't afford to be paying out cash right now, I remember what that's like, think if it might be the best option for you. Okay. Question number five is what is the student experience like? And for some people, this is more critical than others. And it just depends on how,
what your priorities are in the way that you want to run your business, because they're all sort of work the same. You know, there's a place for the lessons. There's a place for documents, a checklist that you upload. There's a place for the videos. There's a place for you to put notes in for them. But I have Had some people in the past who are very particular about the layout of what the students will see as they are going through your course.
And if that's truly, truly important for you, then make sure that you look at what the different courses are going to offer. And most of them will let you get started for a free trial. So you can kind of see what the courses are like and how it's like as a student. So it's just a question that sometimes comes up, you know,
what is it that my student is going to see? What is it going to look like? How do they actually take the course? And am I okay with the way that setup is put together? So that's question number five. What is the student experience? Number six, and this is really an important one is what kind of support do I get with the tools?
So is there phone support? Most of them don't have phone support, or if there, there is, you have to pay for it. If it's email support, how prompt are they in getting to your questions? Because if something is down with your course and you're right in the middle of the launch, you need somebody that's going to be able to get back to you pretty quickly.
And also what kind of regular training do they offer? So Kajabi at this point, I believe has daily webinars that you can get on. And they also do an onboarding call with you, which is a one-on-one call to help you get started and get going. So just find out whichever tool you're picking, find out what kind of support is available when you have questions,
when you need help, when you're stuck, what can you do in order to get help? Number seven is what kind of trial period do they have can sometimes there's a free period where you can get started for 14 days or a month and try out the tool and see if you like it and get some questions answered. So is there a trial period so that you can test it out?
Number eight, the question is what ongoing maintenance is needed in order to take care of your tool and your website. And this mainly comes up with my folks who want to use WordPress to host their course. So I wouldn't tell you a story about one of my clients who set up WordPress back before these tools actually existed. There really weren't options way back.
This was like 2010, 2011. These tools didn't exist yet. And so they set up their course on WordPress and it's fine for the first few years, but eventually all of the software that supports WordPress has to be upgraded. And unless you're using, what's called a managed WordPress hosting, which does exist. If you're going to use WordPress, I highly recommend it.
You have to keep track of all of these tools and get all the underlying software upgraded. So just so you know what some of these things are called, it can be things like a patchy NC panel and my sequel and PHP. These are all underlying tools that are making WordPress work and will be on the hosting where you have a WordPress software. And so my client has been around now for almost 11,
12 years. So every so often we go through this whole big nightmare of trying to get all of the software and all the tools upgraded and updated. Because if you don't, your website can get hacked. People can use your website to send out spam. It's a huge headache to the point where if you don't have to, if you don't have a really fantastic tech team,
you know, I don't send people that direction as much anymore because of the headaches that we've had with WordPress with some of my clients now, yes, I have a WordPress site. I have the background that I can take care of it and manage it. If you do want to do WordPress, there's some really cool things. I also really liked the managed WordPress hosting.
And I'll put those in the show notes coursecreatorshq.com/fifty. And basically what happens with managed hosting is they go in and make sure that all of your software and all of your tools stay upgraded for you. So on the other tools, there really shouldn't be any kind of ongoing maintenance they're in charge of keeping everything running and keeping the video tool,
working the video player, all of that stuff you don't have to worry about. And then the last question number nine is what other features does the tool have? And are there any special ones that you particularly need? So every now and then I'll run across a potential client who wants to do something really unique. Like they want to add maybe a lot of gamification,
which means they add a lot of badges and points and tracking for their students. And at this point, some of these tools don't have that built in. So if that's something that's essential for you, then you need to have it, or let's say you want to sell to a corporate audience where you're going to be uploading a hundred students at once, and you need a way to give a hundred students access when a corporation buys your course.
So you need to make sure that your tool can handle that any of those kinds of special sort of unique things that you know, that your business is going to need. Those are features you want to make sure that are built into whichever tool that you pick. So I hope that helps you sort of get the lay of the land of what's out there and what you can be thinking about as you're trying to pick the place to host your course and be sure and check out this week,
show notes, coursecreatorshq.com/50. And I will have the links in here for you. And I'm so glad you're here. We've, we're going to have an incredible special on Kajabi that I can't wait to talk about. So I'm glad you're here. I will share it with you next week. And also, thanks so much for listening. I just really appreciate the fact that I have space in your earbuds,
in your earphones, on your car when you're driving. I appreciate the fact that you listened to this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do each week, and I love chatting with you. So thanks for listening. Thank you for subscribing, or if you're on apple podcasts, it's following. If this was at all helpful today, if you got something useful from it,
I'd really appreciate a five-star review on your podcasts tool. It helps us get in front of even more course creators and help get the message out there. So thanks so much, have a fantastic week, good luck with picking the tool that you're going to use and wait until at least a week from now, before you completely sign Up for a brand new tool.
But if you Want to find out more, get on my list so that we can tell you all about what's coming and the cool features That are going to be coming down the pike in the next couple months. So thanks for being here, have a fantastic week, and I will talk to you on the next episode.