If you’re sitting around waiting for the momentous day you feel “ready” to launch your online course, we have some bad news to deliver…

That day isn’t coming any time soon (read: never).

We know how scary and nerve-wracking it is putting your offer out into the world for the first time. But thinking we need the most polished course materials with every single module fully fleshed out before we can start making sales? Yeah, that’s a trap.

Our brains can be verrrry sneaky sometimes. Whenever we so much as think about venturing outside of our comfort zone, it likes to kick up a bit of a fuss. And waiting for “perfection” (which, ahem, doesn’t actually exist) is a prime way that resistance tends to show up. But the good news is, just because your brain tells you everything has to be finished before you can launch your course, doesn’t make it true.

And when we put on our CEO hat, we can recognize that we don’t really need the world’s most beautiful website or logo to start earning more, helping more people, and having a greater impact on the world.

So, let’s dig into the reasons why launching your course sooner rather than later is a smart move, and uncover what you *really* need to have in place before you dive into selling.

Sell Now, Polish Later

A lot of course creators think they have to have completely finished all the elements in their course before they start selling it. They also think they have to anticipate all the potential problems that could arise—and fix all of those problems—ahead of selling. But that’s simply not the case. You *can* start selling your course before you have finished building it. 

However, we will say that with one caveat: You need to have a really good understanding of all of the elements that you will be building out, as well as who your target audience is and how your course is going to benefit them. What is the transformation they are going to experience? How is your course or program going to change their lives and how are you going to help them do that? 

Of course, you will have to finish the full course eventually, but If you start selling it before it’s finished, it can be a really good incentive to complete it (especially if you’re someone like me who needs to operate on deadlines). As people purchase it, you can drip out content to them as you prepare and release the new modules. But make sure to include everything that you promised when you are selling it.

What is the Bare Minimum I Need to Start Selling?

We hear this question a lot when people are interested in joining the Circuit Sales System: “How much of my course do I have to have done before I can start selling it?” 

Firstly, you do have to understand everything that’s going to go into your course. You should have a solid map for the full course and the modules within it. Of course, you can always add to this but bear in mind it will be trickier to take things away if you promised people it was going to be in it. 

You also need a good initial understanding of who your audience is and what that transformation is going to be. One of the things that our Circuit Sales System students say to us again and again is how much they’ve learned about what their target audience wants and needs. They *thought* they knew their audience inside out, but through the exercises we take them through, they gain a lot of valuable insights they didn’t have before.

Often, that means they end up adding or changing things within their course or refining their messaging in a way they wouldn’t have been able to do if they had waited until their course was completely built to get started with CSS. 

You also have to be in a position to deliver something to people when they buy your course. Whether that’s the first module, or the first few modules, people need to have something they can get started with as soon as they have made the purchase. 

Having a timeline of when you’re going to deliver the rest of your course is also important. Imagine purchasing a course that was supposed to be eight modules but when you get in, it’s only one module and then the rest of it is “coming soon”. You’re probably going to be a tad ticked off versus seeing a timeline of when you’ll be getting the next modules. (Note: The timeline also needs to be *reasonable*…no one wants to be waiting six months at a time for a new module!) The timeline you create will also help you take action because, as we all know,  humans need deadlines to take action. 

It can help to think about building out your course in phases. Phase one involves identifying the bare minimum needed to get started, whether it’s one module or three. Phase two is when you can add in the following modules as learners work through the initial content. And phase three, which may evolve based on feedback (more on that next), can focus more on the “nice-to-haves”, such as design elements or extra features. 

Remember, the bells and whistles can come later, but focusing on what truly delivers value to your customers will stop you getting in your own way and help you to push your offer out into the world as soon as possible.

Customer Input Can Shape Your Offer

When it comes to online course creation, the truth is, nothing’s ever really finished. Yes, you need to finish the parts you’ve promised your audience. But there are probably going to be things you want to add to your course or program over time.

And this is certainly the case for all of our Nicki K Media courses. For example, if we see people in our Facebook groups asking the same question again and again, we often record a quick coaching note just to make sure it’s absolutely clear. We’ve also added additional resources like PDFs or downloads guides to help them implement the program. But we couldn’t have known what kind of things would trip people up before we started working with them. 

We also learned a lot more about what our FAQs actually were once we had people asking the questions. One tool we’ve found particularly useful is Microsoft Clarity, which essentially lets you peek over your customers’ shoulders while they’re browsing your website (without actually standing behind them of course—that would just be weird…). 

It records clicks, scrolls, and even creates heat maps to show where people linger the most. For example, we can see which FAQs people are clicking on—and it’s not necessarily the ones that we would have anticipated. These insights help us include that information earlier in the process so that by the time they get to the sales page, they’re primed and ready to go.

Once you start engaging with your customers, they’re going to provide valuable information that you have no other way of getting until you have people in your program. And that information can then help inform how you might want to change or evolve the program further down the line. 

People are always evolving, as are their needs, which is another reason why we need to let go of the idea of 100% perfection before we start selling. If you have something valuable to offer, get it into the hands of people now so that they can benefit from it. There’s no sense in holding it close and waiting for the day you finally feel “ready”.

Plus, acting on student feedback is a great opportunity to show that you’re listening to everyone in your program and build up the relationship between you and your audience. When people feel seen and heard, it creates loyalty to your brand—which does wonders in terms of word of mouth marketing and building a positive reputation as someone people *want* to buy from.

Build Confidence and Refine Your Offer

When you start hearing from your audience about how excited they are about getting results, it’s a great incentive to get stuff done. It’s also a big confidence booster when people start making purchases and you see them getting the results you knew they would be able to get. 

And remember, if you’re feeling nervous about putting your offer out into the world, YOU are the one in control of how many people you have coming through. You don’t have to put it out to your list or start running ads to it if you don’t feel comfortable doing that. You can still test that your price, offer, and messaging works with a warm audience or beta group before you start selling it to a wider audience.

Identify Upsells and Downsells

Once you get feedback from people that have been in the program, you might discover that there’s an upsell that will help people get results faster, better, and/or easier.

On the other hand, you might find out there’s a certain reason why people are not purchasing and be able to come up with a downsell to overcome that reason. But you can’t identify any of this until you’ve given people the opportunity to purchase your program.

Maximize Productivity

By nature, a lot of entrepreneurs are idea people. And when we come up with one great course idea…we often come up with another…and another. But if you start building them at the same time, you’ll end up slowing everything down. 

We’ve had Circuit Sales System entrepreneurs in the program that have multiple ideas for multiple offers. And if you have another income stream to support you before you start selling both offers, then it’s not a problem. But for most people, we want to start generating revenue. And so instead of working on both simultaneously, it will be more effective to put your energy into completing one of them first (like CSS student Emma Kate—check out her full story here).

Focus on getting ONE course up and running and earning you some money. Then, once you’ve started selling it, you can go back and focus on other courses if you want to. But don’t try to split your focus.

Plus, when you have revenue coming in from one offer, you can bring other folks in to help you with the second offer, which will make life much easier and more flexible!

Do You Need a Big Audience to Start Selling?

The simple answer? No, you don’t. 

In fact, one of the fastest ways to make your audience go stale (no longer interested in your emails), is to get them on your list with nothing to sell them. 

If you spend all of your time building your list before you have a solution to give people, you’re just going to end up with  a nice big list of people who aren’t even opening your emails. And you will have spent time, energy, and maybe even money to build that list all for… nothing. 

So no, you absolutely do not have to be working on building your list before you have something to sell. We always recommend waiting to really start getting people on your list until you have something to sell them.  Why should they get on your list if they can’t even get access to that solution yet? And that is (yet another) reason to sell your course before it’s completely finished: People can start getting the solution to their problem as soon as possible—which, let’s face it, is why we’re in business to begin with.

When it comes to selling your online course, remember that nothing has to be written in stone—you can still make changes to your course. But the longer that you wait to put your offer out into the world, the longer it’s going to be before you can make those changes, optimize your offer, generate revenue, and ultimately help more people.

Read More

Is creating an online course worth it? Check out this blog post to find out how much money a course selling business really make.

Watch More

In this Energize Your Online Business podcast episode, Nicki and Kate are giving us a gentle (but firm) nudge to let go of perfectionism and put our course out into the world sooner than we might expect!

Your Turn!

What’s stopping you from putting your offer out into the world? Let us know in the comments below!