15 Podcast Episodes to Help you Launch a Successful Online Courses Business

Making a bold launch for an online courses business and even more so getting it up and running successfully is praiseworthy. Unfortunately, practice shows not everyone manages to build a six-figure business and secure a steady income stream.

How to make headway then? How to start an online courses business? How to attract a bunch of clients willing to study and be trained online? Where to get knowledge about eLearning basics, the fundamentals of online courses business promotion, eLearning trends, misconceptions and thing to be aware of?

If these questions have been bothering you for a long time, then the podcast episodes collection we’ve gathered is worth listening to.

Sit back and put your earphones on!

1. How to Achieve Expert Status?

Host:Grant Weherley

One of the obstacles that keep people from launching an online courses business is lack of expert status. They are afraid that nobody will get enrolled in their courses because they don’t have a name, expertise, and industry credibility. The thing they forget is their unique vision, voice and the way of presenting information.

Believe it or not, people buy a course not because of your credibility, but because they like how you put ideas into words!

To learn how to get people to perceive you as an expert and deal with the fear of being criticized listen to the podcast episode “How to Achieve Expert Status”, hosted by an online course expert and entrepreneur – Grant Weherley.

2. Understanding the Who, What and How of Online Learning

Host:Jisc

Another thing that people do wrong about launching an eLearning business is spending time and money on finding a fancy LMS platform rather than getting an understanding of what online learning is, who online learners are, what drives and motivates them to learn online, types of problems learners might face and how to overcome them.

Remember that an LMS platform is only a tool for delivering knowledge and cannot guarantee the business success. Make sure you understand the “who, what and how” of online learning otherwise success will come with a heavy price tag.

3. Managing Change in Organizational Learning

Host:Alison Bickford

No matter how much time and effort you put into your project, if learners are not prepared for studying online, you won’t get very far.

People might be reluctant to study online, that is why it is vitally important to prepare them for a change. Ask yourself “If I build the course, why would they come?”

To learn more about making learners study online, making eLearning valuable and content relevant, listen to the “Managing Change in Organizational Learning” podcast episode.

4. All About ELearning Authoring Tools

Host:Connie Malamed

For a course to hit a bestseller list it should be more than just a collection of video and text files. A great online course boils down to a good structure, engagement, and usefulness. To create such a course you need a modern authoring tool; however, with over 200 authoring tools in the market selecting the one might be not an easy task to accomplish.

To simplify the process listen to the ELearning Coach podcast interview with an eLearning consultant Joe Ganci.

There are a lot of deep and helpful insights from Connie Malamed and Joe Ganci in this episode. They talk about different types of authoring tools that exist on the market, the differences between them, the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular authoring tools and much more.

5. Learning Management Systems. Are you ready?

Host:Alison Bickford

Since you are a smart online courses business entrepreneur you probably know that it is a bad idea to build a business on someone else’s land (like Udemy, Coursera and other third-party online courses platforms you cannot control). It is wiser to have your own website and a Learning Management System - software used for creating, managing and delivering eLearning content as well as communication with learners and tracking their performance.

In the podcast episode “Learning Management Systems. Are you ready?” Elison Bickford talks about Learning Management Systems, the signs to watch out for in order to avoid risk, the key steps required for a seamless LMS implementation and the tips to avoid an LMS-project failure.

You will also learn how to choose the right LMS taking into consideration the business model (internally or externally hosted, bespoke or out-of-the-box, standalone or a part of an integrated HRIS). Listen on iTunes Listen on player.fm

6. Ten Things to Make ELearning Work

Host:Alison Bickford

When the software is selected, there comes a time to think about the strategies and tips for making eLearning work, especially when there is no learning design and implementation experience.

The skills required for delivering online learning, things to do before, during and after the eLearning project implementation, project team members and their roles, examples of eLearning courses that work and other key aspects involved in making eLearning business succeed are covered in the eLearning podcast episode “Ten Things to Make ELearning Work”.

7. Courses, Tools and Tactics with Paula Guilfoyle

Host:John Colley

Ever wished to create a “stand-out” online course but your design skills are up to scratch? There is no reason to give up! The answer is easier than you think!

Listen to the story of Paula Guilfoyle, a woman who started teaching online after she lost her “offline” job. With no previous eLearning experience, she managed not only to learn how to create engaging eLearning courses but build a successful digital entrepreneur business. In this podcast episode she tells about course design, finding a niche and the tools to use to create great online courses. Learn from her experience!

8. Getting Strategic About ELearning

Host:Alison Bickford

Once the learners are prepared to dive into online learning and you have a basic understanding of course design principles, there comes a time to think about the strategies for keeping your customers around, making the course implementation effective and getting strategic about eLearning.

To grab tips and useful pieces of advice for a successful and effective implementation of self-directed online courses, the common reasons for implementing online courses and doing it the right way listen to the podcast episode “Getting Strategic About ELearning”.

9. Ten Ways you Can Shorten Your Course

Hosts:David Charney and Nejc Žorga Dulmin

The course length is often overlooked, but there are many different reasons why you need to “chunk” your eLearning content. Listen to the podcast episode ‘10 Ways You Can Shorten Your Course” by ELearning Guys to get more knowledge about course creation, structure and design.

10. Using Videos in Your Course

Hosts:David Charney and Nejc Žorga Dulmin

Host:

Videos have always been an integral part of the educational process and their role in online courses shouldn’t be underestimated either.

The podcast episode “Using Videos in Your Course” outlines the best practices for shooting outstanding videos, using the ones you already have and editing the video files when it is necessary. You will also get insights into different video formats, things to consider and be careful about when using videos in your courses. Listen in to find out the details.

11. Course Creation, Email Signups and List Building with James Burchill

Host:John Colley

When you know all the important aspects of eLearning, time to put your business in the spotlight!

What is the point of effective and well-organized online courses if nobody knows about them, right?

However, the days when clients were walking around handing out their email addresses are over. Getting email subscribers today is way more complicated than it used to be.

Luckily for you, James Burchill – an online learning entrepreneur and the best-selling author - reveals the secrets of course creation, email signups and list building tactics, so-called a “lazy entrepreneur approach”.

In this podcast episode you will learn how to promote and sell more courses, how to engage learners, how to differentiate yourself from competitors, how to boost your conversion rate, how to find your market niche, where to get ideas and much more.

The episode contains a bunch of useful pieces of advice and compelling explanations how to realize the strategy.

12. Trends for May: EdTech in K-12, VR/AR, Online Teaching, & Net Neutrality Ruling

Hosts:Abbie Brown and Tim Green

Making a living as an online courses business owner isn’t easy: the eLearning industry is constantly developing, vendors are launching product releases, new players enter the market… How to stay in the know of all the instructional design, educational technology, and learning science trends? How to know where the eLearning industry is heading?

Luckily for you, there is a great resource of eLearning trends and news – the “Trends & Issues in Instructional Design, Educational Technology, and Learning Sciences” podcast. On this show Abbie Brown and Tim Green discuss current eLearning trends and make predictions about future ones.

Listen to the latest episode:

13. One Amazing Strategy For Growing Your Online Courses Business with Jerry Banfield

Host:John Colley

You’ve probably read a lot of cheap shortcuts on how to grow your online business.

Most of them are tenuous and far from being an effective strategy you can follow to stop being a burned-out entrepreneur.

A different story is a podcast interview with the Jerry Banfiled – a successful online entrepreneur and online instructor who shares his amazing strategy of growing his online business.

You will learn how to create a course that will attract a fantastic number of learners and positive reviews, will get valuable insights into course creation, online marketing, tips and tricks for course promotion that will help you to get the results quickly and with minimal resources.

14. Scaling an Online Course Business, with Espresso English Course Creator Shayna Oliveira

Host:Grant Weherley

Learning how to scale and grow an online courses business is important, but often it is something a lot of online instructors struggle with.

“I’ve created a course. So, what now?” “How to get it in front of my target audience?”

To get the answers listen to the podcast interview with Shayna Oliveira – the owner of the most successful online English teaching business. In this podcast episode she dives into the strategies of making customers want to come back and buy your courses time and time again. You will learn how to increase the lifetime customer value by selling courses on more topics or selling different levels of the same course.

15. Branding Building: Build and Boost Your Brand with Phil Pallen

Host:John Colley

When you are an online courses business owner your revenue heavily depends on the brand recognition. Branding is no longer a luxury nowadays, it is a necessity. With so many competitors in the market of online courses, it is important to stay away from the crowd and differentiate your business from competitors.

To learn what branding is, how to communicate with clients within your target market and why a good logo and a name are no longer enough to stay on clients’ radars, listen to the podcast interview with a brand expert and strategist – Phil Pallen. He brings a handful of ideas you can use to build bridges with clients.

We sincerely hope that listening to the featured podcast episodes will help you to bring your online courses business to new heights and generate more revenue.

What eLearning podcasts are you listening to? Please share in the comments below.

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