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The Amy Porterfield Show
Launch Diaries: AI, Trends & The Truth About Selling Courses in 2025
00:28:49
What 6 Top Course Creators Would Do If They Were Launching Today
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A
Hey, before we jump into today's episode, I've got a question for you. Have you been thinking about creating a digital course, but you're not sure if it would actually sell? If so, I want you to join me live inside my bootcamp course, confident. For just 47 bucks, I'm going to walk you through how to shape your idea into a course offer and see if it has real demand in today's market. So in a live, private setting, I'll walk you step by step through how to price it, validate it with real buyers, and even start attracting the right audience while you build your course. And here's the best part. By the end, you'll either walk away with clarity and confidence to finally kickstart your first digital course, or you'll get enough clarity to decide a course is just not right for you right now. So either your scalable offer will already be in the works and picking up steam, or you've only spent a few hours and less than 50 bucks to find out. Low risk, lots of clarity. Only one way to find out. So head on over to amyporterfield.com Boot Camp to save your seat and I'll see you there.
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Hey there.
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A
Welcome to the Amy Porterfield Show.
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What is working now are simple and clean offers that solve a specific pain point quickly. No fluff, no overwhelm. I'm not talking about like a 50 module course. I am talking about clarity and a path forward.
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A
There's a question I get asked all the time and whenever I get asked the same question over and over, I take it as a sign. I feel like we need to unpack this one. So what is the question? Do you think you can guess it? Here it is. If I were starting from scratch, what would I do differently when creating and launching a digital course today? So this question comes up again and again and I think I could have jumped on the mic solo and shared what's working right now. And would I do differently today if I were starting over? Because things are different. But instead I thought, why not bring in the people I trust most to unpack this with me, the ones that I would literally call today if I needed to brainstorm a course idea or gut check a big decision for a launch. So I did what I always do when I want to mix up inspiration and knowledge and just straight up truth. And I called in my smartest, most unfiltered entrepreneurial friends. And I asked them just one question. If you were starting over today, what would you do to create and launch a course that actually sells. This episode is actually just a snapshot of a live event I recently did. It was called Launch Diaries, which real insights from leading voices on course creation and launching in 2025. Now, I'm not going to share it all, since you had to be there to get the full effect, but if you missed it, I thought I would share just some of the highlights. So think of it like you're just going to pull up a chair to a private mastermind with my inner circle. How cool is that? And you can learn what they would do differently in 2025. So grab your notebook, you're going to want to take notes and. And let's see what is actually working. Like, let me give you the playbook for what is working in 2025 with digital courses. Help me welcome my very, very dear friend Jenna Kutcher to the stage.
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So in today's era, I would not start with a signature course. Now, if the term signature course is new for you, you need to join the bootcamp because Amy is going to walk you through the different types of courses you can build. And. And when I think of signature course, I think of like the Big Kahuna, which is essentially what I started with. But if I were starting today, I'd actually do something very different. I would start small. So if I were creating a course today, I would solve one very clear and very specific problem. I would get somebody a quick win. Right? I would use that quick win as a launchpad to. To build trust, to build momentum, and yes, to build income, which is something I know you're interested in. Because here's what happens. When somebody gets results fast, they are far more likely to keep saying yes to what's next. When you get somebody their first win, they will stick around to see what's next. We have this saying in my business, it's no dead ends. We never want somebody to get to the end of a podcast, the end of a blog post, the end of a course, and say, well, what's next? I'm ready, I'm hungry, I'm doing it. And so the same thing goes with courses. So here's what I would say is what is working now? What is working now are simple and clean offers that solve a specific pain point quickly. No fluff, no overwhelm. I'm not talking about like a 50 module course. I am talking about clarity and a path forward. Forward. Your audience doesn't necessarily need to be handed this giant textbook to learn something of value from you. And let me say that if you are just Learning how to sell something when you solve a specific problem. I'm talking about solving your clients Tuesday problem by Thursday. Right? Maybe not that fast, but you get the point. Helping them identify what the problem is and showing them that you are the person that can help them overcome it. You will be able to put in the reps and learn all of the steps of the process that Amy teaches by putting in the reps and getting comfortable, getting comfortable recording, getting comfortable selling, getting comfortable coaching someone through an issue, getting comfortable understanding what step comes first and what comes after that. And so the best thing that I think about this method for me personally, is that when you launch this way in this era, you get to validate the idea, which Amy will also help you do in the bootcamp. If you're worried your idea won't sell, or if you're worried, like, is there even a market for that? Join the bootcamp. But you also get to co create with your audience. They are a part of the process. They feel like they are making it with you and helping you in what you're creating. You don't have to worry about. About wasting time or money on something that doesn't sell. You are literally getting proof because people are helping you create this offer by saying, this is the end result I want. And you're saying, okay, here's how you're going to get there. Steps A, B, C, and D. So if you are somebody who's watching this and you're like, I'm getting started. I want to get my head in the game. I want to get started with courses, what I would say is, is what is a very specific problem that you can clearly communicate for your audience and. And how can you get them a fast result? We call it a quick win. When you shift somebody's belief from I can't do this thing or this isn't possible for me to, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I just did it. And I know I can do more than this. You will actually just change their life, but you will also help them build the belief that is necessary. I made $35,000 on my first launch. Amy, you made like, $267 on your first launch, right?
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I'm a little jealous, yes.
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But here's what my point is. Why was my launch different than yours? Because I invested in learning from you. I got to skip all of the mistakes you made, and I saw the value in learning from somebody who had gone before me. And so that's the thing that I want people to hear today, is if you want people to invest in you, to learn something from you, show them that you're willing to put skin in the game just like you want them to, because that is the fastest way to results.
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Our next guest is Kathy Heller.
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My hot take is that for some reason, my grandmother, who never made it past the fifth grade, was the most wise person I ever met. And she used to tell me, if you can give people connection, you change their life. And so I think that those of you who are sitting here who are comparing yourself to other people and saying, here's all the reasons why you wouldn't be successful because you don't have all the right things, what's most impressive is your soul, your heart. This is actually now the thing people need, because information is everywhere. When you are going to go to create a course, you know what they want. They want a friend to walk beside them every step of the way. And I used to say, I'm not here to sell you information. I'm here to sell you the transformation. And so still to this day, even though I have, at this point, done all my courses over and over, I show up live. And I show up live. Not every day, but I show up live and do group work, and it's every single week. And my. My classes sell because they know that in a world of the busy and the hectic and things that just seem really curated, they know, like, Kathy's, like, in your corner. And so I'm extremely grateful. And I want to say thank you to Amy for starting all this. And I want to tell you one last thing, which is my friend Deborah is a screenwriter. I have a lot of screenwriter friends being from la. And she said something so interesting to me. She said, if you want to make the audience not like a character, make them perfect. But if by the end of Act 1, Anne Hathaway has spilled her coffee or she said the wrong thing, she put her foot in her mouth, or whatever it was, the audience will root for her the whole movie. And you know why? Because we see ourselves in that we're all flawed. We're all quirky, all of us. Right, All. All of us, you know? And so when you realize that who you are and showing up with your full heart is the most impressive, powerful thing you can do, you realize you are totally overqualified to show up in 2025 when the World is filled with people having conversations through, like, hashtags and texting, and all they're really looking for is human to human connection. And so the reason why, to me, all of this actually is fun is because why wouldn't you want to wake up every day and have an excuse to actually be your most authentic self? And so I've always been the person to say, be a C student. Make something messy. And Seth Godin, by the way, who's a mentor of mine, another thing he says is if you give yourself permission to make something mediocre, you won't be able to help. Eventually, you'll make something brilliant. And so I hope that you will give yourself permission to just be yourself fully and realize that actually, that's the asset, that no one's doing that. And as soon as people feel and sense that there's a real human being who has a real giant heart, who actually cares, they're like, whoa, what's happening over here? And so maybe, just maybe we've just felt our whole life, like, after going through seventh grade, which felt like such torture because the girls were so mean. And you feel like in order for you to be successful, you have so much work ahead of you. Maybe it's about unbecoming all of that. And maybe you'll take it from me, I'm just one person doing it one way. But maybe if this relates to you, you'll feel like, oh, there is a way for me to do this. I don't have to have all the equipment. I don't have to have all the things together. I could just literally show up and be myself, right? And take people with me on this journey. I like to say with courses, it's not look at me, it's come with me.
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So my next guest is Stu McLaren.
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Over the years, I've found that every profitable idea meets one of three criteria. You ready? Okay. Number one, it either solves a problem. Number two, it either teaches a skill, or number three, introduction, it provides convenience. So let's break this down. So first off is the problem. What I want you to know is people don't pay for information. They pay for solutions to specific problems. You heard Jenna talk about this a little bit earlier, right? It's no longer the massive, gigantic, you know, signature course. It's the specific courses. The spotlight courses, as Amy would say, that are solving specific problems. Those are the things that are really ringing true for people right now.
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And.
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And the clearer the problem, the easier the. Yes. And we've all been guilty of wanting to help everyone. Everyone. And we go way too broad. Like, we want to help everyone get healthy, or we want to help everyone grow their business. You see, my mistake. My very first course was called Creativity Secrets, where I teach people how to be more creative. I mean, it did okay, but it didn't do great because it didn't solve a specific problem. See, what people actually want is a specific solution to the exact problem that they're struggling with right now. So not get healthy, but instead lose the last ten pounds before the end of summer. Or not be a better parent, but instead get your toddler to sleep through the night and not grow your business, but get your first thousand subscribers without paid ads. You see the difference? Now, AI and Google can tell us what to do, but there's a huge difference between knowing what to do and actually getting the result. And that's why people buy courses not for the information, but for the facilitated solutions to real problems. Okay, Number two is skill. See, if you can help someone get good at something, you'll never go out of business. I want you to think about all kinds of different skills that you've learned over the years. Perhaps things like learning to draw or playing the piano or baking amazing bread. These skills are timeless. Now, I know what you might be thinking. Yeah, but Stu, what about AI? Like, AIs giving people all the steps. Like, why would anybody buy from me? Now, here's why. Because as I mentioned before, there's a gigantic difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. See, as a crazy example, I can watch YouTube videos all day long about becoming an elite swimmer. But does that mean the moment I get into the pool, I'm going to be a fantastic swimmer?
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No.
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Right? Like, there's a huge difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. And that gap, that gap between the knowledge and the results, that is where you come in. And this is where facilitation matters more than ever before. See, information is the base, but facilitation is the bridge to the results. And the courses that layer in feedback, community, and accountability, those are the ones that keep people coming back. Now, the third indicator of a great market is convenience. See, people will always pay for speed and ease. Let me give you a great example of this. Libraries. Libraries give us books for free. So then why would anybody go to Amazon or the local bookstore and actually buy books? Why do millions of people buy books from Amazon every single day? Because it's faster and easier. You don't have to wait on a book that hopefully is available in the library, and you definitely don't have to stress about returning the book on time. Now, hear me on this. We often think that we're giving way more value when we add more Lessons, more content. But our students, they don't need more. That more actually creates more overwhelm. See, this year we challenged ourselves to distill our content down from 8 to 12 lessons per module. And we got it down to core four, is what we called it, the core four lessons. This is the 20% that's going to get them 80% of the way. And you know what the crazy part about it is that by doing that, we had more completion of the course than we've ever had before and more success of our students than we've ever had before. So what I want to encourage you to think about is like, think about the tools that you could create or the processes or the experiences that you can develop from. To remove the guesswork.
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Let me bring on my dear friend Hadar.
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Here is what relaunching allows you to do. Because I only had that one program and I launched it again and again and again. First of all, it allows you to refine the course and the content, the offer and the structure. And let me tell you this. The first five times I launched New Sound, my current course, every time I would change something because it wasn't right, the length of the course, the breaks that they would have, the, the order of the modules, and also the student experience. Because at the end of each round, I would survey my students, look at completion rates, look at engagement rates, interview my students and make changes every round based on that. The last three rounds, we haven't changed a thing because we've hit the sweet spot. And this is the beautiful thing about relaunching, because you can really curate the perfect experience and of course, nail your marketing and messaging, how to talk about the course, what gets people to understand what your offer is about and how long your sales page should be, the graphics that work or don't work. In fact, the changes that you make in your course now are going to pay off in this, in this launch, but even more so in the next launch. So you always have to think about the future and the next time you're going to launch the course. But also one more important thing is that relaunching allows you to streamline your business because it's not enough to create a course. You have to look at the big picture, how you marketed everything that goes into it, and when you bring on a team, then how to help them do their best work. So when you relaunch because you already, you don't have to reinvent anything, you're just tweaking and rinsing and repeating it's more about efficiency and a lot of time and money is saved. Also when you don't have to figure everything out and kind of like, you know, you're stressed out about what to do next. You can engage with your audience. You have more impact in the launch. You can pivot if you need to. You can hop on your support desk and answer questions and see what people are asking. And also you improve the processes inside your team every single launch so everything is smoother and faster and team is happy. But the real magic happen when you have a well oiled machine and you keep launching and launching and that is figured out. You, you can actually focus on other things in your business like you can build your email list and platform. This has been so fundamental in my business. You can grow your business and build a solid infrastructure and work on your mentor your team or hire people if you need to and build a strong community around your brand. And you can even create smaller products that improve the customer journey.
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My next teacher is Pete Vargas.
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My life has been transformed because of courses. I was a youth pastor making $18,000 a year trying to provide for my wife's medical bills. She had lupus, she had rheumatoid arthritis. Through that process, she lost her kidney. And we get married at a young age. And I'm a husband that cannot provide for my family because I'm not making enough. But I'm living in my passion. I'm living in serving kids and impacting what something that I really felt called to do and what began to take place is I knew I needed to make more money. I needed to make more money. And I met a guy, he had a message that he wanted to get out to the world. His daughter was the first girl killed at Columbine back in 1999. And he said, pete, I believe we can have the largest school program that has ever existed on the planet to help make schools safer and more kind and more compassionate. I said, well, can I help get you in schools? Can I help book you on stages? He said, yeah, nobody's been able to figure that out for us. Hear that? What you think is common sense, other people don't know how to figure out what you think is common sense and easy things for you. It's not for other people. He said, sure, yeah, you can, you can do that. And I said, cool. And I went to figure it out. Just like all of you have figured something out in your health or your wealth or your relationships or your finances or your marriage or your parenting or how to create Courses or how to build a team or how to do leadership. What is it in the chat that you have figured out that you are really good at, but you think everybody just understands that? What is that thing that you understand well, that you can help people win in? What is it for you? Well, for me, and I've shared this with Amy, I want to figure out how to get this guy on stages. And here's the problem. Let me tell you the problem. I went to help him figure out how to do it. I got him on the White House. I got him on Oprah Winfrey. I got him on Texas safety school conferences and superintendent conferences and principal conferences. And all of a sudden, guess what he had. I've never shared this with Amy. He had a digital course. He had a digital membership. He would come to your school for three, four, or $5,000, and then he would charge you $1,000 a year to be a part of their virtual Friends of Rachel Club. And I helped him get on stages so that he could sell his programs, which part of that was a digital product. He became one of the biggest school programs. We helped him generate over $40 million, $40 million from putting him on stages and selling his digital course. But here's the key. Everybody started asking me, Amy, like, can you do this for me? Can you do it one on one? Can you do it one on one? Can you do it one on one? And I'm like, there's no way I can go do this one on one. It was already consuming 60 hours of my time just to serve him. And so this is what I did. I started to meet people like Amy Porterfield. And I thought to myself, what if I am? He's known for courses. Stu's known for membership sites. I'm known for putting people on stages because I had, at that time, we had booked that first client on 25,000 stages. Oprah Winfrey and the White House were two of them. Now, fast forward. Amy, read a stat off. That was a million stages. Do you realize that is not me. This is the key to this. Like, if you guys grasp this, this is huge. I, one on one, booked him on 25,000 stages over the course of a decade. Then I thought, oh, my gosh, I have a methodology that can help put people on stages. I don't have to work with them one on one on one. I can build a course and teach them to do exactly what I did for him. And I did that. And we've had tens of thousands of people, tens of thousands of people buy that course.
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All right, my friends, I won't make you wait any longer. Let's bring on Susie Moore.
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I think by now we all know that stories are the most powerful way to put our ideas out there into the world. And if you consider really what a course is, it's a journey. There's a beginning and there's an end. And your story, why it is you teach, what you teach is what makes your course come alive again. The heartbeat of your course. So what is it that you have to share? Maybe it's managing your own diabetes. Maybe it's raising conscious children. Maybe it's yoga, specifically for back pain. Maybe it's helping people with career pivots. This didn't come out of nowhere. You've lived something, you know something. You have experience. So if you want your course to come alive and stand out and be the go to, I mean, so much great advice has already been shared today about being the go to expert in your field. That comes from an incredible course backed by your powerful story. I've got to share that. Your life is your cred. Say it with me. My life is my cred. Your life itself today is enough. Like Amy said, we don't have to wait for some point in the future to be more qualified to have another certification. Your life is your cred today. So, for example, I have a media and PR course for entrepreneurs. It's had tens of thousands students already. And it's not because I have a PhD, PhD in Communications or because I worked as a journalist for years. Far from it. I have zero formal qualifications. I have a high school education. But what I do have is a story of going from a side hustling life coach at my desk in my tech career with this big dream to serve others in the coaching community. It still seemed pretty new back then, and I figured out a way to reach them by by tapping into mainstream media. It doesn't mean I've got this perfect solution or everything just came so easily to me, or it was step by step and I didn't make a single mistake. No, but it was a story, a path, a journey that I went on that allows so many other people's journeys to be cut short, to go further, faster. Can your story, how you figured something out, how you learn something, help somebody go further, faster? If so, you are a course creator, my friend. You're my people. Course creators are my favorite people. I've also got to share that your story is generous. Think of the people in your life who've shared their stories, who've taught you things. My gosh, aren't these the people that we revere, we thank, we remember people who we maybe even recall years after we encountered them. I love this quote from Maya Angelou. She said, at our best, we are all teachers. And I think to myself, if I've learned something that can make somebody else's life easier, more beautiful, more fun, more straightforward, isn't it then my job to share that? And in doing so, in sharing my story, I illustrate possibility. I reveal to other people what they can do and what is possible for them. Your story acts like a bridge. So there's your journey. There are the people out there, their struggles, whatever they are, wherever you can help them. And your story is that powerful bridge. If you think about it, if you've ever been to a sermon or if you've ever seen somebody speak on stage or you've even just listened to a TED Talk or a podcast, we listen to the facts, the features, the data, the statistics certainly. But it's the story that stands out. The stories are what we remember. They're as old as time. And when you can share your story in a powerful way and it doesn't have to be some big dramatic story, maybe you figured out how to keep plants alive in your New York City apartment. This can help others. Again, your life is your cred.
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How incredible is that? If you are creating a course for the very first time, this is only good news. Digital course success isn't a big name game anymore. It's personal, it's high touch, and it's everything you are already able to offer. So if that message from Jenna or Stu or Suzy or Hadar felt like a green light like this might actually work, then I want to invite you into my live, one time only bootcamp course course Confident inside, you'll stress test your idea and start to create with clear next steps laid out for you, including how to choose and validate a topic you know your audience will buy, how to create your offer structure and strategic pricing with confidence, and how to start growing an audience of buyers while you build your course. All without guessing, with a live community of people to turn to and with someone guiding your steps in the right order based on the exact trends we just covered in this episode. For just $47 you could validate your course idea before you spend weeks creating it and start growing your audience as you build. We start on September 11th, meaning enrollment ends very soon. So head to amyporterfield.combootcamp to join.