Should EVERY content creator tap into the power of an LMS software?
Do you want to make money selling online courses?
I’ve known a lot of solopreneurs in my day. And there is one thing that I know to be true about them.
The vast majority of them have incredible knowledge and skills to share with the world… and yet, most of them simply don’t know how to do this profitably!
That is where an LMS (learning management system) enters the framework.
As a budding digital marketer, a coach who wants to help change lives, an entrepreneur with the next big business idea, etc. you have incredible things to offer and share with your audience.
And the best vehicle to help you get your knowledge out to the world is going to be an LMS software that will help you to design and sell high quality online courses.
But, why should YOU use one? And which LMS should you use?
In this article, you’ll learn:
- When it's time to start selling courses and training
- Why selling courses is the best way to leverage your knowledge to monetize yourself online
- How to choose the right cloud-based LMS for you
- My favorite LMS software, plus two other learning management systems options for you to look at
How Do You Know That It's Time To Start Selling Courses?
You probably already know the value that a learning management system lms can bring to your business and career.
To put it quite simply, it can help you to monetize yourself in an entirely new way.
By selling courses and training via a cloud-based software, growing a community, and then helping that community by sharing even more courses with them over time, you can help a lot of people... and potentially crank up your profits into the 6-figure range while you're at it.
But if you’re wondering when it’s time to think about selling courses…
Well, honestly, the answer is yesterday.
My Own Experiences Building Online Courses Have Taught Me That The Best Time To Do It Is NOW
When I created my first course, the first question I asked myself was... "Why didn't I do this a year and a half ago?"
And quite honestly, I know that you will be asking yourself the same thing.
The Truth Is That Creating Awesome Courses Doesn't Have To Be Difficult
I've seen people go from being really really scared and nervous about getting started with learning management systems, to mastering them and getting addicted to the course-selling game in just a few short months.
Using learning management software to monetize yourself as an expert is simply one of the best ways to monetize yourself, because it also gives you the ability to deliver true quality to your community, customer base, and users.
If you have a blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast, or even just a business with no real web-content strategy yet, you need to be looking into learning management system lms and making plans to start creating your own course.
Whether You Have An Audience Or Not, You Can Still Sell Courses
If you don't have a built-in audience, you can still build a landing page and run Facebook ads to it to start building your funnel, and optimizing it to collect email addresses to start your mailing list.
Give your course away for free as a lead magnet in your sales funnel. Then, develop another awesome course as a follow-up, taking your topic even further, and start selling that one as a one-time-offer or a one-click-upsell in a self-liquidating sales funnel.
You can learn more about that in my post Sales Funnel - What Is It & Why You Need One.
Creating A Course Is Super Important
More organizations are using LMS for cloud-based training, video conferencing, corporate training, training for apps, etc. now than ever before.
But as a solopreneur, you will want to do one thing with LMS...
Create awesome courses that will help other people learn to do what you have learned to do. If you can do this correctly, they will pay you for it. Automate that process with an awesome LMS, and you will have the start of a 6-figure business, my friend.
But which LMS software is best?
That's the big question. Let's talk about it.
Why Create A Course Using Learning Management Systems?
When it comes to online education, an LMS is the next big thing.
Why?
Take a look at these stats and you’ll know why:
- More than 87% of learners all over the world use an online LMS platform.
- When it comes to choosing an LMS, customers look for functionality (53%), cost (32%), customer service (5%), company’s reputation (3%), and platform’s reputation (3%).
- By the year 2021, the LMS market is anticipated to expand from $5.22 billion to $15.72 billion.
- By 2020, nearly 25% of all learners are expected to solely study online.
- Around 41.7% of global Fortune 500 businesses today are using some sort of e-Learning technology for employee training.
Here are some other reasons to consider an LMS over sending courses via email, or through any other medium.
1. Better Learner Engagement
Unlike the monologue of traditional class-based training, you can improve users' engagement by adding videos, pictures, quizzes, and other interactive activities in your online courses, delivered via a cloud-based platform.
2. Better Knowledge Retention
Knowledge retention rates upturn from 8% in face-to-face training to up to 60% when training is provided virtually using a cloud-based learning platform.
This is because an LMS allows you to share bite-sized training content so your users don’t have much trouble consuming it.
3. Flexibility
Using a learning management system (LMS), your clients can attend training from any place, at any time, and from any device.
It offers flexible, self-paced, and on-demand training that provides your users with the searchability and availability that they desire.
Also, many businesses today are using learning management systems to educate their remote users without distressing about different time zones, language hurdles, and more.
4. Resource-Efficient
You can use an LMS software to share training content without hiring any tutor, setting up any specialized infrastructure, or sticking to any specific geographic limitation.
This way, businesses can save a considerable amount of cost, time, effort, and resources otherwise spent in organizing face-to-face training programs.
5. Real-Time Analytics And Reporting
With an LMS, you can keep an eye on your users’ journey and progress in real-time.
It offers robust reporting and analytics so that you know which course is popular, and which course needs improvements.
6. They Are Less Distracting Than Email Courses
I've seen a LOT of entrepreneurs, trainers, and experts share their courses via email.
And while this is useful to a point, it pales in comparison to LMS.
Why Is An LMS Better Than An Email Course?
- Emails get buried
- You get more distracted when you try to read information in an email
- Even if you send emails, you will need to link to courses elsewhere anyway, as you can't send large video files over email, etc.
- Emails can deliver course lessons in-order, but they are not organized. Whereas, in an LMS, users can log in and continue where they left off without getting lost
Choosing The Right LMS For You
LMS comes with a huge range of benefits.
But also, to put it very simply, using learning management systems for the first time will always come with a learning curve.
Choosing the right LMS to create online training on cloud-based learning management software is a key part of minimizing this curve and removing potential obstacles.
The main goal is to get started now, find the best LMS for you, work out the kinks, and release your first course.
After that, each one you put out will just get better and better. Plus, you will also be well on your way to monetizing yourself.
And my personal opinion is that the best learning management system LMS out there is Thinkific!
What Is The Best LMS? Thinkific
Thinkific is a unified e-course creation solution that allows you to swiftly build and deliver fabulous courses on your own website.
Personally, I love Thinkific because it gives you so much for free before you need to pay for anything. It's just awesome. Get started today, produce your first course for free, and start selling before you pay for anything.
Easy!
Whether you want it for employee training, for selling courses online to make money, or for merely developing your brand and involving your prospects, you can easily do all of it with this platform.
Here’s the best part: You can host all of your video content with Thinkific FOR FREE!!
Thinkific Features
Thinkific gives you literally everything you need to not only design a full-fledged course, but also to market it.
They have different pricing tiers, but you can literally start out for free and test-drive it by just signing up and visiting their site.
Here Are Some Other Features
- Drag and drop content builder to construct SCORM compliant courses, with no coding at all
- Easy course customization with just a few clicks (such as private and secret courses, prerequisite trainings, multiple tutors, drip schedule content, cohorts, and more).
- Website design and development to effectively sell your courses online. Create a completely new course website with Thinkific, or deeply link with your current website for an all-in-one user experience on any domain or site platform.
- Huge database of pre-designed themes that can be easily customized to add your own branding
- Full set of business tools to advertise and sell your courses online
- Flexible pricing options to satisfy all your business requirements
- Fully secure and immediate payments. Add 100+ currencies and accept all credit cards.
- Integration with 1000+ external business and marketing tools (such as MailChimp, Stripe, Zapier, Keap, Brillium etc)
- Rich training environment with intuitive menu elements, clear progress pointers, infinite replays of lessons, and language controls
Thinkific Pricing
Thinkific offers four pricing plans: Free, Basic, Pro, and Premier.
The FREE package allows you to try out the platform’s core feature set and functionality at no charge.
You can enjoy instant access to your payment, creation of 3 courses, unlimited users, notifications, full e-Commerce and upsell offers, secure cloud hosting, built-in SSL certificates, and more.
The BASIC plan costs $39 per month (billed annually) and includes all of the above, plus unlimited courses and students, coupons, drip scheduled content, affiliate reporting, custom domain, and several integrations.
Their most popular pricing category is PRO which costs $79 per month and includes all BASIC features as well as two site admin accounts, five course admins/authors, custom functionality, private and hidden courses, certificates, and more.
The PREMIER package costing $399 per month includes all of the above, plus five site admin accounts, fifteen group analysts, fifty course admins/authors, single sign on (SSO), and more.
Try It For Free!
Thinkific's plans are reasonable and full of awesome LMS training features that you can use to pack in a ton of value for your users.
Go ahead and give the Thinkific FREE plan a try.
If For Some Reason You Don't Like Thinkific, Here Are Two Other Options
Thinkific is certainly awesome. And in all honesty, in the grand scheme of things, they really are an affordable leader in the training LMS world.
But if this isn't the LMS for you, never fear. There are a couple more online educational institutions and organizations that are worth checking out in the digital learning space.
If You Want Something Super Cheap, Consider Using Member Mouse: A WordPress Plugin Option
Member Mouse is a WordPress plugin that will get you started for free, but it costs $19.95 per month to really get going with it.
Yes, it is cheaper. And they do offer several different plans. But it is also pretty difficult to use, and it is nowhere near as easy or as user-friendly as Thinkific.
This should really only be considered as a viable option if you are either a WordPress wiz, or if you are simply not interested in ever paying more than $20 a month for an LMS.
Organizations that are super-savvy with WordPress, and organizations that don't need the training LMS to be as simple to use might consider this option.
Member Mouse also gives users a free 14 day trial.
Another Premium Option: Teachable
Teachable is another powerful, yet simple all-in-one training management software that's cloud-based for users who desire simplicity. Just take a look at their stats!
18m+ Students learning, 186k+ Active courses, 68k+ Instructors online, $338m+ Earned by instructors
Not bad!
The only downside?
Well, it's not as user-friendly. Thinkific will get you started fast. Teachable has a bit of a learning curve.
You can check out my Thinkific Vs. Teachable review here.
Users can try Teachable for free, and it does have several different plans, with their most affordable being $29 a month.
But in all honesty, I would go with Thinkific. If Thinkific isn't for you for some reason, then Teachable is definitely the most similar option out there.
Building Your Own Course Is A Serious Way To Level-Up Your Business
Learning management systems offer solopreneurs, employees partners and customers, organizations, users, businesses, and your customer base the best chance to succeed at what they are trying to achieve.
Why Do Courses Offer Such A Great Opportunity?
Because when you are an expert, have access to awesome software solutions, utilize brilliant authoring tools, and bring training to the table that offers real value... people will take notice.
And they will buy it.
Set up a funnel, give your first training course away for free, and then keep creating them and selling them.
This system can be automated, and it will be one of the best businesses you ever build for yourself.
Conclusion
Hopefully this post has helped you to understand why Thinkific has the best functionality of all of the LMS training software programs out there.
There are other options... but the best way to make your decision is to really try out each one for yourself.
Use the free trials, get acquainted with each, and figure out which one will work best for you.
The best piece of advice you can take, though, is to just get started.
Build your course sooner rather than later.
You'll be super glad that you did.
If you have any questions or comments, just drop them below.
Let's keep the conversation going!
See you on the next one!