Many brick and mortar small business owners hit a similar barrier when they wish to scale. Either hire more people, open another location, or take on more risk to grow.
But as many of our clients are finding out, there is a 'Door Number 3' option that is less risk, high reward, and is a revenue stream that you can build once and sell in perpetuity.
This strategy is using your founder's expertise and creating an online course with it.
CLIENT BACKSTORY
Ryan Esdohr, Owner of Super Human Lab in Urbandale, IA wanted to grow his business without the traditional means of doing so (hiring staff, opening a second location, etc.)
His passion for teaching other therapists and creating free content on his website/social media channels led us to pursue that avenue as a means for monetization. Ryan's story and career is an interesting one, having experience working on professional athletes in the NBA, NHL, Team USA, and many more - traveling the world at one point with a well known professional basketball player. With all of this experience under his belt, he often gets questions online about how to get where he is today and build a therapy business without going to PT or medical school.
That is when we discussed creating a digital online course where he could teach other therapists about breaking into Sports Therapy and working exclusively with athletes.
PLANNING
After deciding to go the online course route, we worked with Ryan to build out an action plan, branding, web assets, and a launch sequence from scratch.
As Phase 1 of this project w
e built out a 'starter course' for therapists interested in specializing in sports therapy. After some brainstorming sessions, we came up with the title, 7 Day Sports Therapy, a compressive program to learn sports therapy in just 7 days. The concept is aimed at creating a high value program that covers the basics with options to create a more robust program and group coaching later
on, if the course got traction early.
We sourced logo design, colors, lesson frameworks, and helped create a runway checklist to keep the team on track and deadlines at the forefront of our project.
PRODUCTION
Over the course of multiple weeks, we shot with Ryan and demonstration subjects to build a collection of videos. The lesson framework included a sit down lecture as well as a live demonstration on a human subject. This allows viewers to learn the technique and then see it in action.
We went with a simplistic, yet professional approach that was both single camera and dual angle depending on the type of video, adding text on screen and visual assists to keep viewers engaged.
We shot videos for sales, webinar free trainings, welcome videos, lessons for the program, as well as styled photos for the landing pages and marketing materials.
POST PRODUCTION
As lessons were shot, our team began the editing process and dialing in the lessons to be as concise and engaging as possible.
Since editing can often times bottle neck a program launch, we focused on webinars and lead generation videos first, finishing with lessons and welcome materials so we could begin pre selling the program to Ryan's avid fans on Instagram earlier in the process.
MARKETING
In addition to producing the course, we also helped Ryan build the product into a sellable course, navigate the LMS tools, and set up basic landing pages to begin marketing the course once it was built.
We marketed the course to cold leads via a Facebook group for therapist that Ryan created as well as his warm email list.
Once the course was uploaded, we went to work designing the website and user experience to mirror the course material.
RESULTS
After a public countdown pre launch campaign on social media, Ryan got his first paying members to join the program. This was key to prove that the concept was valid and therapists saw value in his offer.
He now has a sellable program he can promote to his Facebook Group, Instagram following, and new therapists he comes into contact with.
Is a course the right choice for you?
Our team has concepted, shot, edited, and marketed 5 courses for ourselves and our clients. There is a lot to learn in this space and the main lesson is - it takes following a detailed process to get things right. Without the roadmap, may people sink months into this process just to give up before they even publish the program.
If you wish to explore this option for your business, give us a shout and we would be happy to discuss things with you.
Check out Ryan's digital offerings, courses including 7 Day Sports Therapy, masterminds, and other resources for sports therapists here: www.ryanesdohr.com