How to work for yourself – by Bryan Cohen

Bryan Cohen tells us how was his experience creating his awesome online course on how to work for yourself after taking Grumo’s How to Create an Awesome Online Course on Udemy:

Who are you?
My name is Bryan Cohen and I’m an author/entrepreneur. I’ve published more than 30 books through channels like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple. My books have sold more than 20,000 copies and I came to Udemy in an effort to teach students how I became productive enough to accomplish as much as I have by age 30.

Why did you decide to create an online course?
I’ve been wanting to create an online course for a long time. I’ve had some success in self-publishing and creating my own business and I wanted to share that knowledge with others. I’ve heard that it’s easier to remember what you teach, as well, so I hoped the course would help me to remember all the good stuff I’ve learned from others!

How did you choose the topic of the course?
I chose “How to Work for Yourself” because I think that so many people want to create a business, book, blog or some other creative project, but most folks don’t have the skills or resources to do it. A lot of people think they don’t have enough money to do so, but it’s more about time, energy and life priorities than money. I wanted to prove that to people through my course.

What is the purpose of this course?
I want to create more entrepreneurs, bloggers, writers, etc. I want to give people the confidence they need to go out and create new work.

How did you find time to produce it?
It wasn’t easy. I forced myself to work on the course every day for several hours. The filming days were grueling and actually caused me to lose my voice at one point. I knew this was important to me though, so I pushed until it was complete.

How long did it take you to put together?
Writing the course took a few weeks. I filmed all 43 lectures in four days. I find that a concentrated burst of productivity can get a ton of work off your plate.

What was the hardest thing to do?
Getting used to looking at the little dot on my webcam was a challenge. I enlisted the help of the Udemy Studio to get used to it through practice videos. Once I had their approval, I knew I was good to go.

What was the simplest thing to do?
Everything after starting the course was simple. Once I got through starting each step, I felt much more comfortable. The second before pushing record on the first video. Unbearable. The second after was much better. Starting something is scary, but the project gets much simpler from then on.

How did you determine the price of the course?
I tend to underprice on a lot of my other products, but I felt like I was giving a lot of value here. I set my price at $97 because I’d seen similar courses pushing the same price. After learning that a lot of potential sales would come in through coupons, I was glad to price the course high enough to still maintain a decent royalty rate after the discounts.

What is your marketing strategy to promote it?
I pushed the course for free for the first month. I used this strategy to get more than 3,000 students during June and I came in second place in Udemy’s Grow the Pie contest! I used websites like SlickDeals and FatWallet to promote the course. I recommend you figure out how those sites work, because they tend to block folks for self-promotion. Asking around to find someone to post for you, however, was much more successful. I also published a book on Amazon to link to the course.

I’m trying out a bunch of different things now that I’m promoting the course as pay-only. Google Ads. I’m planning a blog tour in the future. I’m e-mailing Miguel after he very nicely said he’d promote his students’ courses :). You have to look around to see what opportunities there are and try as many as you can.

What software did you use?
I used ScreenFlow and Keynote.

What hardware did you use? (camera, microphone, lights, etc.)
I used a Logitech HD pro webcam c920, a Blue Microphone and a Cowboy Studio lighting kit.

What was the part the Grumo course help you the most with?
The Grumo course helped me a ton with ScreenFlow and Keynote. I didn’t know anything about simultaneous screen recording until I saw this course. That knowledge helped give me the confidence to make my own course a reality.

What other resources have you used to make your course?
I looked at several other Udemy courses to see what others were doing. It’s a good way to figure out how you can go beyond what people normally offer. That way you can underpromise and overdeliver!

Anything else?
Feel free to visit my course or my website at build-creative-writing-ideas.com. Thank you, Miguel, for the opportunity to talk about my course.
Thanks for all of your help. Grumo is the best!

Thank you Bryan for taking my course and the time to answer these questions!

If you are interested on taking Bryan’s course he made available a special 50% discount coupon link.
Here it is: https://www.udemy.com/how-to-work-for-yourself/?couponCode=niftyfifty*

And if you would like to learn how to create your awesome online courses too here is Grumo’s own 50% discount link: https://www.udemy.com/how-to-create-an-awesome-online-course/?couponCode=LOVE2TEACH

Bryan has written over 30 books in just under four years, which have sold more than 20,000 copies. Bryan loves to teach as many people as possible some of the creativity tips he used to create so much content in such a short period of time.
Bryan’s blog, Build Creative Writing Ideas, brings in over 700 unique visitors a day and provides creative tips and prompts for authors, bloggers and more.

(*Note most Udemy coupons are bound to a quantity limit or expiry date so they may not work by the time you read this article. If they don’t let me know and I always can ask the instructor to extend it or create a new one for you!)

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