Have you ever asked this question?

Either directly to me or quietly to yourself?

If so, don’t worry…

Pretty much EVERYBODY does.

I even get asked this question at social gatherings when I tell people what I do for a living.

(Or I used to anyway, in that ancient time when there were social gatherings!)

And look, I completely get it, I really do.

The amount of free advice and information in cyberspace is now mindboggling.

An unknowably vast amount! Like the stars in the universe, impossible to count!

For almost every worthwhile topic you can think of there are blog posts… online articles… email newsletters… eBooks… youtube videos… PDF reports… hashtags… dedicated social media accounts… forums… Facebook Groups…

There’s free information everywhere! All the time!

And if not free, it can be very cheap.

Courses for £20 on Udemy… Amazon books for £9.99… eBooks for £2.99…

So why on earth would someone buy a high-priced course from YOU?

It’s important to know the answer.

Because if left unanswered, this question will gnaw away at your confidence and stop you moving ahead, which would be a massive shame.

Of course, I understand why it’s something you might worry about.

Twenty years ago, I was publishing subscription newsletters and courses during an explosion of free blogs, email newsletters, websites, forums and eBooks.

Many pundits said it spelled the end of paid content.

And I’ll admit, I was a little concerned that my business model would have to change.

After all, if everything became free, then paying for information and advice would become redundant.

However, my worries didn’t last long.

My business model kept on working, even as the tide of free info grew higher and higher (and I do provide great free information too… but that’s a topic for another day ☺)

People kept buying our courses, newsletters and events, paying £197, £497, £697, £1,000, £4,997 and more.

These same kinds of customers will pay for YOUR course too.

Here’s why…

The free content paradox

Despite all the free stuff that’s out there now and as I said, we provide free content too, my husband and I still sell courses, newsletters and memberships that provide information on niche subjects.

And it’s not only us…

There has been a massive global boom in eLearning (predicted to hit $325 billion by 2025 though I suspect it’ll be even higher) through paid courses in almost every niche, from professional to hobbyist.

On the surface, this might seem paradoxical.

Why would a proliferation in free information coincide with an uptrend in paid information?

There are a number of reasons – I’ll give you some of the main ones…

TOO MUCH INFORMATION! People are overwhelmed. There is so much free information out there, it’s hard to sift through it and understand what’s important, what’s less important, and what’s absolutely useless. Which brings me to the second reason…

• BAD QUALITY INFORMATION! There is information you can get for free, but a lot of it is regurgitated, repeated, copied and pasted, so that you see the same advice over and over again. Much of it is basic, poorly written or not hugely enlightening. The good stuff is often behind paywalls. So people end up being lured in by free and having to pay for advice in the end anyway.
• LACK OF TRUST! When people find free information, it’s often from an uncredited source, or published by unknown entities. How do they know that person is who they say they are? How do they know who that person is or why they are telling them? What’s their agenda? What’s their angle? Will this lead to a scam or spam?
• NO GUIDANCE! Facts, figures, stats and strategies are all very well but what order do you do everything in? What happens when something goes wrong? How do you put the information into a process? This kind of guidance is often missing from free online sources.
• TOO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT! When someone goes online to research a skill, technique or subject, it takes a lot of time to trawl through websites, sign up to eLetters, download reports, google keywords, follow hashtags and social media accounts. A lot of this time will be wasted on dead ends and false leads. It can be tiring and extremely frustrating.

As a result of all their efforts, people who seek out free help online can end up with information they don’t quite trust, and which they cannot quite work out how to use properly.

On top of that, they might also become lumbered with multiple subscriptions to various newsletters and feeds, with tonnes of spam flowing into their inbox, along with reams of links and notes that they have to make sense of.

Information overload leads to even more information overload!

It genuinely makes people nauseous.

And they’re only at the information harvesting stage.

Now they have to spend even more time and effort actually turning that information into something practical.

Of course, there are some diligent, disciplined people who will do ALL of this, and find the information they need to achieve a goal.

Well done them!

But believe me, they’re in the minority.

The people who don’t give up in exasperation after a few hurdles might seek out a few books or cheap courses on Udemy, so they can get more reliable information.

However, there is another small group of info seekers…

These are YOUR potential customers.

These are people who have a very strong desire to achieve a goal, but they don’t want to go out and find all the information, for the reasons I’ve already outlined.

They also want more than what is offered in a cheap, basic course.

Instead, they want to:

• Know that there’s a trustworthy, genuine human being who can guide them…
• Follow someone that’s like them, who has achieved a goal in the real world.
• Get advice from someone who can cut away the clutter and noise so they can get to where they’re going as quickly and easily as possible.
• Get step-by-step help so they can be taken by the hand and led to where they want to go, without false starts and dead ends.

These people will pay you for your course because they want more than pure information…

The price tag isn’t just about the facts and figures, the stats and details…

What your customers are REALLY paying for

They’re paying for trust, reassurance and the confidence that you can deliver the outcome of what you teach.

They’re paying for you to deliver everything they need, in one place.

They’re paying to get a level of information they cannot get elsewhere – which makes them feel like they have an advantage.

They’re paying for that feeling they are doing something serious about their goal, and which will get them there in the quickest way.

That’s what the price tag on your course means.

For these customers, having made the valued investment is a BENEFIT, not a factor that puts them off.

Because when they pay a considered amount for a course, they make the kind of commitment to their goal that people who look for cheap courses and free info simply don’t.

Because of the commitment, they are more likely to stick with that course and reach that goal.

This is why there’s such a booming industry in eLearning, and why my own business has continued to do well despite almost two decades where free info has exploded across cyberspace and despite my many low-priced rivals.

So I’m really not bothered by the existence of cheap or free rivals.

They don’t affect how I advise my students to price their courses.

When they price a course at £1,997, their competition is not the £29 courses or freebie versions – their competition is someone with other £1997+ courses.

We are going for the same customers – those people who want happy to invest in a course they can trust.

And these kinds of people will pay you too.

They’re hungry to buy, as long as you can offer them a tangible solution to their problems, or help them achieve their goals.

Of course, there are ways and means to establish that trust and justify that price tag, all of which I will show you in my Course Creation Academy (if you aren’t a member already – why not 😉 just email me at [email protected] for more information.