The Art of Selling Online Courses

John Ainsworth
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Daily

The Art of Selling Online Courses is all about online courses. The goal of this podcast is to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. We are interviewing successful business owners, asking them questions on how they got to the point where they are right now, and checking how their ideas can help you improve your online course!

  1. 2d ago

    264 You Don't Need New Courses. Sell What You Have.

    Send us Fan Mail Most productivity coaches tell you to do more. Carl Pullein built a business teaching people to do less, and better. And it's working to the tune of around $300,000 a year. I sat down with Carl recently and really enjoyed this one. He's a British productivity coach based in Seoul, South Korea, with over 150,000 YouTube subscribers, 17 million views, and an email list of 25,000 to 30,000 people. He built all of it over ten years, one video a week, around two proprietary frameworks he developed himself. We talked about who he's actually helping, how his business breaks down between courses and coaching, and what's driven his growth. But honestly the most interesting part of the conversation was watching Carl work through some things in real time. He knew he was leaving money on the table with his YouTube promotions and his email list growth, and we got into the specifics of what he could change and why it would make such a difference. He's also thinking bigger. He wants $500,000 this year and $10 million by 2030, and he's got a clear idea of how corporate training fits into that picture. Carl's a thoughtful guy who's built something real, and he's genuinely honest about where he's been too relaxed and what he's going to do about it. That combination makes for a great conversation. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Check out Carl's work: 🌐  http://www.carlpullein.com ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@Carl_Pullein

    41 min

  2. 6d ago

    263 Why Email Beats YouTube for Course Sales

    Send us Fan Mail Alex Dunitz has built one of the top Italian language learning channels on YouTube. 266,000 subscribers, nearly 30 million views, a custom app with gamification, private lessons, group courses, books, webinars, trips to Italy. The whole thing. And yet, when I sat down with him, the first thing that struck me was how much opportunity he was sitting on without fully realising it. Alex is brilliant at what he does. His co-host Marta Cappellini spends around eight hours preparing a single ten-minute video. They have a genuine teaching philosophy, a real community, students who argue with them about lost points on the app. The product is genuinely good. But like so many course creators I talk to, the gap between what they've built and what they're earning is bigger than it needs to be. We talk about how Passione Italiana grew from a local adult college side hustle into a global brand, why Marta was such a turning point for the channel, and what Alex calls the "euro drop" moment, his version of the penny dropping when a student finally gets it. We also get into the gamification system he's built on his website, including a points and ranking structure where students can rise from peasant all the way to emperor using Roman coins called Sesterzi. Genuinely fun stuff. Then I put on my consultant hat for a bit and we have an honest conversation about funnels, email lists, and why pointing YouTube viewers at every product at once might be the thing holding the revenue back. Alex takes it well. Better than well, actually. I think you'll enjoy this one. Check out Alex's work: 🌐 https://www.passione-italiana.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/passioneitaliana.official/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@UC8gGkW17A_kbDCVNGvzGMrw

    45 min

  3. Jun 16

    262 How to Build a Tripwire From Your Main Offer

    Send us Fan Mail Get your tripwire product ideas here: 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwire Derek Callan has been coaching business English for over 22 years, has clocked more than 10,000 hours of in-company training, and has built a YouTube channel with 250,000 subscribers and nearly 10 million views. He is, by any measure, someone who knows his stuff. So what I really wanted to get into with him was the messier side of the journey, figuring out who your real customer is, what they actually want to buy, and how to build a funnel that lines up from first click to paid client. Derek recently launched a high-ticket one-to-one coaching programme targeting professionals who freeze under pressure, presentations, meetings, the calls that matter. He sold out his founding five spots from a small segment of his email list. We talked through where to go from there, how to price it, and a specific idea around selling a paid assessment as a tripwire that leads cleanly into the main programme. We also got into what he learned from our Instant Course Sales programme, why mindset is the biggest barrier in language learning, and what it actually looks like to try to align your YouTube content, your lead magnets, and your offers when you have several courses running at once. Derek is genuinely great to talk to. Warm, thoughtful, honest about what is and isn't working. And the bit near the end about asking his wife to summarise the podcast for him... I will say no more. You will enjoy that part. Check out Derek's work: 🌐  https://www.derekcallan.com/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@derekcallan-englishforpros

    44 min

  4. Jun 12

    261 How AI Is Crushing YouTube Traffic

    Send us Fan Mail Want to 2-10x your email list size quickly? Download our FREE Double Your Email List Guide 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guide There's a guitar teacher in Colombia who has nearly 600,000 YouTube subscribers, has taught over 70,000 students, and is personally answering WhatsApp messages from every new student himself. And that last part is completely intentional. I sat down with Miguel Martinez, founder of ClasesDeGuitarra.com.co, to talk about what's actually happening to online course businesses right now, especially in the education space. Miguel has been doing this since 2012 and he's seen a lot change, but nothing like the last 12 months. YouTube reach for his channel has dropped to around 500 views in the first 48 hours of posting. The same video on Facebook? 20,000 to 30,000 views. So he adapted. What I found really refreshing about Miguel is his philosophy around AI. Instead of trying to automate everything, he's doing the opposite. Weekly live classes, personal WhatsApp replies, a lean email list he cleans every three months so only engaged readers stay on it. He genuinely believes the answer to AI is to be more human, and he's building his entire business around that idea. We also got into TikTok, which is working for him in ways most course creators never figure out, including a smart insight about why you won't see TikTok showing up in your referral analytics even when it's driving real traffic. Miguel's market is Latin America, his courses top out at $79, and he's making this work on his own terms. It's a really different perspective from most guests we have on, and I think that's exactly why it's worth your time. Hope you enjoy it. Check out Miguel's work: 🌐 https://clasesdeguitarra.com.co/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/clasesdeguitarracomco/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/clasesdeguitarracomco

    38 min

  5. Jun 9

    260 Stop Launching New Courses. Do This Instead.

    Send us Fan Mail Get your tripwire product ideas here: 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwire Natalia Rethmeyer had 80,000 YouTube subscribers and not a single person on her email list. No tripwire, no funnel, no strategy. Just videos going out every week into what felt like a void. That's where Dominik sat down with her for this one, and what came out of it was one of the more honest conversations we've had on the show about what it actually takes to build something that lasts. Natalia moved to Germany from Ukraine 12 years ago, couldn't speak the language despite three years of studying it, worked as a waitress while trying to get her masters, and eventually built Learn German Fast into a proper online course business with a team, a feedback system, and a list that grows by around 4,000 subscribers every month. She doesn't chase trends. She hasn't launched a new product in years. And her revenue keeps growing anyway. They get into how her email promotions actually work, why she sends around 20 emails in a two-week window and why it works, where her funnel has real gaps (Dominik is pretty direct about that), how she built a course with live teacher feedback that nobody else in her space was doing, and what she'd go back and tell herself if she could. Her answer to that last one is not what you'd expect. Dominik also pushes her on surveys, tripwires, order bumps, and the stuff most course creators avoid thinking about. She takes all of it in good spirit and it makes for a genuinely useful conversation. I think you'll like this one. Check out Natalia's work: 🌐  https://learngermanfast.de/ 📸  https://www.instagram.com/learn.german.fast/ ▶️  https://www.youtube.com/c/LearnGermanFast

    44 min

  6. Jun 5

    259 Make Something Once, Sell It Forever

    Send us Fan Mail 2-10x your email list size in just 3 steps 📩 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guide Abbie Emmons built a YouTube channel closing in on 600,000 subscribers, 7,000 students across her courses, a Patreon membership she 10x'd in six months, and a traditionally published book on the way. And she teaches people how to write novels.  In this episode, I sit down with Abbie to pull apart how she actually built and runs her business. We get into the move from Patreon to her own membership site, why she prices and sells courses both inside and outside the membership, and how she turned $3 templates into a surprisingly meaningful revenue stream by simply deciding to stop giving them away for free. One moment that really stood out was Abbie describing how a single quiz video brought in around a THOUSAND new email subscribers.  We also get honest about something a lot of creators struggle with. Abbie openly says her courses "kind of sit dormant" when she isn't actively promoting them, and the two of them dig into why that happens and what to do about it. I walk through the problem-agitation-solution email framework we use to give creators a real reason to talk about their courses, not just when something new launches. If you're building a creator-led course business and you've ever felt weird about promoting what you've made, this one's for you. Check out Abbie's work: 🌐 http://www.abbieemmonsauthor.com 📸 http://www.instagram.com/makeyourstorymatter ▶️ http://www.youtube.com/abbieemmons

    46 min

  7. Jun 2

    258 Why Shorts Get Views but Don't Make Money

    Send us Fan Mail Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmap Ross Rosenberg has 38 million YouTube views, over 200,000 books sold in 12 languages, and a podcast in the top 2% globally.  Ross is one of the world's leading voices on codependency and narcissistic abuse. He founded the Self-Love Recovery Institute back in 2013 and has been building his audience online ever since, mostly by figuring things out as he went, which is both the charm and the challenge of his story. We talked about how a throwaway tip at a dinner party got him onto YouTube before almost anyone else in his field. We got into why the shift from long-form to short-form content nearly crushed his business model, and what he's doing differently now to rebuild. He was refreshingly candid about a marketing company he hired that sent him clickbait scripts he flatly refused to follow, why his curated 10,000-person email list carries a 30 to 40 percent open rate, and what he's trying to get in place before he steps back at 67. Ross isn't your typical "here's the funnel that made me a million dollars" guest. He's someone who built something genuinely significant, navigated a slowdown with honesty, and is still pushing forward on his own terms. I found his perspective really refreshing. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Check out Ross's work: 🌐 https://www.selfloverecovery.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/rossrosenberg_slri/ ▶️  https://www.youtube.com/rossrosenberg

    32 min

  8. May 26

    257 Stop Chasing Trends. Build What You Believe In

    Send us Fan Mail Eddie van Dongen spent years doing what most musicians dream of. Touring Europe, playing 200-show theater runs, recording, performing. And then COVID hit, and overnight there was nothing. No gigs, no income, no plan. That moment forced him to ask a question he'd never had to ask before: what would it look like to actually build a business, not just be a freelancer hoping the phone rings? Eddie is a professional drummer from Rotterdam, endorsed by major brands and featured on Dutch national TV. But what makes his story genuinely interesting is how he got from that COVID wake-up call to running Eddie's Drum Academy, an online platform built around a completely different way of teaching drums. Not fill packs, not lick libraries, but a creative framework that teaches drummers how to think. In this conversation, Eddie and I got into a lot. His burnout at music college and how studying meditation changed not just his playing but his whole approach to business. Why he believes you have to be okay with being ignored if you're building something real. His Meta ads funnel selling a 37-euro ebook with a 2.5 to 3.5 ROAS. How his order bumps are converting around 40%. And what he's working toward next. He's honest, thoughtful, and clearly someone who built this from scratch with no marketing background. I think you'll really enjoy this one. Check out Eddie's work: 🌐 https://eddiesdrumacademy.com/ 📸  https://www.instagram.com/eddievandongendrums/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@eddievandongendrums⁩

    37 min
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About

The Art of Selling Online Courses is all about online courses. The goal of this podcast is to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. We are interviewing successful business owners, asking them questions on how they got to the point where they are right now, and checking how their ideas can help you improve your online course!

Information

  • Creator
    John Ainsworth
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    265
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Art of Selling Online Courses
  • Show Website
    The Art of Selling Online Courses

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