Case Study: How I Sold Spots in a Course Before It Was Even Ready

A surprising four-step blueprint

Have you heard of the start-up analogy: building an aeroplane in mid-air?

Imagine the apple-sized lump in your throat, clammy hands, heart knocking in your chest as one of many sensations as you prepare to leap off a cliff and build a plane on the way down.

Not literally, of course.

Yet those same sensations appear as described when you start your own business. The realisation hits hard now with personal experience. But not necessarily in a terrible way.

Keep reading to learn:

• the steps I took to sell a course before creating it
• how pivots helped me in the process
• key lessons to take forward in my next course creation

Now, I have been out of the corporate circuit for a year. I find it FREEING, even if it was nerve-racking at first.

Allow me to explain before I get into the case study.

In my past life, it would take three months to a year to create business plans (and allowing the flexibility to rewrite those plans in response to the changing environment). As brand leads, we prepare these plans with an entourage of agency partners while managing stakeholders every step of the way. More people involved means more meetings. More meetings mean slower decision-making. Not always true, but 95% of the time.

Fast forward to today, and as the owner of mindful movement brand Seven Sundays Yoga, a plan no longer takes up to a year to make, approve, and put into action. It takes mere hours without an entourage or stakeholder management.

And feedback can be instant. Feedback such as clicks, comments, and purchases are indicators of intent. Taking feedback leads me to the idea of pivots. Pivoting led me down this whole process of course idea-fit before creating it.

Learning to pivot has been a skill honed in COVID times. In all honesty, when I left the corporate circuit, I intended to build an entirely different business to the one I have now.

But as borders closed, as small businesses shut up shop, and big businesses put their plans on hold, my marketing consultancy spluttered to a stop before it could even get up.

So I pivoted.

I had trained as a yoga teacher during a career break and decided to put that training into use, even though I was starting from zero. I don’t have a large social media following or the backing of a studio or regular clients. I had covered some classes, but the reality was — I was starting from scratch.

Lockdown restrictions also meant I could only teach online. Far from ideal for a new yoga teacher with no students and no studio backing.

But as luck would have it, I started teaching a weekly online class for a well-established fitness brand (for free) before moving some of those students into paying for sessions with me.

While the outcome was better than not teaching (and getting that wonderful support), it was pennies to my previous monthly income.

So I pivoted.

I used my income from teaching classes to start running Google ads for yoga for beginners course. I hadn’t created the course yet, but I had a loose vision of what I wanted to teach.

At this point, the question you may be asking is — why was I advertising something I hadn’t yet created?

The usual purpose of advertising is to tell others about a product or service with the intent to sell.

Yet, here I was using Google Ads to test.

Testing which combinations of words and images would get clicked on. I was looking for instant, credible feedback. I created a landing page (imperfect by today’s standards), but it served a purpose.

In my mind, the best case was I would sell a spot to the course — the worst case was I would gather insights on what compelled strangers to click and act.

Lesson learned

A different mindset can be the difference between taking action instead of procrastinating. From my viewpoint, I didn’t see the process as wasting money; I saw it as gathering insights.

Here are the steps I took to sell the course before it was even ready

Step 1

I used Google Ads to test headlines, features, benefits, images.

I know the cheaper way is to ask friends, family, or Facebook groups. But the feedback would have been at a much smaller scale. Remember that I wanted credible feedback. Which meant I needed a larger sample size of people.

In my five-week test and a $20 daily budget, I reached almost 2,000 people. Of that, my click-through rate was 5.82%.

More importantly, I could see which combination was effective enough to compel a stranger to click and leave their details.

Step 2

I messaged my students individually and indicated that I was moving to a ten-week program and no longer teaching weekly classes.

I invited them to join the program with a pitch using the most appealing combination of headlines, features, benefits, and images.

The result? I signed up one student. It wasn’t a knockout result, but there was potential.

Step 3

I messaged the past students who seemed interested but didn’t sign up and asked why. As I sifted through the feedback, I realised ten weeks was too long of a commitment.

I tuned the program for eight weeks and kept tweaking the copy on the landing page.

At this point, I had only created the first two modules of the program and a quarter of the course. Yes, with one student signup.

Step 4

I approached the potential students again through personalised text messages with a reworked pitch along with a compelling testimonial.

And I sold more spots. With one sales page, a reworked pitch, a testimonial, and a quarter of my course created.

Lesson learned: Treat feedback as a gift.

Here is where the analogy of building an aeroplane in mid-air is so relevant. I pitched my course before I created it to see which pitch landed the best. I asked for feedback continuously to craft the most effective offer, course, and pitch.

I only started building my course when I sold a spot. I created more modules week by week so that I could get feedback along the way. I used student feedback to co-create the build.

Side note: It also gives my students a sense of ownership in the success (for their results and the program).

Wrap up

As we near the end of the case study, let me be honest with you. When you step through the process on paper, it seems so simple and logical. While I was living it, it felt messy and far from easy.

On paper, it’s methodical. In real life, it’s two steps forward and one step back.

The hardest part though is taking that first step.

Accept that your first version will look and read like a bad first draft (even after ten versions later). That mindset shift can be the difference between taking that first step forward to not doing anything at all.

So if you have a genuine offer, start with imperfect and done.

Get it out there, start testing and get feedback. Keep it simple — and get results.