How to sell more than 100 seats in your online course to one corporate customer

Sep 26, 2024

The next year will see the amount is currently allocated for training, coaching and consultation in small to large size organizations, non-profits, as well as associations.

56% of this training is provided by outside instructors and facilitators (experts just like you).

Here's the thing that's fascinating: over half of this education will be delivered on the web.

What I Learned Being the Decision Maker for the 7-figure training budget

In my former life, I served as the Chief Learning Officer of a large organization. My budget of annual expenditure was well over 7-figures.

I bought all kinds of courses including NLP to our sales staff and alkaline diets to our retreat for the executive team to the drumming circle for our company celebration, as well as every other thing you'd expect to find like leadership production, sales etc.

The lesson I have learned was this: If you can connect what you are doing with the outcome a business would like, they will want to deal with them.

How to sell your online Courses to Corporate Clients is a Good Idea

Since I launched my own business instructing experts and business how to create courses that have attracted thousands of dollars in online course, coaching and consulting revenue from entrepreneurs and larger corporate clients. Here are a few strategies to achieve exactly the same thing:

1. You are able to offer multiple "seats" within your class to one client. I have had corporate clients buy 10, 20, 50, 100 or even 250 seats in my classes with prices ranging between $179-$1997.

2. It is possible to combine your online course offer with up-sell offers like online group coaching, or an on-site custom or virtual implementation session.

3. It is easy to modify the existing online course to suit a corporate customer. It is possible to add additional access for your customers by having a private implementation call for all participants from the company hosting your course. Or, you can develop an application that is related to the company's current initiatives based on what you are teaching within your class. There are endless possibilities.

4. Corporate clients may help you get even additional individual customers. Sharing that you work with corporate clients will give you an instant boost of credibility when marketing your offers to individual clients.

The process of selling an online course to a Corporate Client Before You Design The Course

If you don't already have an online course created to sell? Pre-selling a corporate client an online course prior to establishing it can be a powerful method to determine what you should include in the course and also to fund course's development.

It's much more straightforward than it seems. Meetings with corporate clients, I systematically guide them through a research process and have them tell me the things they'd like to include as an online training course.

It is then possible to turn around and sell that information to corporate customers or offer it to private clients.

What to Look For If Corporate Clients Buy What You Offer

There are two questions you should ask to find out the likelihood that corporate clients will take the offers you make.

Question 1: Is your course topic something corporations would like to learn more about?

Here are a handful of the training categories that corporate clients invest in every year:

Accounting and Finance
Administrative Training
Customer Service
Health and Wellness
Human Resources
Specialized Training in the industry Specific Instruction
Information Technology
Leadership and Management
Marketing
Personal Growth and Development
Organization and Productivity
Sales Training
Software
Strategy, Creativity, and Innovation
Team Development
Facilitation and Training

Question 2: What does the topic I chose for my class link to a result a company would invest in?

One easy way to get corporate customers to appreciate the worth of your course is to link the outcomes that your program generates to the profit you earn.

It's simple to recognize the link to earning money with courses on topics such as selling skills and social media marketing, isn't it?

But, what if you are teaching a topic which has no obvious relationship like sleep therapy?

It is possible to ask the following 2 questions:

What will the outcome my offer will deliver?

How does this result connect to profitability?

As an example, below are some of the topics that my clients have provided to the corporate client market:

Class Topic	What's the end result that you're delivering?	How does this result relate to profit?
Sleep Therapy	Getting infants to get to	Employers with babies and kids are often sleep-deprived Sleep deprivation results in lower productivity The lack of sleep could lead to parents who have children rethinking their decision to return back to work
Boundaries	What can you do to avoid having conversations that hinder your team	Employees procrastinate on having tough conversations Not having tough conversations holds the team in meeting deadlines or achieving targets
Writing	How do you create persuasive copy?	Better marketing copy boosts sales Well-written online content via blogs, emails or technical guides improves the engagement of customers.
Storytelling	What can you do to tell the "Hero's Journey" tale	Storytelling creates emotional connection Customers invest with brands they feel emotional connection to The brand's emotional appeal boosts sales

If you are an expert, coach, consultant or freelancer who speaks author, or small-business owner There is an enormous potential for you to work with small and large businesses as well as non-profits and associations.

In the upcoming free webinar to the public I'll go over the ways to get corporate clients. This includes:

Who is buying who, what are they purchasing and how much they are spending and what they spend, and how do you know whether they will purchase from what you offer
The most important thing to never say in a meeting with a prospective corporate customer (this will send you into the black hole of "We'll return to you later" ..." and it virtually never leads to a sales)
How to move from selling online courses programmes, courses and other services by enrolling one student at a time to offering packages that include 50, 100 or more, to one company
What you must to accomplish before picking your phone or write an email so that your clients can see the that there is value to what you provide and be willing to pay for your offerings (most people don't do this, and don't even reach first base)
An effective 4-Part Conversation Frame to lead a conversation with your client in order to lead closer to closing the deal

Do you want to know if small, medium, or large businesses will invest in your knowledge? Download the "How to Determine whether Corporate Clients will Pay for Expertise: 100 Training Topics Corporations will purchase this year" Guide.

Jeanine Blackwell is creator of Create 6-Figure Courses(r) as well as The Launch Lab. She has assisted thousands of experts develop and launch lucrative online courses, and has designed world-class learning and online courses for brands like Estee Lauder, Aveda, 3M, Disney, Samsung, Princess Cruises, Boeing, Sotheby's, and Smithsonian Institute. Jeanine talks about online learning strategy and digital marketing and has performed on stages with numerous powerful influencers including Marianne Williamson, Daniel Pink, Marcus Buckingham, and Deepak Chopra.