How to Make Money Through Online Training, Consultations and Seminars

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Once upon a time I thought that I just could write great, useful posts, reply to people’s emails and give free courses and in return people would give me tips and donations. I thought I would make a lot of money online this way.

Only a few, countable people since then have given me a tip or free gift for my work. I was so happy to hear, “Hey, take this cash for the good work you’ve done.” Thank you guys so much.

Apart from the few people who sent me some “thank you” cash, I didn’t earn anything else.

This taught me one thing: For you to actually earn from your training, and remain motivated to keep going on and on, you need to create a paid course!

90% of my training is still free via my blog, email and social media groups.

However I created different trainings and eBooks to help people deeper and also keep putting some food on my table. And I must say that it has helped build many online professionals, as well as helped me earn a good buck!

Note that if we talk of a career trajectory, all freelancers should aim to one day create a training that will help other people to get to where they are. Yes, it can make you rich but the greatest joy from this is the fulfillment you get when your trainees start making it. Then they come back with their success stories.

Here is how you can make money training people.

Create eBooks

It is so easy to create an ebook.

Below is the procedure you can follow.

  • Make sure you are an expert in the field you are going to write about. Whether it is online business or farming, make sure you really know your stuff.
  • Write on MS Word or another good word processor.
  • Get a graphic designer or head over to Fiverr and get someone to create for you a nice 2D and 3D ebook cover.
  • Put the 2D ebook cover on the first page of your Word document.
  • Brand your eBook: Put headers and footers with your site link, phone number, offer or anything else that would brand your asset (the eBook).
  • Make sure you format and layout your eBook properly e.g. changing fonts, inserting links, creating a table of contents, adding any necessary graphics e.t.c.
  • Let the last chapter/page talk about your other products/trainings.
  • Save as PDF
  • Price it any amount you’d like. In my experience eBooks sell more if they are priced at Sh. 500 and below.

Start marketing it heavily though guest blogs, other people’s mailing lists, social media, forums e.t.c.

Note that this post talks about normal PDF eBooks. You’d have to do more research if you want to do Kindle ebooks.

Email Based Trainings

In my experience, online trainings sell more, way more, than eBooks. And one of the ways of doing them is through automated, pre-set emails that go out automatically at pre-set intervals after a trainee subscribes.

Here is how you can do your email-based training:

  • Decide on what you are going to train about. You have to practically be an expert in the field or get an expert to run it.
  • Decide on how many days you want the training to run. For purposes of this blog post, we’ll assume it will run for 7 days, a lesson per day.
  • Create lessons 1-7 on a normal Word document.
  • Sign up to email marketing software that has an autoresponder feature. An autoresponder is a software that allows emails to be sent automatically at specified intervals. I personally use AWeber for my email marketing and autoresponder needs.
  • Copy paste each lesson to an email corresponding to each day e.g. Lesson 1 to go out on first day, Lesson 2, on second and so forth.
  • Create a good web form where people can sign up to the training
  • Choose a price for your training. In my experience I have noticed that people love trainings that cost below Sh. 1,000. However, I have also seen online trainings going for even more than 2500 but people still buy.
  • Market the course widely online.

Organize seminars

I was initially really shy and afraid of creating this but eventually I decided to get out of the closet and try it out.

It has been phenomenal.

So far the different seminars I have organized have been smashing successes.

Here is how you can create a seminar.

  • Decide on the main topic to focus on. You still have to be a pro at it.
  • Think of one or two more people who are also good in it
  • Reach out to the different people you’d like to partner with and agree on the different topics to tackle
  • Market the seminar widely online, especially on mailing lists and social media groups. Facebook event pages work wonders on such events. Make sure you create an event page.
  • Get a graphics guy to do a great event graphic
  • Choose a good venue and view it in advance to ensure it’s what you want
  • Make noise about the seminar on and offline
  • On the seminar date, be 2 hours early to make sure that all equipment works fine. Machines have a way of changing their minds last minute J
  • Find a way of organizing all the event material properly. This can be in form of PowerPoint Presentations, PDF notes, handouts, video shoots, photos etc. This way you can sell the material to those who did not attend.
  • After the seminar, make sure you make good use of the “waru moment”. This is the period after the seminar where those who missed really feel bad. That bad feeling in old sheng used to be called “kusikia waru”. While people are still in the “waru moment”, put a lot of photos, testimonials and even teaser clips of videos to make them really want to buy event materials.
  • Keep organizing seminars every few months collaborating with different people in your niche.

Paid Consultations

“Just meet people for free!”

This is said a lot on social media when someone wants to meet and train people.

This is only until the person gets so many people to meet that they can’t do their own work. And eventually the bills come knocking. Then they realize that the next month they will not make the same mistake.

Paid consultations are simple, just decide on a fee that you will charge people when you meet. Charge per hour. This way, when you meet guys you still get compensated for the time you’d have spent doing paid jobs. For example, I charge Sh. 700 per hour for paid meetings.

Something else you didn’t know. When you charge someone for a meeting, they take you more seriously and will really put some thought before they call you. They realize some things are simply answered by Mr. Google.

Membership Sites

I am not a pro at this. But I have done some paid trainings through membership sites. These include AffiloBlueprint and Blog Post Promotion.

This involves creating sites where people can sign up and get all the content organized in a certain format, from the first to the last lesson or module. It is then up to them to follow that order and participate in any prescribed tasks.

There are also sites, such as SmartKenyan and Udemy, where you can host and sell your trainings.

Serious point to note

I have said this many times in this post and I will say it again. Make sure you are good at what you do, and have a heart of helping your trainee. I have seen people smashed online for offering shoddy trainings. In my experience, people prefer paying anything below 1k for online trainings, of course depending on the depth and period it will take. Below 1k may even be 999..he he he.

Conclusion

Once again, make sure that as much as possible of what you do is free e.g. blog posts, email and social media blasts.

However for really deep, time consuming stuff, you can create a professional online training that can really help people make it. The goal at the end of the day should be to see as many people as possible making it, not for you to get rich.

Have you ever made money training people on anything? How did you do it? What do you think about the methods above? Let’s hear it on the comments 🙂

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