How To Validate Your Idea Before Creating Your Course

Only one thing can truly confirm your audience is hot for your idea:

MONEY

In other words, the only way to validate that you’ll get sales after launching your course is… 

To actually get course sales BEFORE you do that.

Other things, like a huge following, likes, people saying they “love” your idea or that they would “definitely buy” your course, etc., count for nothing in the real world. They’re just ego boosters.

You must see if people are ready to pull out their wallets when faced with your offer.

Now, you can just put your course together, launch it, and cross your fingers, hoping this will happen. A few people will find instant success this way. 

But most will end up losing both time and money the first time around.

Alternatively, you can see, without a shred of a doubt, if you’re on the right track BEFORE putting in the crux of the effort in bringing your course idea to life.

Today, I want to show you 2 proven methods virtually anyone can try to do this. With minimum stress and time & money investment.

Let’s dive into it.

Method One For True Market Validation: The Pre-Sell

Doing a Pre-Sell ensures you see if money will roll in sooner rather than later. Meaning before you actually create every aspect of your course and make it as perfect as possible.

So, you’ll pick your niche, get at least some followers among your ideal audience, design your course program, and create the most irresistible pre-sell offer you can.

But that’s where you stop for now and go to market. Forget about creating the course and making every step phenomenal.

Instead, create a sales page for your offer (and/or possibly a webinar if it fits your pre-sell approach) and get your followers to it. 

You can offer people one of two things:

1. A course that will be available on a certain date.
2. A program you’ll teach live over a certain number of weeks/months.

The next step is the “simplest” of all:

You stop and see if you’re making any sales.

A caveat when doing the Pre-Sell is you must do it right for the results to be valid. So, don’t just throw a random offer together, slack off on the copy, etc. 

Because that might be the reason for failure.

Make sure you create the best possible offer and sales pitch based on your idea, goals, and the target audience’s desires/needs.

Do this, and then sales (or lack thereof) will unambiguously show if you’re on the right track and should proceed with creating & launching your course.

Note: If you don’t get enough sales to make creating the course/doing the program profitable for you but still have some sales…

You can simply refund the people who bought. Along with an honest & relatable reason for doing so that keeps them on your followers list. 

Method Two For True Market Validation: The Boot Camp

You may have thought along the lines of:

“I need to see if my idea will work, what results I can get people, and what I can learn from their experience. So, why not get a small group of people together and offer them my course/program for free?”

Well, while this would crash all barriers to entry — there would be no true validation here… 

Because money doesn't change hands.

Plus, people don’t pay that much attention when they get something for free. Which leads to little participation and low motivation to go through your course the way you intended.

This is where the Boot Camp comes in.

You come out with a price people must pay upfront to get in. Be flexible here — but make sure it’s something they aren’t comfortable giving up on.

Then, promise a FULL refund if people simply give you full participation and do what you ask of them. This way, you get only interested people coming in and ensure they’re pumped up to go through your course. 

Which in turn leads to better results (and consequently testimonials), along with superior feedback you can use to improve your course.

In terms of prep work for the Boot Camp, you do everything as for the Pre-Sell. You just change the pitch — the course is free, but you get your money back in the end as long as you complete it in the intended way. 

Also, you should almost always do the Boot Camp live. 

That’s what I’ve done with my piano audience. And even though I admit it was painful to refund all the people in the end…

The benefits I reaped were more than worth it.

Plus, I’m not an exception. Virtually anyone can get the following benefits from a well-organized Boot Camp:

• A way to verify there’s demand for your course.
• Amazing feedback that helps you significantly improve the course.
• Cool testimonials to post.
• Turning the bootcamp recordings into a bonus (my Piano Course customers loved this).
• Or even using those recordings as the initial version of the course, further lowering your investment while getting paid.

In a nutshell, even though you don’t get rock-hard money…

You get a great foundation for making your course a smashing success.

And your prospects benefit too. Because, if you do it right, the Boot Camp comes with a really powerful offer. 

People can both reach their dream outcome…

And keep their money.

If you can’t sell them this – you dodged a bullet and saved a lot of time bringing an unmarketable idea to life.

If you can, you’ll set up your launch for success in all the ways I mentioned above and more.

Conclusion

You don’t want to spend countless hours and waste money putting together a course no one wants to buy. That’s why it’s crucial to test if you’re on the right track BEFORE you make the biggest commitments.

As long as you do them right, both methods above help you do this smoothly and get unambiguous results.

So, choose the one that fits your preferences (personally, I love the Boot Camp because I’ve seen it work like gangbusters in my and my mentees’ businesses) and give it a shot. 

There’s virtually nothing to lose and much to gain.

Here’s to painlessly determining whether you've got a winning course idea on your hands.

I’m rooting for you.

-Jacques