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How do you sell 100+ Seats In Your Online Course to One Corporate Client

Sep 26, 2024

In the coming year, more than $8 billion has been approved for spending on courses, coaching and consulting in small to large size organizations, non-profits, as well as associations.

  56% of this instruction is given by outside instructors and facilitators (experts just like yourself).  

And, here's what's really interesting: more than half of this education is delivered via the internet.

  What I learned from being the Executive Decision Maker in the 7-figure training budget  

In my former life, I served as the Chief Learning Officer of an enormous company. My budget of annual expenditure was in excess of 7 figures.

I purchased all sorts of training that ranged from NLP for our sales team and alkaline diets for our executive team retreat to drumming circles for our company celebration, as well as all the standard stuff like leadership production, sales and so on.

What I've learned is: If you can tie what you're doing to a result a company would like, they will want to work with them.

  Why Selling Your Online Courses to Corporate Customers is a good idea  

Since I launched my own company training experts and companies how to create courses and courses, I've racked up millions in online coaching and consulting sales from both entrepreneurs and larger corporate clients. Here are a few ways you can do exactly the same thing:

1. You can sell multiple "seats" within your class to one client. Corporate clients have been able to buy 10, 20, 50, 100 and even 250 seats in my courses at prices ranging between $179-$1997.

2. It is possible to combine the online courses you offer with additional offers such as online group coaching, or an on-site customized or virtual sessions for implementation.

3. You can easily customize an existing online course for a corporate customer. The course can be customized to give more access for your customers by having a private implementation call for all students from the company hosting your course. You can also develop an application that is in line with the current initiatives based on what you are teaching in your course. There are endless options.

4. Getting corporate clients can aid in gaining more individual clients. The fact that you have worked with corporate customers can give your business an instant boost of credibility when advertising your services to private clients.

  Selling an Online Course to a Corporate Client Before You Create The Course  

What if you don't have a course online for sales? The idea of selling a corporation an online course prior to establishing it is a great approach to clarify what to include in your course AND fund your course's development.

This is simpler than you think. In meetings with corporate clients, I routinely guide them through a research procedure and ask them to share the things they'd like to see on an online course.

Then you can turn it around and sell that information to corporate customers or offer it to private customers.

  How to Know If Corporate Customers Purchase Your Products  

There are 2 questions you can ask to know the likelihood that corporate clients will take your offers.

  Question 1: Is the class topic one that companies would like to learn more about?  

Here are a handful examples of the types of training companies invest in each 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
  • Efficiency and Organization
  • Sales Training
  • Software
  • Strategy, Creativity, Innovation
  • Team Development
  • Facilitation and Training

  Question 2. What is my topic of study? How does it connect to an outcome that an investment by a business?  

One easy way to get corporate clients to recognize the value of your program is by linking the results your course generates to profit.

It's not difficult to discern how profitable it is to take advantage of course topics like the art of selling or marketing via social media, doesn't it?

But, what if you're teaching about a subject with a less obvious connection like sleep therapy?

You can ask these 2 questions:

What are the results my proposal will bring?

How does this result connect to profit?

As an example, below are a few topics that my clients have offered to corporate clients:

Class Topic What's the outcome you are delivering? How does this result link to profits?
Sleep Therapy Getting infants to sleep
  • Workers with infants or young children are sleep deprived
  • Sleep deprivation results in lower productivity
  • Sleep deprivation can lead to a new parent rethinking their decision to return back to work
Boundaries How to have conversations that slow your team down
  • The employees put off having difficult conversations
  • A lack of difficult conversations can hold the team back in meeting deadlines or achieving objectives
Writing How do you write convincing copy?
  • A better copy of marketing improves sales
  • The well-written content on the internet through blogs, emails, or technical guides can increase the level of customer engagement
Storytelling What can you do to tell with others your "Hero's Journey" account
  • Storytelling creates emotional connection
  • Customers make their money from brands that they have emotional attachment to
  • A strong emotional connection to the brand can increase the number of sales

If you are an expert or coach or freelancer who speaks, author or small business, there is a big chance to serve smaller businesses, large companies as well as non-profits and associations.

In the next free webinar for members of the community I'll go over how to gain corporate clients. This includes:

  • Who buys, what they are buying as well as what they pay for, and how to know whether they purchase what you offer
  • One thing that you must not say during a meeting with a potential corporate client (this could send you down the black hole of "We'll return to you later" ..." and it is almost never a sales)
  • How to move from selling your online courses, programs and other offers only one enrollment at a go to selling packages comprising 50, 100, or more, to one company
  • It is the most important thing to accomplish before picking your phone or write an email to have clients see worth in your services and to invest in your services (most people don't do this, and don't even reach first base)
  • A powerful 4-Part Conversation Frame to facilitate a dialogue with a customer to bring them closer to closing the deal

  Are you wondering if medium, small or even large companies will invest in your knowledge? Here is the link to download "How to Determine the Corporate Clients who will pay for your expertise: 100 Training Topics Corporations Will Buy This Year" Guide.

Jeanine Blackwell is creator of Create 6-Figure Courses(r) and The Launch Lab. She has helped thousands of experts develop and launch lucrative online courses. She also designed worldwide online course learning models for major brands such as Estee Lauder, Aveda, 3M, Disney, Samsung, Princess Cruises, Boeing, Sotheby's, and Smithsonian Institute. Jeanine is a speaker on online learning strategy and digital marketing and has shared the stage with many powerful influencers including Marianne Williamson, Daniel Pink, Marcus Buckingham, and Deepak Chopra.