How to Create and Sell an Online Course in 2026

I’ve been selling online courses and coaching for over 6 years and built a 6-figure business doing it.

I wasted years building courses nobody bought because I didn’t understand the real game behind successful online courses.

So in this video, I’m giving you the EXACT roadmap I wish I had when I got started so you can save money and skip the years of guesswork that I went through.

I’ll show you:

• How to create a course people actually want to buy before you build it
  
  
• How to make your launch as profitable as possible - even with a tiny audience
  
  
• And how to automate your course so it sells while you sleep
  
  

And if you’re serious about turning your online course into a predictable passive income stream, I’ve got a full masterclass on how to do it linked below this video.

The #1 mistake course creators make

Typical story of a course creator

• Suzie picks one out of 100 AMAZING ideas for a course then immediately spends months outlining modules, filming lessons, buying expensive equipment, and hunting for the perfect course hosting platform…

• Launch day comes, they all of a sudden start posting it everywhere… and the only responses are likes, compliments, and maybe one pity sale — but no real demand.
  

• Then they realize the painful truth: they spent months of their life building a course that nobody actually cared about.

This is why when they launch, they get crickets (I can hear them now)

The way you actually make money from selling online courses is by (ironically) NOT selling courses, and instead selling a transformation and an outcome that people care about. The course is just a vehicle.

We do that by first validating your course idea before you build anything…

Validating your course idea

• Start with a painful, urgent, expensive problem. EX: Help me lose 20 pounds before my wedding without ONLY eating chicken and broccoli / I need clients NOW because my income is inconsistent and I don’t know how I’m gonna pay my bills.
  
  
• Stop meditating, journaling, or manifesting the “perfect” course idea and start talking to real humans. You'll learn more about your audience in one 30-minute call than you will from six months of writing and guessing.
  
  
• Ask what they’ve tried, what hasn’t worked, what they actually want to learn how to do, what problem they want to solve most, and would a course even make sense for that.
  
  
• Look for patterns in their problems and their language and boil it down to the top 1-3 problems
  
  
• If you’ve done a lot of sales calls or strategy sessions, go through the notes or drop them into ChatGPT and have it pull out the 3 biggest pain points that you could turn into a course.
  
  
• Once you have 1-3 course ideas, pick ONE and validate the IDEA before building your course.

• Create a simple offer like a $27 workshop, ebook, or pdf guide, even coaching package. If people would pay you $2k, $5k, or $10k+ to solve this problem, that’s a good sign they would buy a lower-cost DIY course.

• If nobody buys, don’t build the course — either refine the messaging or move onto your other idea and try again

• Start with something easy & small that sells the IDEA and OUTCOME of your course. Validation ONLY happens when people pay.

Building your first online course

• Your course becomes 10x easier to build once you’ve coached people through the process because the questions they ask literally shape your modules.

• Shorter courses outperform long ones. EX: Instead of a course on mastering the entire game of golf, make one one mastering the GOLF SWING

• Teach the transformation in the shortest path possible. Production value doesn’t matter as much as clarity

• Structure your course for momentum, quick wins, short lessons and let real student questions shape your modules. (YT course/CTC example)

• Add templates, worksheets, scripts, etc to reduce friction - kajabi course example
  
  

Launching your online course

• Make your launch a big deal and build some buzz (Avengers example)

• Create a deadline with one of these scarcity elements: Doors close, extra bonus, price goes up (pick at least one)
  
  
• Focus on the transformation, not the features. Talk about the problem more than the product itself. Share student stories and address FAQ’s

• If you have an email list, email them 3 days BEFORE launch week (mon, wed, friday) teasing your dropping something big - keep it related to your course. Send 7  emails on launch week, 1 each day Mon-Thurs and 3 on Friday (am, afternoon, and pm)

• KEEP REMINDING THEM OF THE SCARCITY ELEMENT 

• No list? Go live and make stories every day addressing the core problems your course solves as a “teaser” before launch week.

• Your first launch is for learning, not profits.
  
  
• Launch it messy, learn from it, and fix it later

Automating your online course

• Pre-record only after you know the process works
  
  
• Use a tool like Kajabi to seamlessly automate your course

• Create an evergreen funnel: lead magnet → email sequence → sales page

• Lead magnet solves ONE small problem related to your course. EX: a simple pdf guide or video that stops people slicing or hooking everytime they swing a golf club

Email sequence

• Day 1: Teach
• Day 2: Teach
• Day 3: Teach/Offer
• Day 4: Offer
• Day 5: Offer (Urgency)
  
  
• Use YouTube/podcast/social to drive traffic
  
  
• Track your funnel metrics monthly: Traffic → Opt Ins → Sales
  
  
• Once your funnel converts, double down on traffic with SEO, YouTube, paid ads

• Leverage as much organic as you can BEFORE ads. Ads just reveal problems and unless you have money to keep testing - you’ll run out.
  
  
• Passive income isn’t magic - it’s a system. And once the system works, you get leverage that feels like freedom. Whether you do ads, SEO or YouTube, you still need to work and monitor things. BUT you do have a lot more leverage.

Here’s the truth most people never hear:

Successful online courses aren’t built by guessing harder or working longer. They’re built by listening first, validating early, and letting real demand do the heavy lifting.

You don’t need a massive audience.

You don’t need perfect videos.

And you definitely don’t need another half-finished course collecting dust on your hard drive.

What you do need is a simple system:

prove the idea → sell the outcome → build what already works → automate it for leverage.

That’s how you turn effort into momentum—and momentum into freedom.

If you’re ready to stop hoping your course sells and start building one that actually does, I’ll show you the exact roadmap inside the masterclass below.
No fluff. No guesswork.

Just the process that works when you work it.

Take the next step.