Need Business Models for Licensing Training Courses to Small-to-Large Companies
Jul 28, 2015
Hello All,
I'm starting a business to develop online training courses for the geotechnical industry. First course is finished. A company is interested in purchasing it. They heard about the course from a colleague who had seen the demo. My business isn’t live yet so whoo hoo, a possible first customer before the doors are officially opened.
But now! Yikes! How to set a price!?
In the geotech industry, a going rate for a one-hour “class” is between $200-$300 per seat. “Class” is in quotes because most of the classes consist of a voice reading the words on a set of PowerPoint slides. Sigh.
Me on the phone to the potential customer: “The price of the course will be $300 per seat.”
Potential customer: Silence
Me: “Umm, you’re kind of quiet.”
Potential customer: “That price would be cost prohibitive for the number of people we want to train.”
Me: “I’m open to suggestions.”
Potential customer: “Other vendors license their content to us on a yearly basis. They usually charge a flat rate depending on the size of the company. For instance, a company that is <50 employees would pay X per year, a company with 51-100 employees would pay Y a year…”
So, my question to the Articulate community is: Does anyone use—or know of—a business model for pricing online training courses such as the one the potential customer mentioned? Different flat rates for different sized companies?
This potential customer also wants to put the training course on the company’s LMS. Hmmm, if that happens, then how do I protect my IP?
Thanks for your help!
Dana
PS I'm going to be attending the Seattle Articulate Roadshow on Aug 4 & 5, 2015. If you are too, please drop me a note to say hello.
5 Replies
Hi Dana,
This article is a nice compilation of a number of threads that deal exactly with your question on how to price and charge for your course work.
Best of luck on the project and working with the client.
Hi Ashley,
Thanks so much for the reply and the link! The link is super helpful.
However, my fault for not mentioning that I found the link yesterday, read through all the posts and replies, but still didn't find an answer to my question. That's why I decided to post. : )
I see that the Freelance Heroes thread is over 50 pages long and starting to get cumbersome. Would it be possible to add a Freelance Heroes section to the "Discuss" dropdown menu in the E-Learning Heroes toolbar? Right now, the dropdown options for discussions are:
Seems like there is a lot of interest around freelancing within the E-Learning Heroes community. If there was a separate discussion for freelancers, then separate threads within that discussion could be started.
No worries Dana - I always start with the easiest if it's not mentioned. The Freelance Heroes thread is growing a lot - and as you may have noticed due to it's size having some difficulties. You're welcome to start a new thread, and as that one is in the Building Better Courses section - these type of threads seem to do better over there, whereas the individual product sections are more focused on technical/support related questions.
In regards to your idea, it sounds like a great concept - and something you'll want to share in the form of a feature request as those go directly to our product development team (who manage web design here in ELH as well).
Ashley,
Thanks for the tips of (1.) starting a new thread in the Building Better Courses section and; (2.) sharing my idea with the product development team in the form of a feature request.
I'll do both of those things today!
Thanks again,
Dana
Happy to help Dana. :)
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