Technophobe question: what next?

Hi Michael, since you are a self-claimed technophobe with no real techincal support I would not advise trying to host your courses on your own website.

You might want to consider putting your course up on Open Sesame or some other thirdparty site. Open Sesame takes a cut of everything you sell but make it easy for people who do not have their own ecommerce sites to host and sell courses.

If you contact them at www.opensesame.com, I am sure they would be happy to guide you through what you need to do to set up an account and upload a course.

The key thing to keep in mind is that you have to have some way to direct your clients and potential clients to this site so they know to go there to get your courses.

If you have your own website, you should provide a link directly to the open sesame site. If you don't have a website, you need to market the elearning courses in the same why you would market your traditional training courses.

Hi Nancy.  Many thanks for this advice!

OK Michael – some thoughts. Please take them as advice based on personal thoughts and experience, not necessarily truth. Please also be aware that I can on occasions be blunt as an orange.

First – Nancy is spot on. You run a training business, not a technical support function for supporting and paying for training courses. As you are obviously not confident in this area, make a business decision, albeit perhaps temporary to let someone else be the expert. This will cost something, but weigh it against the Opportunity Cost of NOT doing so.

Next – it worries me a little that you seem to be suggesting a 1:1 swapout of content, “…all the content is there..”). I have never in the thousands of modules I have built ever seen an effective 100% swapout of “classroom”to “online”. They are different tools, with different objectives and focus points, to be used in different ways. I hope, for your sake, that you have not just gone “all creative”, and have hired an instructional designer.

Next – as a business person, it worries me hugely that the owner of some courses, has said on a public forum that their product may be “amateurish”,and they are unsure if they will sell.  Business(yours and mine), is all about checking these things BEFORE creating them.Any business is. Market Research, focus groups, product testing etc. etc. It seems a little odd to me that you have spent money on a “…creative graduate type…” to create a product that, (potentially…),may be designed incorrectly (see second point above…), and which may have no market.

Hmmmm. It’s not a question of “...risking too much money untiI get some business from it…” – it’s surely a question of risking some money to ensure your business does not collapse?

Just my 2p worth, and I hope that it helps re-frame your thinking in a positive way.

Bruce

OK - that all sounds great then.

Technical features do not a great course make - learning design does, we are all learning here

Bruce