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The Wellness Creator Podcast is your go-to source for expert insights and actionable tips in the evolving world of health, wellness, and spiritual-based business. Join us as we explore proven online growth strategies, chat about current trends, and interview fellow wellness creators who’ve managed to turn passion into profit by helping people live better, healthier lives.
Jeni (00:01)
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Creator podcast. I'm Jeni Barcellos and I'm joined with my co-host Sandy Connery. We are the co-founders of the Marvelous Software Platform. And today we're gonna talk to you about something many of you have been writing in and asking about. Are courses dead? Are online courses a thing of the past? What is our hot take on this, Sandy?
Sandy (00:25)
Yeah, I think I just, I don't know why, but I've seen it everywhere that courses aren't working anymore. You got to do things different in 2025. Obviously we've built a whole platform around online courses and memberships and coaching. So I just think it's worth talking this out because I don't think courses are dead is literally true. I do think we maybe need to rethink kind of rejig things a little bit, but courses are not dead.
Jeni (00:55)
Yeah, not at all. I mean, there's shifts in the economy for sure. We've seen different trends changing over time. I think that there was like this post or this pandemic gold rush that took place with kind of online education. And that I think is a thing of the past. I think we're kind of back into normal territory, but courses and memberships and coaching and all the rest online events.
Sandy (01:07)
Yes.
Jeni (01:18)
We're a thing before the pandemic and obviously there are still a thing now, but we're kind of back into normal zone where there are some rules that apply. It's not just like slap something together and put it up with a checkout page anymore.
Sandy (01:31)
Yep.
Right. think what is dead is, you know, a multi course or multi lesson, multi module course, then lifetime access. And you, like you said, slap it up sales page and you just wait for the passive income that is entirely dead. And there's also a marketing component to this, but you're not going to get in today, but just the structure and thinking about what your client is actually looking for. That's what we're going to, we're going to discuss today.
Jeni (01:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and I'll just say that this is what we've been telling our coaching clients back when we were coaching business. Everything everyone has ever wanted to learn is available online. That is just a fact, and it's even more true now with AI tools that make it easier and easier for people to sort of find and synthesize that information. And so what is different about you as...
Sandy (02:07)
forever.
more so.
Jeni (02:28)
an expert and as a creator is like your unique take, your like spin on something, your synthesis, your lifetime of experience kind of honing in and developing expertise in a certain area, your personalized advice, et cetera, et cetera, right? Like you are the common factor here that sets you apart from like what is freely available to people through libraries and AI tools and.
Google and the rest. so that's that's always been true, but there was just a little blip where kind of we didn't have AI yet and people realized the internet was a source of information where like you could kind of get away with putting out something, making some money from something that wasn't that great. That time I think is past. Yeah.
Sandy (03:20)
Yeah,
think people still want, yes, you, your personality, your personal expertise and your eyes on their whatever you're teaching, their business life, whatever. I think speed and accuracy, I'm not sure if that's the right word, but like the promise that this is going to work. I want the outcome and I need to know that you're going to get me to that point faster than if I was to sit and go back.
Jeni (03:27)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sandy (03:49)
and forth with chat GPT. Plus I want you to kind of guide me and help me the personalization.
Jeni (03:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and AI tools are kind of full of shit sometimes, right? So like,
I think I have just noticed this too, was very like, even I don't know, nine, 10 months ago, a year ago, year and a half ago was like really sort of dazzled by AI tools. And I think it's like we've all kind of at this point realize like there's real significant value in these tools for various contexts.
my gosh, for summarizing, like helping with note taking, for whatever. But, like they make shit up. And like that, like if you are wanting, if your audience is wanting to learn something where accuracy is important and the truth is important because somebody could get hurt or like lose money or who knows, have legal problems, then like your human brain giving them, no, this is really what's true.
Sandy (04:50)
Great.
Jeni (04:50)
or this is really
what you need to know or do, that is so valuable in an era where like kind of inaccuracy is everywhere around.
Sandy (05:02)
Right. Yeah. Okay. So we've got five different ⁓ rules or new rules. Some of them aren't really new about evolving your course. So let's go through the first one, which is ditch the bloat.
Jeni (05:08)
Yeah, and new rules. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, this is also something we've been saying for a long time, Sandy. So I think just reiterating the fact that more is not better, like the result is what people want, the outcome is what people want, the lesson learned is what people want, and you giving them 400 videos to get from point A to point B is actually a detriment to them and not a benefit, right? Like people want faster, more accurate, quicker results and not a bloated.
giant behemoth of information or like lessons or classes or whatever it is.
Sandy (05:47)
rate.
And I think that, I mean, that's very logical and people are probably nodding, but what we've seen the mindset mostly for women is that I'm going to give them more. I'm going to prove that I'm worthy to teach them. And so you over give you over teach and it just causes confusion and like, you know, people are out. just don't teach everything that you know, don't try to prove that you're the one like
Jeni (06:05)
Yeah.
Sandy (06:20)
give them just what they need to get to the result. You've got to put yourself aside and think of them and their time and getting them to the solution. Like what is the minimum that you need to add to this course to get them the results.
Jeni (06:34)
Yeah, I think that's right. I couldn't have said it better. Pretend like you're teaching in a university where students are paying a lot of money for every course and every lesson on that syllabus matters. That's hard cash that they're forking over because you're asking them to fork their time over, which is honestly more valuable and important. So don't waste people's time. I actually saw, this is actually related to some of you who teach fitness on the platform.
Sandy (06:54)
Right. That's right. Absolutely.
Jeni (07:02)
or are looking to get into teaching fitness or even like something that's really a directed yoga practice. I saw an article the other day that was so good. It was basically saying, it was written from the standpoint of someone who was taking online fitness classes and they were talking about how they were getting overwhelmed even on people's YouTube channels by like the vast number of classes and they figured out what really worked for them and their fitness and this was specifically for strength training was just picking.
a handful of classes and doing them over and over every single week. Like not doing from like not picking a different class for every day of the month or the year, which they could have from this channel, but like they're gonna pick five classes and do them every single week. And they were able to start to actually see results in their fitness. And I think that's so telling like, because you're exercising the same muscles, right? Like your body's actually.
Sandy (07:34)
Right.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Jeni (07:57)
Learning
from that and and like the mental fatigue is gone of like what freaking class to take this today So just give people like something that's gonna get them They want to have like more strength or more fitness give them the five things that they need. That's it. They don't need They don't need that. They don't need your 400 things
Sandy (08:01)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yep, absolutely.
Yeah, exactly. Okay. Number two is designing your course for completion, not just access. So, so not just they have access to all the things, but you're sort of curating so that they can get to the end successfully.
Jeni (08:28)
Yes. So this is. Yes, yes, yes.
This could look like dripping out. This could look like having a very small collection of lessons or classes. This could look like accountability check-ins where you're actually in the DMs checking in every week and asking people for a progress report or for them to send you something or checking in with on social media. I love this one because I think that... ⁓
you know, the statistics are pretty abysmal for online course completion rates. Like, it's pretty, like most people who buy something don't do it. That's been the outcome. We've been following this conversation for a decade or more, you know, as we've built out our platform. And so like, how do you, you know, is it gamification, which we sort of have shunned? Like, what are like the tools that you can use in online education to get people to actually do it?
that's like, are the carrots and what are the sticks? And I think that in this era, like you have to think about your particular product, the promise of your offer and like what are the tools that you can use to best get someone to actually finish the thing that they want to finish?
Sandy (09:50)
And this is where you can really, really differentiate yourself from AI. And I think AI can do like check-ins and stuff, like, no, no, no. But like if I have a coach or a teacher or a mentor who's like, you just gotta tell me on Vox or, in, know, give me a DM inside Marvelous that you've done this or your progress or whatever, that's totally different, right? People will pay for that.
Jeni (09:55)
Yeah. That's so lame.
Yeah, people pay, that's why people hire coaches, it's for accountability, like that is the reason. So I think even if you don't consider yourself a coach, when people are paying you for your expertise, you're kind of a coach.
Sandy (10:17)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's why I think about,
you know, I work out with a trainer as I've said numerous times now and like, I would never go to that by myself. I just wouldn't. Like I pay a lot of money to get my ass there and I love it when I'm there. But if I just like, I could just do this. Sure. I won't. I won't. I pay for him. Okay. So number three is make it feel personal.
Jeni (10:34)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. So this is going to like that idea of like potentially like DMs, you can do voice memos, like you can give people different like choose your own adventure paths based on like their, you know, their like level of fitness or their goals, like giving them a specific trajectory, you could even do this manually. Like that's a nice personal touch. When someone signs up for your course, like you do some sort of onboarding process where then you give them a personalized path of what to do in the program.
Sandy (11:14)
⁓ Yep.
Jeni (11:23)
I love that, like we used to talk about that in our coaching program as well. ⁓ And then I think also like having some sort of live interactive component with you.
Sandy (11:34)
Mm-hmm.
Office hours, live Q &A calls, know, something like that,
Jeni (11:40)
Yeah, there's a lot of ways to do that for like, I mean, group Vox, like Voxer, whatever, you can do it however you want. Yep.
Sandy (11:46)
Right, Slack, Slack groups,
something, anything. There's so many tools now. Okay, the fourth one is leading with ads, assets, not just information.
Jeni (11:59)
Yeah, so this is like a little bit of a shift from what we've said. This is one of the things that's different that I would say like that's evolving, that's worth paying attention to. So historically, Sandy, you and I have always advised people like nobody cares if it's an audio or a video or how many or whatever. Like they care about the outcome. But I think ⁓ what I've noticed on a lot of sales pages in our industry, in the wellness world,
is like there is a lot of information on those pages. Like you're sort of, I don't know, I will just say like this, we live in an era where people have very, very, very, very short attention spans. And like once you've shared enough information or facts about you to like pass the legitimacy test where like people now perceive you as an expert of some kind, like just enough. Don't overwhelm them like.
What is gonna sell them is like, what are you gonna do for me and how are you gonna get me there? Like what does that actually look like structurally?
Sandy (13:07)
Yeah, and I think like assets, ⁓ like these are things that you can add to the course, like libraries, meal planning sheets, audio lessons, meditations, breath work, whatever you do, journal prompts, recipes with like ⁓ shopping lists or whatever, ⁓ pre-class rituals like
These assets just add, and I think this is what you're saying. Like we would say that doesn't matter, like lead with the information and who you are, but now it's like, I think you do need to sort of sweeten the pot so that they've got these tools that can make them, ⁓ get to that goal faster, whatever they're trying to learn. It's just like easier. There's like pre written whatever, or list shopping lists or whatever, like
Those will be positioned as bonuses in the past. And I think you can still do that, but I think we do need to like, it's not just the information to learn that thing. It's also like, what are the supporting documents you can now give to, to help them.
Jeni (14:20)
Yeah, like actionable tools, for example. like, yeah, like AI, like people can go to quad or Gemini or whatever, or ChachiBiti and like, they have an endless, they have an endless kind of stream of information on anything that they're curious about, right? So that is, again, it might not be accurate. Let's just be clear. Like there might be like,
Sandy (14:22)
Useful tools. Yeah.
of information,
Jeni (14:46)
Pinocchio level fibbing going on in that but still like there's just it's an endless ongoing outpouring of content and so like being a creator now on the internet and being Someone who is selling something like an online course like you have to do things that chat GPT cannot do Or cannot do easily because it can do kind of anything but like let's just say most people cannot do anything with it, but like
Sandy (15:06)
Right. Right.
Jeni (15:13)
You have to do the thing that the AI tool at this point in time doesn't do. Like that's just it. So yeah, like an interactive journal prompt, whatever. Like think of all the things that you can do that the little robot doesn't do.
Sandy (15:27)
Yep. Okay. And the last one, I know you love this one too, is like, think about someone signing up for your course as an experience. Like they're going to experience something versus just like a course with seven modules.
Jeni (15:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yes, I mean I think honestly like we didn't talk about this one Sandy but the biggest point here for me is like The biggest no-no is don't use a shitty course platform like so obviously with marvelous if you're listening here like you and I bought a course the other day that we're going that we're both doing and I'm not gonna say the name of the platform even though it's in our it's kind of in our industry
Sandy (15:54)
Yeah. ⁓
Jeni (16:07)
The experience of buying that thing was so awful because it was so ugly and clunky and stupid. like, are you serious? Like this was, we bought from a creator who has this like beautiful aesthetic. It's like esoteric. It's like a, you feel so good when you're on her website and like indulging in her free content and then you buy her course and it's like Clunkfest USA. It's so gross and don't do that. That's a dumb thing to do. so.
Sandy (16:09)
horrific.
Jeni (16:35)
Make the experience of someone entering your online home such that you would they were coming into your actual home like or your business or like your beautiful studio space or your you know agency or whatever it is like it should feel inviting and gorgeous and You should have like some sort of rituals or some sort of like entryway Experience that makes people like wow. I just like put my foot into the right building right now
Sandy (17:04)
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, that's it. This is where if you think about this as an experience, you can infuse your vibe, your personality, your philosophy. And so people are buying their energy of you and your teaching, not just six, seven module course again, right? Like, and I think to our clients that that is a beautiful
Jeni (17:27)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy (17:33)
way to think about it. And I think people can really ⁓ buy into that because of the space that we're in. And yeah, I love it. I love the idea of like an opening ceremony or something like that. You just surprise them and delight them with this like, whoa, what is this? This first call, I didn't expect this. Or I just received a beautiful email, text message, whatever.
Jeni (17:39)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, an unexpected,
Sandy (18:02)
Yeah, something beautiful. Yeah. Just like surprise. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeni (18:03)
even an automated email with like a beautiful guided meditation that they weren't expecting. Like what can you do that is like gonna make them tell their friend, hey, I just had this like really cool thing. what, like Sandy, you and I, in addition to being business partners and podcasting co-hosts, like we're very good friends. so. ⁓
If I buy something and it delights me, like I'm sending you a message, right? Like, wow, this thing is so cool. Look what just came in the mail or look what just happened or look what I just signed up for. And you know, the opposite is also true. Like you often like tell people about a shit experience too. So I think it's like you have an opportunity to like have your customers market for you by delighting them with your product or your offering. And like that's so good for your business.
Sandy (18:25)
You tell me.
Yeah. Which yeah.
And it's like, isn't that the fun part of business though is like, how can I delight them? How can I surprise them? How can I make this something that they, it's more than what they expected. Like I think that's to me, that's a very exciting part of a business.
Jeni (18:54)
Yeah, it is totally. Yeah.
Yeah, we had a coach like a few years ago. I remember he sent us a book like, well, he sent us gifts all the time in the mail, but he sent us a book that like made him be a gift get like the book that inspired him to do that. And ⁓ and it was like, I remember skimming this book and then get donating. But because I got the gist of it, which was like surprise and delight your best clients by sending them wonderful gifts. And we've had a couple you and I've had a couple of coaches who have like
Sandy (19:08)
Yeah.
or who that is.
Yeah,
we also got one.
Jeni (19:35)
Like stuff just shows
up in the mail, like in the physical mail.
Sandy (19:38)
One coach, I don't know this is the one you're talking about, who sent us a knife. I have a knife with my name, the same, yeah, have a name engraved on it. It's kind of hideous. And I remember like my aunt taught me a long time ago that if you give the gift of knives, you always add like coins in the box because otherwise you sever the relationship like this symbolism. And he didn't put coins in the box. He's no longer our coach. It's severed.
Jeni (19:43)
Yes, and yes, I have a knife with my family name engraved on it that I use all the time.
man. Yeah,
no, but I still like, I still use the knife. Like, yeah, that's a really good point. Like other things like gotten flowers, gotten like beautiful, packages of books, like journals from coaches or, or like candles, like roses, ⁓ just workout gear, socks, like.
Sandy (20:17)
handles. We've got a lot of big haul from coaches.
Jeni (20:27)
It's just like, wasn't, what is this thing in the mail? I wasn't expecting this. And then it was like, it's like you get a knife. What? Like it's a really big. No, no, no. Yeah.
Sandy (20:31)
Yeah.
You're not going to do this for a $50 course, but for those of you selling more expensive,
like this is something you could build into your, into your costs. It's a pain in the ass, but like to send. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of work, but it, and it doesn't have to be something physical. Like you said, it could be a, a personalized message. I would love that actually to get like a pay Sandy, you know.
Jeni (20:41)
Yes. Yes. It is a And we've done it. You and I have done this as coaches, sent out gifts, packages of gifts. Like it is a lot of work.
Yeah.
Sandy (21:01)
Read your application or whatever, like just something personal that like, that it's just me and like that's better than a candle to me. But yeah. Yeah.
Jeni (21:03)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Actually, the knife coach actually sent me a text message too, when we first like started working
with him and like asked if we wanted to hop on. was anyway, it's a long story, but like, we don't need to get into that. But like there was like an actual text message through like the phone, not like an app ⁓ that was like really unexpected gift. So.
Sandy (21:19)
The knife coach.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeni (21:33)
I mean, I just, think like, yeah, it doesn't need to cost a lot of money and it doesn't need to be physical. Although I love the idea if you are selling something higher ticket, like if you're selling something that's in the thousands of dollars, I do think we're at the stage now where that probably makes sense to send something physical to that person. But yeah, like some like make it delightful and not just at the very beginning to like have elements of ritual or ceremony or
Sandy (21:52)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (22:02)
Just like a way of honoring that person's time for being in your world and being a paying client or customer or student. that is what sets you apart because that's what, I mean, that's like as the online space is more and more crowded, that is what you want to do is develop a reputation as someone who is a delight to work with.
Sandy (22:25)
Yeah, and I'll just add a sixth point which you mentioned as we were preparing and we forgot to it down, but ⁓ quality. Do you want to just have a note on quality?
Jeni (22:35)
Yeah, mean, okay, this is sort of like the summary of the whole thing. But like you can't, you're not gonna be successful if you're selling garbage. And I think, you know, if you're listening to a business podcast and you're in our industry and you're like, you know this already, but like this is just the truth. If you're really good at what you do, you can get away with a lot and still be successful. If you're really bad at what you do, I think we're at the stage now where like not really bad, but if you're mediocre.
at what you do. at the stage now where it's a very heavy lift for you to be successful online. So the other big piece here is really developing your craft more. If you are not finding the success that you're looking for from something like an online course, I also think it's worth looking in the mirror and evaluating where can I improve? Where else can I learn? What advanced?
Trainings can I do or what can I do to change the way I talk about my expertise so that it's more relevant to people like you've got to start really doing some soul searching there to try to figure out like where's the disconnect and Where how can I get better?
Sandy (23:39)
Yeah. Yeah.
I think this is a good sort of, we're in fall at the time of recording here. Like, do you have a course that's maybe not selling or feels a bit stale? What can you do to update it? What can you do to add? How can you talk about it differently? As you just said, like it's a great point to just rethink the way that you're delivering courses. And like, again, the mindset, are you believing that, courses don't sell courses, don't work. Nobody wants to buy a course. You know, of course it's not going to sell.
But like, let's just use this as a sort of checkpoint. Like, do I still want to sell it? If yes, can I update it? Can I tweak the marketing and the messaging around it and, um, you know, add something really beautiful and personal to it and. You know, make a go of it. And is it really good or what, like, what do you need to change some things?
Jeni (24:27)
I mean, I really think that this is less about the course itself at that point. If you're not selling it, it's about your marketing. It's about your visibility. It's about how you're showing up to your audience before they buy. mean, obviously, you don't want your course to be crap. And you should do these things that we're talking about to make it good. But then you have to translate that into your marketing. This all has to be relevant and present in your sales page and your emails that go out in your social media posts that you're sharing.
Sandy (24:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (24:56)
This is fundamentally a marketing conversation. To make these changes that we're talking about is probably like 15 % of the work and the other 85 % is to get really good at marketing and selling it. And like that's maybe a separate conversation. We've talked a lot about marketing and selling, but like you should check out our course, Visible, which is part of our Wellness Creator Bootcamp School.
Sandy (25:14)
Yeah, yeah, that's totally.
Jeni (25:22)
when that's available, like you can, there's resources out there for sort of how to get better at talking to your audience and marketing what you do.
Sandy (25:30)
Yeah.
It, it does drive me crazy. lot of the chatter is like the course is the problem. Courses aren't selling and it's like, okay, but how are you like the, how do people know about it? Like that is the crux of it. And there's the opposite situations where people are so good at the marketing and the video and the, you know, like the huge it's all over Instagram or TikTok or like I bought this course on, on dog training, but I've taken every
Jeni (25:38)
Thank
Yeah.
Yeah, the influencer side. Yeah, the influencers are so good.
Mm-hmm.
Sandy (26:00)
possible thing in the entire world about dog training. this thing, whatever they said was like, hi, I don't really know much about that. So I bought this course. was shit. It was so crappy, but the marketing was so good. So they had just flipped it, right? And it wasn't very much. It was like $24 or something, but it was awful. It was so bad. I was so mad and I will never touch that company again. But I think most of our clients had the opposite, they really good content and you know, beautiful whatever.
Jeni (26:10)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's like, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
right.
Sandy (26:29)
and then don't know how to talk about it strongly enough.
Jeni (26:34)
or to gather enough people who are interested in what you do. I mean, it's a bit of a numbers game to a degree too. And especially if you kind of took all your existing clients online with you post pandemic and they've already bought the thing you have. So now it's about finding new people that don't know you in real life, right? Like that's the other place where we see the breakdown that's happening. And I just think that none is about like...
Sandy (26:51)
Mm-hmm. New people. Yeah.
Jeni (27:00)
sort of like your visibility on the internet and show how can you show up in a compelling way to people who don't know you in real life? How can your work speak for itself? Like, what do you need to do to translate that? like, that is a bit of a like a puzzle to figure out. Like, are you meant to have a YouTube channel or to be a sub stack writer, which is like the modern blogger or, you know, are you meant to be a podcast or whatever? Like, you've got to really figure or you meant to be an influencer on TikTok, like.
Maybe if you have a good course and you're good at being a tech talk influencer, like you're gonna be just fine, right? Like so, but you've got to figure out kind of what your path is. And like, think that that I like that this is how we're wrapping this episode up, Sandy, because that is really probably the root of the problem for most people. But I do think that like revisiting an online course, or if you haven't made one yet, thinking through these principles we shared will help you to make sure that the course isn't the problem.
Sandy (27:49)
Mm-hmm.
Jeni (28:00)
You know, like you can rule that out. Yeah. And then, and then it's really about the marketing.
Sandy (28:00)
Great, let's clean that up,
Yep, amazing. All right, that was a short one. Thank you, Jeni.
Jeni (28:10)
Alright folks, we'll see you next time.