Transcription
Courses are dying, and not because they stopped working, but because something has changed about what people are actually willing to pay for. I'm going to show you today exactly what that is and what to sell instead. And no, it's not one-on-one coaching.
There is a model in between a course and private coaching that almost nobody talks about. And it's the reason my clients are getting better results than they ever did from anything I sold them before. I feel like I'm the perfect person to talk about this because I literally made my first million-dollar year business off the back of online courses, selling things from anywhere between $67 and $397. And it worked beautifully for over a decade. So much so that I wrote my first book called How to Get Paid for What You Know, and the primary vehicle that I taught about in that book was online courses. Because that model, up until 2023, really into 2024, was still working beautifully.
2025 was the year that I feel like online courses finally died. I put them in the grave. I think they are done. I know there are people still selling online courses, so dying might be the more accurate thing. So it pains me. It pains me to to say something like this, that online courses are dead. Because I love online courses. Online Online courses made me a millionaire the first time. Uh and it's helped so many of my clients. Online courses as a model has helped so many of my clients over the years. And if I'm being honest, part of me misses the old days >> [laughter] >> of online coaching and online education companies. Um it was just fun and innocent and uh and we're not in that world anymore.
And I I did a whole episode on this, but I'm going to give you the quick rundown of why online courses are dead. And when I say dead, I mean my goal for this show and for my entire company is to help you, the entrepreneur, win. Okay? So, I cannot help you win by giving you outdated advice or incorrect advice. I have to give you advice that will help you win. And things have changed dramatically in the last 2 to 3 years. The biggest things that have happened really started 6 years ago when the pandemic happened. You had everybody coming on the internet and realizing that online courses were a thing, and so everybody started to create online courses. And so, if you look at people that are big on YouTube or online selling education or information products, I would say over half of them didn't start until 2020. I've been doing this since since 2009. Okay? People who think they've been in the game for a long time and they say, "Oh, I started in during COVID." That's not a long time, my friend. You You jumped in on the bandwagon when everybody was doing it. And good for you if you did that. I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm just saying everybody did that because everybody was printing money in 2020, 2021, and 2022. That was a very specific window. I was already making millions before 2020. And then I made even more for those 3 years. It was so easy to make money online 2020 to 2022.
But because of that new wave of entrepreneurs coming online, there's now an abundance of online courses. Online courses are in great supply, and whenever something is in great supply, it is no longer as valuable. Supply and demand says when there's a lot of supply of something, the the the demand goes down, and so the value goes down, and what people are willing to pay for goes down. So, an abundance of courses. On top of that, there's an abundance of free information. YouTube has always been around. I've never felt that the free information is a is a hindrance to me selling online courses. It only helped me sell online courses. But there's just so much information out there that it's overwhelming. And then three, in 2023, a little something came along called chat GPT. By accident, by the way, it was never intended to be a mainstream tool. It's interesting how that happened. And spawned a whole generation of these large language models, these tools that allow us to get access to all the world's information for free, instantly curated for us. And so, I look at AI as the final nail in the coffin of online courses because it does a lot of what a good online course should have done, which is taking information, which is always available and if you want to go look for it, but curating it, organizing it, and simplifying it. I think these LLMs do a great job of that. So, if you have an abundance of courses, and an abundance of free information, and AI tools that can give you all of that, fine-tuned to your specific needs, why buy an online course? Right?
So, this is just a fact. I'm not saying anything about how good your course is or whether courses still work. I think courses still work. But I don't think people value them anymore. And one thing I learned in business a long time ago is I don't want to sell things to people that I want to sell. I want to sell things to people that they want to buy. And if people don't want to buy online courses, then I don't want to be interested in selling online courses. So many people are struggling in their business because they are stubbornly trying to sell the thing they worked hard on. Instead, they should be asking their people what they want to buy and making that for them. That rant over. Okay.
So, courses are dead. News flash, they are dead. But I have good news for you. There's something better. Because you know what? Even though information is in great supply and there's gobs of information, you know what's still scarce? Transformation. Just because everyone and their grandma has an online course and just because there's a new AI chatbot coming out every other day that can give you all the world's information at a push of a button, doesn't mean that everyone's got all their problems solved. Doesn't mean that all their transformation is complete. Everyone is finally in shape, their marriages are fixed, their bank accounts are full, their anxiety is gone, their back pain's gone. They're like People are still just as in need of your help and your transformation as they were 6 years ago, as they were 60 years ago. That has not changed. That is great news because with supply and demand, where there is a lack of something, a scarcity of something, a great gap or missing amount of something, it becomes high demand. So there's so much demand for transformation, so much demand for transformation cuz it's it's very rare. Transformation is rare. And so the gap between where people are and where they want to be hasn't closed. That's what's so fascinating. So don't say to yourself, "Oh gosh, I just I have no chance of making money online selling information and selling my knowledge and monetizing what I know because, you know, courses are everywhere on YouTube and and AI." No, no, no, no, no. That's not the point. The point isn't to sell courses. That was just a means to an end. The point is to transform people's lives. You and I were never in the course business. We were never in the information product business. We've always been and always will be in the people transformation business. Say it with me, people. You and I are in the transformation business. Always have been, always will be.
If you If you understand this, everything becomes easier for you. Because then you realize, "Okay, I still am in the transformation business, and my people still need transformation." So, then the question you have to ask yourself is, "What is the best way to give people transformation?" And let's think about this. When we were selling courses, I say we, maybe you weren't. But when I was selling online courses from 2009 all the way till I think I sold my last online course in 2025, maybe 2024. Um so, for those 15 years of selling online courses, I was never trying to sell information. I was trying to sell transformation. The vehicle was an information product, but the destination that that people wanted to get to was transformation. So, with my first business, The Recording Revolution, all of my messaging, all of my marketing, all of my sales was focused on the narrative around you can have amazing sounding recordings that you did at home on a budget. That's the transformation people wanted. My recordings sound like crap, and I'm embarrassed to put them on Spotify. I'm embarrassed to share them with my friends, even though I like the song. I think the song's good, but the recording little little suspect. To go from that to I have a song that sounds so professional. I'm so proud to put it out there in the world. It's what I would call back then radio-ready. You might call it Spotify-ready these days, right? So, that was the transformation I was selling. And then they would buy my online course as a vehicle to get to that destination. So, we were never in the information selling business anyway. We were always in the transformation business. So, the course was just the vehicle. Information was the wrapper, right? But transformation is what they wanted underneath the whole time. And that hasn't changed. So, all that's changed is the vehicle. All that's changed is the vehicle, not the destination.
So, what I want to do is share with you the best vehicle that you and I should be selling today. And I get this question a lot. When I'll run an event and I'm teaching people, let's say, on my 10K offer challenge, how to create a $10,000 offer. A lot of these people have followed me for a while and they they they've been making online courses, maybe they used to sell online courses. I'll get big YouTubers or people that have made a lot of money in the past selling courses and now those courses aren't selling as well anymore and they're trying to figure out what's next. They ask and believe wrongly, but I understand why, that Graham, are you saying I it's not very viable anymore for me to sell online courses, so now I need to sell one-on-one coaching cuz that's the only thing I can imagine selling for $10,000 is just selling my time and how scalable is that? And I say, "No, my friend. I'm not selling saying to sell one-on-one coaching at all. I don't do hardly any one-on-one coaching cuz I don't think it's the best use of my time." And you can hire me one-on-one if you want. It's $250,000 for a VIP day. Fly to Tampa, spend 8 hours with me. We'll solve your business problem and I'll help you map out your next two to four million dollars in the next 12 months. Okay, it's not for everybody, but if you're already doing $50,000 a year or $50,000 a month, excuse me, revenue, my VIP day coaching is probably perfect for you. And you also get to be in my mastermind for a year and you get to join my other coaching programs and you get my phone number and all this kind of cool stuff. Get to come on my YouTube channel, do an interview. There's things like that, right? But if you want one-on-one coaching with me, it's $250,000 and it will be worth it for you if you're the right person. But I priced it that way because A, it's worth it and B, I don't want to do a ton of it, so I only want to work with a handful of people. But most of my coaching is not one-on-one.
And so, I don't want you to think you have to do one-on-one coaching. There is a third category. If online courses were the scalable solution and one-on-one coaching is the premium not scalable solution, there is door number three. And that is a high-ticket group coaching program. This is my absolute favorite vehicle. This is what I'm selling right now in 2026 and beyond, and you should, too. So, let me explain to you what the difference between an online course, high-ticket one-on-one coaching, and high-ticket group coaching, and what's included, and how you can do this right now.
What is scarce is transformation. How do people get transformation? Three ways. So, lean in for this. Let's talk about the principle, and then I'm going to give you the application. Three things that are needed for people's transformation. Number one, and most importantly, they need to be invested and be committed to the transformation. This was one of the weakest parts of selling online courses. And I knew this. Everybody who sell online courses knows this. And most people do not complete the online course. They do not watch it. Let alone implement any of it. Okay? The super committed ones, the super fans do. I'm one of those people that I'll watch every moment of every online course I buy, and I'll implement immediately. But I'm a bit of an outlier. Uh but most people don't do that. So, we've all known, if you were creating courses, that that is the weakest point. Why? Because it's so cheap. If someone only paid you $99 or $500 or even $2,000, they are not that committed to their success. I'm not saying that they don't want the transformation, but they not are not that committed because they're not that invested. And so, there's not a whole lot of skin in the game. And the only way to truly transform your life is to have skin in the game. And you know this from real-life experience. The The only time that you got serious about getting out of debt was when you got sick and tired of being in debt. And you're like, "I am done with this. I am going ham on this debt. I'm going to pay it all off." The only time you got serious about your health is when you had a major health crisis, or you got sick and tired of being embarrassed about your body with your shirt off, or whatever it was. Right? Like you got to a point where you were so freaking committed. You're like, I'm going to change. The the the environment has to be right for you to be ready to truly want change. And if someone is only paying a few hundred dollars for an online course, they're not really that invested because there's no skin in the game. Okay? So, they need skin in the game. This is why you need to be charging higher prices than you're charging. This is why I have an a whole a whole event called the $10,000 offer challenge, the 10K offer challenge, because I believe you are one $10,000 offer away from completely changing your business and life forever. The fastest path to being a part-time millionaire, to having a seven-figure business where you only work 20 hours a week or less, is a $10,000 offer. And no, it's not one-on-one coaching. It is group coaching. So, when you have a high-ticket offer, and I use $10,000 as a proxy, you can have whatever price you want, but when someone pays a lot, they pay a lot of attention. And when they pay a lot of attention, they will get transformation. So, if they want transformation, they need to be invested. And one way to get them to invest and be fully present is to raise the fee. My high fees, like I charge $25,000, $55,000, $100,000, $250,000, my fees, those fees, those offers are not for me, they are for my clients. Because when somebody pays me $55,000 to join my inner circle, they are full in. And when they're full in, they pay attention and they get results. Does that make sense? So, number one thing you need for transformation is investment. High fees.
The second thing you need for transformation is a map. You need the shortest, fastest path. Okay? You The whole point of transformation is to not reinvent the wheel. Find someone that's done what you want to do before. They've done it before. And they give you the shortest clearest path to that outcome. People need the path. They need something to follow. Okay? And I'll get to that more specifically. And then third, they need someone to help them when they get stuck. They need a guide. So, they need to be invested. They need a path, and they need a guide. Every story that you've ever liked, every book, movie, the hero's journey, whether it's Harry Potter, it's Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, it's Frodo or Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings, or fill in the blank, any story. They're They're all the same. Every story's the same. There is a character that is the hero of the story, and something happens in their life that creates enough investment where they're like, "I need change in my life." Okay? And that's the first part of transformation. Is the impetus to change, the impetus to break the norms. It's too hard to stay in the status quo, that now is the time. They are ready. They're invested for change. Then they need a map. They need someone to say, "This is what you got to go do. Here is the road map. Here is the path, right?" And so, they follow that path. But then they usually get stuck along the way, and so they need to ask the guide, "What do I do when I get stuck?" Often times the guide gives them the path, and then meets them along the journey to help them when they get stuck, or they hit a plateau. Does that make sense? Every story is the same. It's the same in your pro- prospect's transformation journey. So, they need to be ready and be invested. They need a map, and they need a guide. I talked about the guide piece in an episode a couple weeks ago about the expert era is over. Don't be the expert in your industry, be the guide.
So, a perfectly curated and crafted high-ticket group coaching offer solves all these things. There are three core things your high-ticket group coaching offer needs. Number one, video curriculum. The video curriculum is the path. This takes the place of your old online course. There There is a process, a method that you've developed to get somebody from the hell that they're into the heaven they want to be in. Where they are stuck to where they want to be. And that is your secret sauce. I have my own path that gets my clients from where they are in their business stuck, underpaid, overworked to making $100,000 a month consistently working 20 hours a week or less. I have a path. I've done it multiple times before for myself and for dozens of clients, so I have a path. That's should be laid out in a video curriculum. It's the best fastest way to give people exactly what they need to go from A to Z. Okay? So, that's good news. So, you could probably repurpose that course. Or if you're good at online courses, you know what to film. But that is no longer enough.
The second thing you need is you need community. People rarely want to go on this journey of transformation alone. Even the introverts like me that say, "Oh, I don't need a community." We do. We just lurk. We just watch the community. We may not participate fully, but we're watching and we're seeing other people share their bumps and bruises and their struggles and then their wins and we're learning by watching other people, real people, go through this transformation journey. It is so helpful to not go through a transformation journey alone. It is so encouraging to see other people trying and failing and winning in similar ways to you as they're going on their transformation journey. There's so much energy created when you are a part of a group and in a room of a bunch of people that are like-minded running hard in the same direction. It fires you up. That's why you need a vibrant community around your group coaching program. That is something that one-on-one coaching does not create, by the way. There is no community around one-on-one coaching. And so, that energy piece is missing. So, give people a video curriculum, put them in a community, and then number three, they need live coaching. That's where you can be the guide for them. Not 1:1 coaching, live group coaching. This can be weekly, this can be bi-weekly, this can be monthly, whatever cadence you deem necessary and fits your schedule. But the point is not for you to be teaching on these calls, but to answer questions. Be the phone a friend kind of thing when they get stuck. Graham, I'm going through this program. I've got this in place. I'm getting stuck here. What should I do? That is That is the power of live coaching is that they can talk to you directly and get a specific custom answer for them based off of what you think. You don't have to re-teach the same principles. They're already watching your stuff. They're already in community, but now they get coaching. Does this make sense? Video curriculum, vibrant community, and live coaching calls. At a bare minimum, your group coaching program needs these three things.
Other optional things you can add that can really enhance the experience and transformation, in-person meetups or events. So, for example, my Inner Circle Mastermind, my higher my highest level group coaching program, we do in-person mastermind events here in Tampa, okay? There's nothing like being in a real room with your real people. Not only doing coaching and hot seats, but having an experience, breaking bread, laughing, getting to know each other. Tell me about your family, being knee-to-knee with somebody. In this increasingly digital and isolated age, I really do believe in-person meetups, however you want to do them, are going to become increasingly valuable. Optional, you don't need to do in-person for a high-ticket group coaching program, trust me. Cuz one of my other high-ticket group coaching programs, there's no in-person element at all. But I'm saying it is valuable. You can also include software, tools, access to you 1:1 or other coaches on your team via check-ins, reviewing things. There's a lot of nuances to what could be in your high-ticket group coaching program based off of what transformation you create. Those are all optional, but at minimum, video curriculum, vibrant community, and live coaching.
I used to sell a $500 online course helping people start their business. And I used to sell a $97 a month membership site that helped people go from, let's say, their business has started to six figures a year. I made plenty of money selling those courses and memberships. And I had some clients get incredible results. My superstar students, the ones that are most committed or who were most ready and they're most self-disciplined and self-starting. And so yes, I've gotten some great results with clients that way. The moment I killed those programs and launched $25,000 group coaching program and $55,000 group coaching program, is the moment I started to see testimonials fly off the shelf like this. Graham, I made $50,000 in my first 30 days of your program. Graham, I went from $6,000 a month to $76,000 a month just 4 months into your program. Graham, I went from $30,000 a month and trending backwards to consistently making $100,000 a month and my best month was $250,000. I've had people go from the most I made in a year was $400,000 and I was proud of it and I was working around the clock to now doing $85,000 a month, which is pacing a million dollar a year, by the way. This kind of stuff is ha- I had one gentleman join my $55,000 Inner Circle, come to one coaching call, run one play from one idea that I shared on that coaching call. He didn't even watch any curriculum. He sent one email based off of one thing we talked about and generated $490,000 of new business. He off of one call. He 10x his investment. He spent 55k with me and generated almost $500,000 off of one call. This stuff never happened to me before. And the reason was people were not fully invested cuz they didn't pay a lot. They didn't have access to me, so I couldn't give them custom bespoke coaching. And there wasn't a vibrant community around those other things. You put those things together, amazing testimonials.
Now, let me give you an example where it's flipped, where I'm the customer. About 4 weeks ago, I joined a high-ticket nutrition coaching program. I paid $9,000 to functionally get shredded. So, I'm on my get shredded journey, all right? Uh and I'm already in good shape. I work out four times a week already. We eat very clean at my house. Um I'm constantly active. But I was like, you know what? One of my personal goals this year is to just be totally shredded, right? And and so I saw this guy's program. I jumped on a discovery call, you know, sales call with them. I was very interested in it. I didn't know the price, but I saw the outcomes they were getting with guys. Super impressed. And I was also impressed with, you know, I talk about with offers. I talk about you there's the promise of your offer and the premise of your offer. The promise is the outcome. You always lead with that. Here's what you're going to get. Here's what's going to do for you your life. So, the promise of their offer was get shredded, look like these guys. Their premise, how they get there was very interesting to me. It was all about metabolic priming. Re- activating your metabolism. I As as a man over 40, your metabolism slows down. So, it's not about cutting calories or cutting carbs. It's actually the opposite, increasing calories, increasing carbs, and priming your metabolism so it's actually burning more than it was. Your metabolism's kind of stuck. And I thought that That a really fascinating premise. The science behind that that interesting to me. And who wouldn't want to be told to eat more carbs? I'm a carb-atarian. So, if if you're going to say I can eat more bread and cereal and pasta and and and look like that, sign me up, bro. I'm there. So, I was very interested in the promise and the premise. Got on the sales call. It was a very straightforward sales call, very highly educational, not pressure. It was well perfectly well executed. And so, I joined. Okay, here's what I'm getting. I paid $9,000 for this group coaching program. And here's what I'm doing. I'm tracking my macros with a free app called MyFitnessPal, which I'd already used before in previous attempts. Um I'm working out of the gym, just doing different lifts, little bit heavier, little more specialized, but I was already going to the gym. And then I have a coach who checks in with me once a week. There's accountability. I have to upload photos of my body, you know, three poses every week, and he's looking at my food, he's looking at if I'm getting my steps in, he's looking at my photos. And it's just And he just sends a Loom video. Right? Now, there's also a community, very vibrant community on Slack. Like these guys talk all the time. And they do a couple of co- coaching calls per week where they're teaching things like, yeah, how do you handle food when you're on vacation or eating out? Or and they answer questions and things like that. Um you could argue, "Graham, you could have just YouTubed what to eat if you're a man over 40, what your macros should be, give me a you know, Claude, give me a a a plan to ramp up my metabolism. So, what should my macros be, and my calories be? How should I track it? And then how should it change over the weeks? And like I I could have either done this on my own, found out how to do it on my own, or used AI to map out a custom plan, and I'm sure plenty of people do, but I don't think it would have worked for me. And more than that, I happily happily paid $9,000. Why? Because I Two things. One, I want the best. And I don't even though I'm a self-starter and I'm pretty disciplined and I'm a researcher and I can figure things out, I would rather go I would rather have a guide. I would rather have someone who's totally shredded tell me how to do what he did. You know, like Okay, bro, you look amazing with your shirt off. I want your body. Just tell me what to do. It gives me psychological confidence. Like I know I'm going to look amazing because I have a guide who looks amazing, who's done what I want to do. I'm not guessing. There's no like flaw in my plan. As long as I do what he tells me to do, it's going to work. So, I feel confident having the guide. So, part of it is I'm paying for that guide. I'm paying for his 16 years of discipline and hard work to get his body where it is and him cracking the code on the nutrition and the science to be able to tell me exactly what to do. So, that's part of what I'm paying for is the guide. And then I can I can message him whenever I want when I get stuck. Two is I want to be invested financially. I I'm super disciplined, but the moment I plop down $9,000, I stopped eating certain foods, I started taking MyFitnessPal seriously, and I switched gyms, and I switched my workout routine to do exactly what he said. And I'm like, all right, I'm all in. I'm all in. The investment and the guide. Now, the community is nice. I've learned a lot from [clears throat] the other people. Again, I'm lurking. I haven't posted there once. But I I I find value in seeing other people winning, other people venting if they're not winning, and other people encouraging them, people seeing people in different parts of their journey. I don't feel like I'm doing this on my own, even though I'm very you know, passive just watching the community. I am getting value from the community. I haven't gone to any of the live calls yet, but I have got the guide, I'm invested, I've got the plan, and I see the vibrant community and I am already seeing results 3 and 1/2 weeks in. But not only that, I know it's going to work and I'm not in any hurry.
So, I bring all that that all up to say, yes, your people can learn a lot of the stuff you would teach, possibly for free everywhere, not everything. But they could do a lot on their own. That's not really the point. High ticket buyers and they're everywhere. They are the most underserved people in your industry. I guarantee you the highest ticket buyers, the people with the money who value paying for good stuff are the least served people in your industry. Why? Because everybody's making cheap stuff for the bottom. So, I know that there are plenty of high ticket buyers in every niche because this is all I do is help people create high ticket offers and I see them selling in every niche and I also know they're the least served people. So, I know that if you create a high ticket offer around what you're doing, high ticket group coaching program, those people are going to invest because they want accountability, they want to be in, they want you as the guide, they want the shortest, fastest path, they want the vibrant community. They don't want to watch a course. They don't want to read a book. They don't want to spend time talking to Claude about it. They just want the answer and they want to be all in. And until you decide that you're going to serve those people, you are missing out. And until you decide that you are worth it, you're missing out. Friend, you have such valuable transformation to offer people. All I'm asking you to do is stop trying to sell it in a package that's dead. I'm asking you to reimagine what you do, not abandon what you've done, just reimagine or rewrap and repackage what you have done into a new vehicle. That's it. It's just a new vehicle to get people to the same destination they need to get to. Does that make sense? It's an upgrade to how you're delivering the transformation you once did or you're considering doing. The content's not dead. Your method's not dead. There's not a lack of customers for you. The delivery model is what's changed because of the environment we're in. People don't need more information. They need a guide who can walk them from point A to point Z and be available for them, hold them accountable, and facilitate their transformation. So, information is in great supply, so it's not valuable. Transformation is in great demand cuz it's very scarce. Your a- your ability to facilitate that facilitation of people's transformation journey is the sweet spot for you, and that is going to come for you and for me, I believe, in the form of a beautiful, high-ticket group coaching program. Build it once, fill it up regularly with incredible people, a handful of clients every month, and you can be a millionaire doing great work, getting great results for great people with very little stress and very little work. It's the same benefits over the online course model, but with even more benefits of having better clients and needing fewer of them. And I can't I I couldn't be happier about courses dying and what this is doing for our industry.
So, your next step is to start with what is the transformation I actually bring people. Make sure you're absolutely clear on that. I want you to write that down today. What is the transformation I give? I pe- I help people go from here to here. Once you see that transformation on paper, do everything you can to package that transformation into a high-ticket group coaching program that has video curriculum, a vibrant community, and live coaching. I hope this helped you and blessed you today, and I hope that you are as open-minded as I believe you can be to the next 10 years and beyond of what this industry can do for your life and for your family's life. You deserve it. Your family deserves it. We're all pivoting. I've had to pivot at least three major times in my 16, almost 17-year career now as an online educator. Don't be afraid of the pivot. Be afraid of being left behind. Be afraid of being too stubborn to change. Be afraid of being too stuck in your old ways that you can't serve people at the highest level moving forward. We can do this. You can do this. And here's a little meta moment for you as we end. I'm not going anywhere. I will still be your guide every step of the way. Whether you just listen to this show on a podcast app or watch me on YouTube and that's all you do and you never buy anything from me, I'm here to guide you. Whether you've bought my book, The Effortless Business, I can guide you in that book. You've come to my challenge, if you hire me in one of my group coaching programs or directly, I don't care how you and I interact. I'm here to serve you and be your guide. So, you're not alone. You don't have to figure this out by yourself. Just tune in every week. Stay tied to the community here. Let me serve you and let us grow and learn together and we can help a ton of people. All right. Have an amazing rest of your week, my friend, and I'll see you on another episode real soon.