

The Art of Selling Online Courses
John Ainsworth
The Art of Selling Online Courses is all about online courses. The goal of this podcast is to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. We are interviewing successful business owners, asking them questions on how they got to the point where they are right now, and checking how their ideas can help you improve your online course!
Episodes
Mentioned books

13 snips
Oct 21, 2025 • 54min
Skip the Funnel: My Simpler Course Strategy
Wendy Solganik, a former law student turned course creator, discusses her unconventional journey to running an online art school. She highlights her shift from complex sales funnels to effective email marketing, revealing how authenticity and passion overpsychological tactics fueled her success. By curating courses from various artists at accessible prices, she challenges industry norms and shares insights on leveraging Instagram, YouTube, and paid ads. Wendy emphasizes the importance of being the primary learner in her school, fostering creativity and engagement.

10 snips
Oct 16, 2025 • 42min
Meet the Woman Who Built 60 Courses & 90K Students
In this engaging discussion, Alexandra Fintova, known as The Art Mother, shares her inspiring journey as a Skillshare top teacher who created 60 courses for over 90,000 students. She reveals her secret to success: authenticity in teaching, which helps her connect with her students. Alexandra discusses the importance of managing her course business with ADHD and how to effectively use platforms like Skillshare and Udemy. She also explores the innovative idea of using confirmation pages for upselling and the art of selling without being pushy, resonating deeply with aspiring course creators.

21 snips
Oct 9, 2025 • 56min
Secrets to Building Insanely Engaging Online Communities
Emma Jakobi, co-founder of Hey Lady and creator of mmmEnglish, and Shah Turner, also co-founder at Hey Lady, dive into the dynamics of community-led online learning. They share insights on reducing customer acquisition costs, transitioning from webinars to direct sales, and the importance of conversation-based learning. Emma reflects on her journey from a massive YouTube channel to focusing on Hey Lady, while Shah discusses tackling the consistency challenges in course promotion. Packed with practical tactics, this conversation offers valuable strategies for educators and course creators.

Oct 2, 2025 • 34min
How To Build An Audience That Actually Buys
Sinem Günel, a writer and entrepreneur who co-founded Write, Build, Scale, shares her strategies for turning expertise into profitable online courses. She emphasizes the importance of starting with low-ticket offers to cultivate trust, making future high-ticket sales 20 times more likely. Sinem also discusses the benefits of writing-first platforms and details her multi-tier business model, blending evergreen funnels and live launches to generate revenue. Learn how nurturing past buyers and targeting the right audience can convert casual followers into loyal customers.

Sep 25, 2025 • 17min
Watch This Before Planning BLACK FRIDAY 2025
Send us a text🚀 Work With Me - https://datadrivenmarketing.co/done-for-youIn this episode, Josip Belina, our head of funnel strategy, reveals why September is the make-or-break month for Black Friday success and what happens when you wait until October (spoiler: it's not good). We dive deep into a counterintuitive email strategy that has our clients sending way more emails than you'd expect on the final day, and why that actually increases revenue without destroying your list.You'll discover the bundle strategy that consistently outperforms the lazy "50% off everything" approach that most people default to, plus how to handle your best customers who've already bought everything you've offered before. Josip also shares the two-promotion framework that maximizes Q4 revenue and why this quarter is absolutely critical for your business.This isn't about sending a few discount emails and hoping for the best. This is about systematically planning and executing a Black Friday strategy that turns November into your biggest revenue month of the year. If you've been treating Black Friday as an afterthought, this episode will completely change how you approach it.🤝 Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Sep 18, 2025 • 50min
I Wrote 300+ Newsletters. Here’s What Actually Works.
Send us a text🚀 Work With Me - https://datadrivenmarketing.co/done-for-youWhat happens when you lose all your clients overnight and decide to start writing about Java programming instead of playing terrible golf? You end up building one of the longest-running tech newsletters in the world.Dr. Heinz Kabutz survived the dot com crash of 2000 by doing something counterintuitive - he started giving away his absolute best content for free. 25 years later, his newsletter reaches every corner of the globe (except the Vatican), his courses help students double their salaries, and he makes sales while sitting at Greek tavernas.This conversation reveals why bad video and audio quality can actually sell better than perfect production, and the psychological reason most course creators sabotage their own success. You'll also discover how giving everything away for free became a premium pricing strategy, why humor matters more than you think in technical content, and the surprising relationship between passive income and satisfaction.Heinz shares stories about getting recognized by strangers on the streets of Romania, why he feels guilty about making money while relaxing with friends, and his approach to building genuine connections with readers across 156 countries. He also explains why he avoids running the webinars that work so well for him, and how fear of rejection holds back most course creators from the success they deserve.📧 Java Specialists Newsletter: https://javaspecialists.eu🔥 Our FREE resources: https://datadrivenmarketing.co/resources🤝 Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

20 snips
Sep 11, 2025 • 33min
Meet the Man Who Gets 7 MILLION Monthly YouTube Views
Jason Stephenson, a meditation guide with over 4.5 million YouTube subscribers, shares his jaw-dropping journey from a modest start to achieving 7 million monthly views. He reveals the shock of his channel's scale and discusses a life-altering partnership that changed everything. The conversation dives into diversifying income streams beyond YouTube, including Spotify and email lists. Jason also addresses the challenges of course sales despite his massive audience, offering invaluable insights for creators and marketers alike.

Sep 4, 2025 • 38min
The Woman Who Built a $2.5M Course Business in 2 Years
Send us a text🔥 Need better results from your email campaigns? Get our FREE templates and see the difference with two proven email strategies! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/templatesCharlotte Chaze went from making $28K working 60-hour weeks in a windowless basement lab to building a multi-seven figure online course business. She's made over $2.6 million helping thousands of people leave dead-end jobs for $76K+ data analyst careers.Here's what makes her story different: While most TikTok creators with massive followings struggle to monetize, Charlotte cracked the code with 460,000 followers and an "anti-capitalist" business philosophy that actually increased her profits.In this episode, we dive into how she transitioned from biomedical research to data analytics in under 4 years, why she prices her courses at $249 while competitors charge $1000+, and her TikTok strategy that actually converts when most creators make pennies. We also explore why focusing on product quality over profit maximization made her more money and her ambitious new $1.5 million crypto payment infrastructure startup.Charlotte's target audience consists of bartenders, servers, teachers, healthcare workers - people who "hate their jobs and don't get paid enough." She's helping them land entry-level data analyst jobs averaging $76K, which is life-changing for people making $20/hour.The biggest takeaway from Charlotte's story is that you can build a massive course business by genuinely caring about your students' success more than your profit margins. Sometimes the "wrong" way to run a business is actually the right way.Retry🙋♀️ Learn more about Charlotte: https://breakintotech.com/about🤝 Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Aug 28, 2025 • 43min
Meet The Man Who Made $1.6M Teaching Pole Dancing
Send us a text🔥 Get the complete guide that shows you exactly how to turn your checkout page into a conversion machine: https://datadrivenmarketing.co/orderpageDan Rosen expected maybe 200 people to join his free challenge. 10,000 people later, he accidentally launched a course business that would generate over $1.6 million - despite operating in one of the most censored industries on social media.In this episode, Dan reveals how he built his pole dancing course empire using strategies that go against conventional wisdom. While most course creators chase email subscribers, Dan's biggest revenue driver comes from an entirely different source. While others play it safe with content, Dan explains why you sometimes have to tell people what they don't want to hear.Most surprising? Dan admits he's been leaving massive money on the table with one marketing channel - and explains why that might actually be good news if you're making the same mistake.You'll discover why starting "for free" can be your biggest competitive advantage, the psychology behind why people abandon purchases at the last second and how to stop it, and how to build a profitable course business in a heavily censored niche. Dan also shares the counterintuitive reason word-of-mouth became his primary sales driver and why "pure intentions" aren't just nice to have but essential for long-term success.📍 Website: https://poldancewithdan.com🤝 Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Aug 21, 2025 • 49min
How I Made $2.5M With Only 9K Email Subscribers
Send us a text🔥 Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapAustin Church makes $50,000+ a year from a $99/month community, but here's the thing - he's never properly promoted it to his 9,000 email subscribers. Not once.In this episode, Austin gets brutally honest about the mistakes that cost him money, why he initially refused to start a community (and how his own members basically forced him into it), and the LinkedIn strategy he's using to manually recruit new members one conversation at a time.We get into the real numbers - his revenue swings from $5k to $25k months, why it's just as hard to sell a $500 course as $6,000 coaching, and that first taste of PayPal notifications that you just can't un-taste. Austin reveals why most creators get the order completely wrong when building their business, and why it's shockingly easy to stop doing what actually works.This isn't your typical "here's my success story" interview. Austin admits where he's screwed up, what he'd do differently, and why sometimes the best business advice comes from just asking your audience what they want and giving it to them.If you've built an audience but struggle with the selling part, this one's for you.🤝 Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.