The Course Mentors Podcast

The 4 Blind Spots Blocking Your Course Sales

• The Course Mentors • Season 2 • Episode 4

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If you’ve ever looked at your course and thought, “Why isn’t it selling? It’s actually good…”  this one’s for you.

In this episode, we unpack the four biggest blind spots that quietly sabotage even the best courses (and how to fix them). From selling features instead of freedom, to waiting for “perfect,” to comparing yourself into paralysis, we’ll help you pinpoint what’s holding you back and get your course moving again.

It’s equal parts mindset and messaging, with real talk, relatable stories, and the kind of clarity that makes you want to open your laptop and finally hit publish.

In this episode:

  • The #1 reason your sales page isn’t connecting
  • How to sell results, not modules
  • Why talking to everyone means you’re reaching no one
  • The perfection trap that’s costing you sales
  • How to stop obsessing over competitors and own your magic

If you’re ready to stop second-guessing and start selling with confidence this episode will show you where to start.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Course Mentors Podcast. I'm Odette. And I'm Amy. And today we're diving into something that keeps so many course creators up at night. Why their course isn't selling, even though they know it's good. Before we get into it though, how is your week?

SPEAKER_00:

My week's been good, chaotic, crazy, insane, but really good. I am currently two and a half-ish weeks before I move overseas. So the cliff notes really are that I am sleeping, eating, and working on a mattress on the floor right now. So quite far removed from what I generally live like. But I do love the chaos. I think it's really, really fun, and I am enjoying the messy middle of it all because I know that it'll be over in a month and I'll be able to look back on this and be like, what a crazy time. So I'm staying quite chill about it all, but it is a little crazy. It's insane to think that this time next month, these podcast episodes will start getting recorded from Dubai. I'm of that.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm of the I love the chaos. I know what you mean. Yeah, so very fun. I can't believe it's gonna be a month and you're in another country. Um, how about me? My week's been good too. Um, I have been trying to sort out tasks, not tasks like um uh activities for um my baby. Now he's like six months in less than a week, he's six months old. He needs a lot more stimulation. He's pretty chill. He'll like sit in the garden for an hour with me, which is amazing. Um he's a pretty chill guy, but um he does need, well, I feel like I should be giving him more activities and things. Today's was Mum and Bub Yoga. Uh so I'm so cute. Looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_00:

So cute. Because how he's six months now, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

In a in a week. Not even.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's so exciting. Yeah. It's so fun. This is like the time when it starts getting more interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know how I'm gonna live without a six-month-old. He's so beautiful. Anyway, I said that about the newborn stage. So I'm sure it's all right. Let's jump in. If you have been staring at your course dashboard, wondering why the sales aren't rolling in, this episode's for you. We're going to cover the four biggest blind spots that are probably blocking your sales right now. Amy, blind spot number one. What is it?

SPEAKER_00:

Blind spot number one. The most common thing that we oftentimes see is you're selling features and not freedom. And where this comes from for most course creators is right after they have been filming their videos, they've been putting their worksheets together, they've been designing the back end of their course platform, they go straight to a sales page and then they write those things out super descriptively, but super literally. So that turns into my course has 47 video lessons, 12 downloadable worksheets, lifetime access, and a private Facebook group. And this is exactly what selling the features sounds like. Because all of those things are great, but your ideal student is still sitting there thinking, so what does that mean to me?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they don't care about your modules. They care about what their life looks like after they finish your course, not like facts like 12 modules, 100%.

SPEAKER_00:

And when we say, you know, selling the freedom, we don't mean laptop lifestyle, living on a beach, like not that kind of freedom. But really just freedom from what they're struggling with right now.

SPEAKER_01:

So instead of module three covers email marketing strategies, what would you try?

SPEAKER_00:

You try something like you'll wake up to sales notifications because your emails are finally converting. So right now, that person who would be buying an email marketing course, right, they are struggling with their emails not actually turning into sales. And that's a frustrating problem for them. And yeah, that's a frustrating problem enough to go and invest money into a program to fix it. But if they find a social media profile or they find someone, you know, that's selling a course on how to fix this problem, and then they get to the sales page and it's super like literal and descriptive, and it just says, I've got 13 videos and I've got 12 worksheets. Bored. I don't know what that means to me. I don't really care about it. But what I do care about is waking up to sales notifications because my emails are finally converting. And if you can make that promise and sell me on the freedom, it doesn't really matter what inclusions you have anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 100%. It doesn't really matter how you get there, what they're wanting is that result. And making that result something that actually happens with your course, but also emotional and like connecting and specific. Um, that's what's going to sell your course, which you need to do. You need to sell your course. You need to communicate what it is that you're doing so that they can, you know, get in and achieve that result. So that's very cool. Okay, blind spot number two. What is it, Amy?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a common one. You're talking to everyone, which means that you're actually connecting with no one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we get that a lot when people start out when we're trying to tell them, no, who's it for? No, who's it for, no, who is it exactly for. But lots of people can take it. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if lots of people can take it. It's not about who could technically take your course. Um, they'll be outliers, sure. It's about knowing who it is so that you can connect with them. It's not like this course is for anyone who wants to start a business. No, that's way too broad. It's not going to capture anyone. When you try to speak to everyone, your messaging, it gets watered down and it gets generic. Nobody feels like you're talking directly to them. So your course needs one ideal student, the burnout corporate mom who wants a side hustle. That's specific, you know? The recent grad uh drowning in student debt who needs a new career path, specific and emotional too. The hobby baker ready to go pro, you know? It doesn't need to be like overly complex. It just needs to be specific and it needs to hit them where they are and ideally hit on where they want to be going.

SPEAKER_00:

It's really similar to the last point that if you start going broad again, you lose people. And the reason for that is because online courses, the entire purpose of an online course is to solve someone's problem. So if you can't be descriptive about how you're gonna solve that problem and you're just gonna list a bunch of inclusions, you're gonna lose people. And then, you know, secondarily, if you're just gonna say, well, this is a broad problem that everybody has, it's not specific enough to be compelling. And when it's not compelling, people are not gonna go get their credit card out of the car, come back inside and pay for your course. They're just not gonna do it. So when it comes to the world of course creation, you have to be very, very specific. Because when you are specific, something magical happens. The right people feel seen and then they lean into it. Think about it. Would you rather hear this is for everyone who wants to get fit? Or this is for busy parents who have 20 minutes max and hate the gym. Which one makes you feel understood, seen, and like you're going to be investing in something that is a very good solution for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. So, so good. It takes a little while to get to that. Like it's okay if it's not immediate. You need to like work on it. And I'm gonna I probably need to do a podcast episode on this, but I hate those. Design your course, make your course in a day. It's like no, you can't get to that really specific, not vague, like really juicy messaging. It takes more than a day. But I'm not gonna go on that tangent. That is for another time.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, take no, take me on the tangent. I beg of you. I agree a hundred thousand percent. This stuff takes work, it takes back and forth and discussion and it takes feeling passionate about something and going, I actually have an opinion about this. I know that I can fix something for the busy mums or for the what was the other one that you just used? Bakers that want to go pro. Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a I I love that one. I'm I'm into baking at the moment too. So I'm like, that's there are probably gonna be a million analogies on that. My partner said, You've baked more cakes this week than you've bathed our baby. So I've baked a lot of cakes.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel like you are so trad wifing it up at the moment. I just whenever I call you during the day, you are baking, you are cooking over a hot prepping dinner. I'm prepping dinner.

SPEAKER_01:

And every time I call you, you had the uh the kitchen aid going the other day. You had the everything machine going. Yeah. It's I'm because I'm like, if I have to be a trad wife, not I don't have to, but like, you know, where's it a kid now and whatnot. Um, I'm just trying to like lean into it and make it a bit of a, I don't know, game or like I I can't help but like make things into a process.

SPEAKER_00:

We joke that debt is so analytical and process driven that it's like robotics. Like, I am a mother now. I am now going to bake a cake every day. I just in somewhere in your brain connected, being a mother with baking cakes, and now you're excelling at both of those things.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I remember, I do have fond memories of like sitting on the count and licking beaters and stuff from my mum making cakes, though. So it probably comes from that. Um but he's like six months, he can't have sugar for the next, I don't know, another 18 months, probably. Um, so I'm I'm actually getting I'm baking now so that I have like I'm like a mental baker by the time it's like his second birthday, and he's like eating wedding cake. Anyway, blind spot number three, and let's let's get into that.

SPEAKER_00:

Another really common blind spot for sure. And this is something that we've got to have a little bit of humor about because it's something that we deal with every single day. You're waiting for perfect, and then perfect is costing you those sales. I struggled with this probably a couple of years before, and then I got over it, and then I had to help you sort of work through that a little bit. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01:

You you do get over it though. I didn't think you could, but now it's just second nature. Like, like you don't aim for perfect. You know that that is like, I don't know, crutch or like a It's an unattainable thing either way.

SPEAKER_00:

Because, and I love to say new levels, new devils, but every single time that you get better in business, you demand a better standard for yourself anyway. So, what is perfection for you today won't actually be perfection for you next year and the year after. So, what you have to believe in is iterations because you have to say, well, that is my best right now, and I know that next year I'll have another best. And you have to be open to coming back and redoing your best and reperfecting your perfect, and also not trying to get to perfect every single time because it's sort of like a race to the bottom of stress. Like you'll try and you'll force yourself to get there and you'll never quite reach it because by the time you get there, you'll want a different standard again.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 100%. You're chasing a standard that doesn't, yeah, the goalpost keeps moving.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So let's be real, your course will never feel finished. It'll never be done. There will always be one more lesson that you could add, one more worksheet that you could design, one more bonus that you could create. You could do this on and on forever and ever and ever.

SPEAKER_01:

Caveat though, like you do the same thing, like as a business owner, too. Like, you know, there's always something to do. But like the difference is with course creation, it is so much easier to change or add into than like restructuring your entire business or getting like more clients in and doing different things with them, you know? So, like, yes, there's things to change because basically you're entrepreneurial and you want to make things better because that's just who you are as a person.

SPEAKER_00:

But the heartbreak really is in this pursuit of perfection, while you are constantly chasing a tale of, oh my gosh, I need this to be another perfect video. I need to re-record those seven videos, I need to make sure that the sun is shining, my house is clean, my hair is having a good hair day, and I've got my good shirt out of the wash before I film this next video. And also, I mean to make sure I've had six coffees and I feel my best that day, and I had a good night's sleep beforehand. Those are the things that we ourselves have dealt with, and then we see in you know our own clients all the time. That is such a normal process, by the way. Like there's nothing wrong with that process. It's normal. You've got to grow through it. But while you are doing that, there are people with their wallets out trying to pay you, trying to work with you. So what I want you to do, if this is you, if you are currently in that bit of currently in that bit of perfectionism trap, worrying about perfection, chasing perfection, I want you to think about the people that are currently struggling with that problem. And they need your help right now. They currently want desperately what it is that you've got. So go give it to them. Even if it's 92% of the way there, not a hundred.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, amazing. And here's the truth a good course that's available beats a perfect course that doesn't exist yet. Just let that sink in. Sit with that for a second. It's true. Like you can like twiddle your thumbs forever, but it's not gonna be a thing until you like start making it and and get it out there.

SPEAKER_00:

Oftentimes those things that you get stuck in and get trapped on, and you think, oh, I don't know the curriculum, I don't know the exact order of the videos, I don't know if this is the right design for my slides, all of those little traps, right? You figure them out by just doing. You do a video, you film it through, you go, you know what? Those slides were just shit. Let me just do that one more time. And you go back and you do it again, you go, oh, that was perfect. I'm glad that I just ran with it, instead of sitting in Canva for the next six weeks twiddling with every single pixel on my screen. So oftentimes just going through the motions and doing it and putting one front in front of the other is what makes that process make sense.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely. And that's another reason why we don't focus on huge launches. Like you put, you know, six months into something and then, you know, it's that's not getting it done. That's procrastinating. Launch it, get feedback, improve it with your students, not in isolation, not by yourself. Because as soon as you onboard students, you know, improve it again from what they say, you know? You can't, you can't improve it without that feedback. Your first students will give you insights you never would have thought of on your own. Plus, there's something powerful about saying, I've helped X number of students achieve this result. You can't say that if you've never launched. You can't say that if you've never done it. So if you need, you know, those testimonials, you need that feedback. You need to be able to tell people, I have helped people with this result. That's why you get in, get it done, get it launched.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, blind spot number four. And I'm taking the lead, Dad. I'm taking it through to blind spot number four. This is a really, really common thing that happens. I would say, in the first few months of being a course creator, when you are making your first few sales, especially if you are doing those kind of like launch models or you're kind of going months between intakes. During that time, it's so easy to look left. It's so easy. And during this time, it's really easy to get the wobbles and to start obsessing over your competitors instead of owning your unique magic, which is blind spot number four.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a good blind spot. It's not just like what to improve to get sales, your messaging on your sales page, you know? Like that's the that's some nitty-gritty. I like blind spot number four because yeah, people really obsess over competitors when it's like, who cares? It's especially with us. One of the time when I was like, oh, I'm making a sewing course, you know, back back when, people would say, Oh, like lots of people could do that. Or, you know, they would like be afraid because of the competitors for me. Yeah. Like, no, like, yeah, but are they for starters? Yeah, they're not doing it. So there's a fucking advantage. Sorry, excuse my French. And also, like, who cares? Like, some people will like that person, some people will like me.

SPEAKER_00:

And 100 people say it to me all the time. They say, Oh, there's so many people who teach Japanese on TikTok or Instagram or whatever. And I think, yeah, 100%, but I'm one of the only white ones.

SPEAKER_01:

If you Yeah, it's you can't, but you're white. Oh my god, you can't just ask people why they're white. I that's not the quote, but I think some people will understand where I'm getting. It's fairly close.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know what? Like, that's the thing. Like, no, I don't single that out as my point of difference. Not really. I say that I was an interpreter first and I've had to learn Japanese the hard way. You know, I don't say, hey, I'm a white person. Yeah, you say I you know English is my first language. I think everybody thinks that their own industry is extremely saturated, probably for two main reasons. One, you're in it, you're spending all your time there. You know it. Like you're looking at people, you're feeling like it's saturated. Your algorithm is sending you people. 100%, 100%. And then two, because it's scary. And so I think a lot of us oftentimes think that there's only a limited number of people in the world who want to learn to sew, or a limited number of people who want to learn Japanese. I think that most people would be mind-blown by the amount of inquiries and email addresses and people that come through my business on a monthly basis. There are infinite number of people that want to learn Japanese. Not, you know, truly infinite, infinite for my sales needs. There are infinite. And there are still people who find me every single day and comment on my videos and say, oh my God, I've been looking for a Japanese course for months and months and months and I couldn't find anything. Hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of people tell me that. So if it is starting to get a little bit cozy, a little bit stifling in your corner of the internet where you're starting to feel like, oh my gosh, I'm looking at my competitors, I'm looking sideways. It feels like I'm in a really uh oversaturated, overpopulated niche. Everyone's doing what I do. There are so many of us. And then you start getting the wobbles in your sales, and you're thinking, I'm not making 30 sales a month, I'm not making 50 sales a month. How is that person making 50 sales a month? Should I just go copy everything that they're doing? Stop. Stop, or Amy and Odette will come through the screen and we will slap your wrists away from your phone. Just stop it. Immediately stop it. Because if I had done that from day one and I had gone to look at all of the other Japanese creators who, you know, were making their own Japanese courses, I would never ever have the originality, the creativity of what I have now. And I guarantee you, I would never have the success that I have now if I did that at the start. Because again, like what Ted said at the beginning, people are looking at you for your magic. They're looking at you for what's different about what you do and what's unique to you. And you might not see it yet, but you will figure it out. You will find that you have a magic and you need to believe in that magic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 100%. It's not productive spending hours scrolling through all the course creators' content, analyzing their pricing, their bonuses, their marketing strategies. It's not productive and it's not market research, it's just self-sabotage. It's dressed up as like productivity, you know? It's like you can have a look, but don't make it emotional. And like if you think, oh, I'm gonna have a look at you know my competitors, like okay, how am I gonna do it better? How am I gonna do it different? You know, that's productive. But don't just like scroll, don't just scroll until you've like wound yourself up into, oh, I can't do it because they're already doing it. It's like saying, I want to open a cafe, but they have a cafe. It's like, yeah, they could be other cafes. And like, yes, other people teach similar topics. And you know what? That's actually good news. It means there's demand, you know, and if something already exists, that's good. It just means you need to do it differently or you need to do it. Even if you do it the same, it's gonna be different because you're different, you know? You naturally are gonna attract a different person. But it means people are buying courses like yours, you know. So just because somebody else does, you know, um, I'm gonna go back to baking. Just because somebody else does a baking course doesn't mean you can't bake a cake.

SPEAKER_00:

So if you are finding yourself obsessing over your competitors, checking their inclusions, thinking, is it my inclusions? Do I need a bonus like what they've got? Maybe I should just take some inspiration from what they're doing. I want you to avert your gaze, come back in and remember that people oftentimes buy on vibes. I know that that is a really unserious piece of business advice, but what other people don't have is your story, your teaching style, your personality, your specific expertise. Those are the things that other people feel seen by when they can relate to your story, when they can relate to you as a person. That vibe, some people will pick up on it and they will not be able to pick up on it with your competitors. And that's a good thing. That's great. There is room for everybody. So don't go chasing those rabbit holes, don't get shiny object syndrome, looking at their sales pages, trying to rip everything that they're doing or worrying about it. Just unfollow it, change your algorithm, look at other stuff, get out of the spiral.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. I think we should leave it there because those are four very juicy points, I think. So maybe you write one down and have a think about it. And re-listen to the podcast. That was a juicy one. I liked it. If your course isn't selling, I want you to audit yourself on these four things. Are you selling features or freedom? Are you talking to everyone or connecting with someone specific? Are you waiting for perfect or are you out there helping people? And are you obsessing over competitors or owning what makes you different?

SPEAKER_00:

Fix these blind spots, and I promise you'll start seeing different results. You've got this. We believe in you. Now go and sell that course. Like the transformation delivering, life changing mentor that you are.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll leave it there and we will see you next week. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.