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7 Best Online Course Platforms in 2022 | Teachable vs. Thinkific vs. Kajabi vs. Podia - YouTube
Channel: Wit & Wire | Course Creation Tips ✨
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if you're thinking about creating and
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selling online courses your online
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course platform is one of the most
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important tools you'll need but there
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are quite a few options out there and a
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lot of them are very different from each
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other so today i'm going to talk about
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my favorite online course creation
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platforms and help you choose which one
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is right for you hey i'm melissa and
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welcome back to whit and wire where we
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help creators turn their skills and
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passions into profitable online
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businesses one of the most important
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distinctions we have to start with is
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the difference between a course
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marketplace and a course creation
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platform on the marketplace side we have
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sites like skillshare udemy and coursera
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so the way it works is that students
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actually go to those websites to find
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courses and can purchase a course and
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take it on that website as a creator
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what you would be doing is almost like
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contributing a course to udemy or to
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skillshare and i have a fairly
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successful skillshare course with a few
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thousand students and that course is
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great for exposure it's put me in front
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of a lot of people but i don't earn very
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much money from that course at all the
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biggest downside in fact to course
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marketplaces is the fact that it really
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puts a cap on your profitability so of
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those nearly 6 000 students i earn like
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100 to 200 per month at max and some of
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that money comes from me referring
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people to skillshare for udemy you may
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earn a little bit of money per course
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but udemy controls your course pricing
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and they can discount it at any time on
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top of that for any of those course
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marketplaces ultimately you're building
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up that company's business and you don't
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have access to the customers so those
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students are skillshare students they
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are udemy students and you cannot market
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to them you do not have their email
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addresses and as a business owner i
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think that is a huge downside on the
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other hand if you've heard of teachable
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thinkific kajabi or podia these are
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online course creation platforms and
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when you use one of these tools you are
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creating an online course but then when
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a student makes a purchase they are
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paying you directly the way i usually
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describe it is that you can use a tool
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like wordpress or squarespace to build a
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website but you don't go to
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squarespace.com to see other people's
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websites in that same way you don't go
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to teachable.com to explore a
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marketplace of courses instead somebody
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may find my course because they discover
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whit and wire and then they go to my
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website they see that i have a course
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they make a purchase from me and then
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they're going through that course that i
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happened to build using teachable
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overall the course creation platform is
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a white label solution that lets you
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create your own product and to me that's
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the big difference is it your product or
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does it belong to a marketplace
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technically if you upload content to one
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of those sites like udemy skillshare or
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coursera you still own your own content
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but for the sake of our discussion i
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almost always recommend using the online
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course creation platforms and those are
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the tools we're going to be focusing on
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because they are much more profitable
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for business owners the first platform
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is teachable
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full disclosure i used to work a
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teachable full time for four years but i
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wouldn't have worked there if i didn't
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believe in the product and i was
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actually a teachable user before i was a
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teachable employee so here are a few
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reasons why i love teachable first it's
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super customizable you can create any
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type of experience inside each
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individual lesson so for example you can
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add a video and then put text below it
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with your recommended resources or you
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can list an action item now obvious as
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that sounds not all course creation
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platforms do that there are other
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options where you can only have a video
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or only have a download per lesson and i
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think that makes for a worse student
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experience because sometimes you need
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more than a video to really accomplish
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the goal of one lesson i also love the
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flexibility of the curriculum builder
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this is where i spend most of my time as
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a creator either building courses or
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updating or adding curriculum so the
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fact that you can easily publish or
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unpublish lessons as you're working on
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them you can make certain parts
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downloadable you can customize what goes
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into the lessons you can do all kinds of
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cool stuff with embedding forms to
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create pulse checks i just think there's
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so much that you can do with teachable
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because of the flexibility that it
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offers i also think that the student
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experience is nice it's easy to go
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through and it makes for a clean easy to
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follow experience another area where
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teachable really shines is the checkout
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you can add benefits testimonials and a
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guarantee along the side and all of
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those increase the conversion potential
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of your checkout page it's also a single
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page checkout experience i'll talk about
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a two-step checkout for some of the
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other tools but basically what this
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means is that there is no step one
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create a login and then step two
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check out and the more steps you have
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the more chances that you have for
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students to say no and to decide not to
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buy from you so overall teachable's done
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a lot of work to optimize this checkout
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process to increase your odds of making
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the sale there are also tons of
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integrations and zap options in zapier
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so you can make anything possible
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between teachable and most tools that
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you're probably using for your business
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i also forgot to mention that when
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you're creating curriculum you can use a
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cloud importer so if your videos are in
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dropbox or google drive you can connect
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to it directly instead of downloading
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videos and then uploading them which i
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think is really nice and not something
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most of the platforms use now no tool is
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perfect and teachable is no exception
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this is not a flaw but i think an
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important consideration when it comes to
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pricing teachable is comparable to the
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others on this list it's not more
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expensive or less expensive and they do
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have a free plan to get you started but
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i do think it's noteworthy that on the
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free and basic plans there is a small
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transaction fee so at a certain point
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when you start to sell a couple thousand
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dollars in course sales per year which i
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know you will then you may want to
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upgrade to the pro plan to avoid those
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fees but when you're just getting
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started overall they don't add up to too
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much where i think that those are still
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the right options and honestly i
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recommend the basic plan for most
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teachable creators until you start to
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scale the other area of improvement for
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teachable are the sales pages so i'm
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talking about the sales page for your
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own course they have definitely improved
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the editor over the last few years but
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what i actually do instead is i use my
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wordpress site and i build my sales
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pages there and then on the button on
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those pages when you click it you go to
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a teachable checkout page or another
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checkout so you don't need a fancy
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integration to do that i just wanted to
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share that that is the tech stack that i
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recommend for creators whether it's a
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wordpress site a squarespace site
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whatever you used to build your website
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you can use that to build your sales
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pages one more thing about teachable
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that's really noteworthy is the fact
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that they automatically calculate eu vat
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tax and they can pay out affiliates if
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you turn on a feature called back office
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teachable has done a lot to really
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create a comprehensive checkout
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experience and to handle a lot of the
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finances for you on the admin side so
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teachable is definitely the clear winner
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when it comes to checkout and conversion
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optimization on the front end for your
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buyers platform number two is thinkific
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teachable and thinkific are very similar
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and even though i use and love teachable
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i know a lot of people are very happy
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with thinkific and it could absolutely
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be right for you i will say that their
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checkout i think pales in comparison to
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teachable because they have a two-step
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checkout students have to create a login
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first then they go to a second page
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where they can check out and that adds
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friction in the buying process which
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will lower your conversion rate i also
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personally prefer the student experience
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of a teachable course because i've been
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students in courses on all of these
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platforms but that's just a minor
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preference thinkific has a free plan if
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you want to check it out and they do
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have a cap of three courses on that free
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plan but it should be enough for you to
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see what you think i will say that one
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area where thinkific does shine is their
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ability to collect assignments and there
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are slightly more enhanced grading and
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quizzing features compared to teachable
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so if that's important to you then think
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if it could be the right choice overall
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though with both platforms but
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definitely with teachable you can embed
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a lot of other tools into your lessons
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so i just want you to know that even if
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there's not a native option in teachable
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thinkific or the tool that you choose
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there are a lot of external tools like
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surveys that you can embed that will
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still create what looks like a native
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experience for your students
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that's a bit of an intermediate tip if
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you know what that means that's for you
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and if not don't even worry about it
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platform number three is podia podia
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markets themselves as your all-in-one
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digital storefront and although i think
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it could be the right fit if your
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primary goal is simplicity
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the other side of simple means that you
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can't customize as much and it's not
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quite as functional for example to me
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one of the biggest drawbacks is the fact
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that you can only have one content type
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per lesson so let's say that you had a
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video but you also wanted a pdf to go
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with that video you have to make those
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two separate lessons and not only is
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that confusing because now your student
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has to know to go to two different
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places it also runs the risk of making
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your course appear much longer than it
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needs to be as an example in my
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podcasting course i have a lesson on
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creating a podcast intro for your show
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and below it i have a pdf downloadable
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of a lot of example scripts so i would
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have to split that into two lessons and
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if i had to do that every single time i
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wanted to have a video with a resource
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my course would have many more lessons
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than it already does so i'm not a huge
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fan of that also podia has kind of a
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pop-up checkout process where it's
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two-step like thinkific first you enter
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an email and then you enter your credit
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card info but there's no room for things
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like testimonials guarantees or benefits
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and i think that the pop-up nature is
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not optimized for conversion i don't
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have proof what i do know for sure is
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that every marketing study i've ever
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seen shows that a single page checkout
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experience will out-convert a two-step
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process just because the more pages
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there are the more changes there are for
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people to fall out platform number four
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is kajabi
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kajabi is a really popular choice for
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course creators and business owners
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because they are an all-in-one solution
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kajabi is a little bit different from
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the first three tools on the list
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i would say that teachable thinkific and
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podia are course creation platforms sure
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you can also sell memberships and other
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types of digital products but for the
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most part that is the purpose you are
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selling digital products kajabi expands
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that a little bit it is an all-in-one
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tool where you can create your website
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you can sell courses you can have a blog
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you can have a podcast rss feed you can
[616]
send emails you can create pipelines
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there's so much that you can do in
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kajabi and i think kajabi is the right
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fit for someone who values simplicity
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and having one tool
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over the ability to customize because
[628]
its greatest strength the fact that it's
[630]
an all-in-one tool is also its biggest
[632]
downfall because if you're like me let's
[635]
say you may want to do more advanced
[637]
email automations and kajabi can't do
[640]
things like that so it wouldn't be the
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right tool for me but i definitely think
[643]
kajabi could be the right fit for
[644]
somebody who wants everything in one
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place i also know that kajabi's sales
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pages and website builder cannot really
[650]
be compared to the first three options
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they are definitely more customizable
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you can do a ton with them so i think if
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you're looking for an all-in-one
[656]
solution kajabi could be a great fit for
[658]
you once again though i have to talk
[660]
about the student experience i still
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think that the kajabi interface which
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shows a video with a little bit of text
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below but then shows downloads off on
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the side is not as user friendly as
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teachables where you create a series of
[673]
blocks and you can do whatever you'd
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like but it's very linear i know that's
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just my personal preference talking but
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as a student i prefer taking courses in
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teachable than i do taking courses in
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kajabi also the price point is frankly
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higher it's going to start at 149 a
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month and go up from there so if you're
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choosing kajabi i would just make sure
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that you're using not only the course
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creation capabilities but that you're
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also interested in some of the other
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tools to have an all-in-one home for
[701]
your business platform number five is
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learn worlds i'll be honest this is the
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platform on my list that i'm least
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familiar with but i'm mentioning it
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because on one of their higher tiers
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they have interactive video
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functionality students can highlight
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text in their own version of the course
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and i think if interaction is what's
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most important to you then this could be
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a really interesting option for you to
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explore if those are not some of your
[726]
top criteria then i think the first
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options on this list are going to be a
[729]
little bit more affordable but overall
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i'm super fascinated by learn world and
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excited to see how people might continue
[736]
to use it in the coming years platform
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number six is member fault i think a lot
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of people choose member vault because
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they have a pretty robust free plan and
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i do think that it's a budget friendly
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option i still prefer teachables free
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plan but i think where member vault does
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shine is their gamification where you
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can earn points as you complete
[754]
different lessons and they really like
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to talk about the fact that you can have
[758]
multiple courses and send people to the
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hub where they can see all these sales
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pages and they can click in and they can
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make a purchase but the reason why i'm
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not sold on that idea is because the
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member vault sales pages and checkout
[771]
experience does not seem optimized for
[774]
conversion to me
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so even if i were using member vault i
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would probably still be using my
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wordpress sales pages so overall i'm not
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the biggest fan of the member vault
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experience either as a creator i think
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it's a lot more technical than the other
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options or as a student i find myself
[791]
getting lost in the experience but if
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you're looking for a budget option i did
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want to include it on the list where you
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can choose this or check out teachable
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and thinkifics free plans but mostly
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teachable i mean you all knew i was
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going to recommend teachable right
[803]
platform number seven is thrivecart
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this is a little bit of a left field
[808]
recommendation because at the end of
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2021 thrivecart which was formerly a
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checkout solution announced that they
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had a new feature called learn where
[816]
they were basically trying to compete
[818]
with teachable and all the other course
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creation platforms to say look we
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already know people are using our
[823]
checkout experience let's just give the
[825]
people what they want and instead of
[826]
integrating with teachable what if they
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had the option to use our own tool since
[830]
it's new i will say that thrivecart's
[832]
learn feature is still in pretty early
[835]
stages but you can create a very simple
[837]
course and the thing that you need to
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know about creating with thrivecartlearn
[842]
is the fact that they do not have video
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hosting let's say you choose teachable
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what you can do is create your video
[848]
drag and drop it in and then teachable
[850]
hosts that video for you online with
[852]
thrivecart that's not the case you'll
[854]
need to purchase a different tool like
[856]
hosting your videos on vimeo or on
[858]
youtube which i don't recommend even if
[860]
you unlist them because it's not private
[862]
and can be shared but let's say you did
[863]
vimeo or loom you still have to pay for
[866]
a different video solution so it's not
[869]
the end of the world that could run you
[871]
anywhere from seven or eight dollars a
[872]
month to twenty dollars per month but
[874]
it's definitely a cost worth considering
[877]
that said i do use and love thrive cart
[880]
as a checkout experience because now
[882]
that my business has grown a little bit
[884]
there are some additional features that
[886]
teachable can't do like the ability to
[888]
have more than one payment plan on a
[890]
single checkout page so if you're
[892]
interested in exploring thrivecart you
[894]
can find a link below this video or
[896]
visit whittnwire.com thrivecard before i
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share my final recommendations i did
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want to give an honorable mention to the
[902]
world of wordpress plugins there are
[905]
tools like memberpress and learndash you
[907]
can use those to create courses that are
[909]
actually part of your wordpress site i
[911]
think those work really well for a lot
[913]
of business owners and you'll find links
[914]
to both of those below i personally find
[916]
them to be a little bit more technically
[919]
challenging than the course creation
[920]
platforms but if what's most important
[923]
to you is keeping everything housed
[924]
under your wordpress site then i think
[926]
then those could be a great solution for
[927]
the right business owner overall i do
[929]
have an important tip about choosing
[931]
your course creation platform
[933]
when you visit all of these websites
[934]
you're going to see tons of features
[936]
like graded quizzes certificates dripped
[940]
content where new content unlocks every
[942]
week course compliance there are so many
[944]
features
[945]
the problem is if none of those features
[948]
apply to your needs for your business
[950]
then making a buying decision based on
[953]
those features is not going to be useful
[955]
so what i would recommend doing right
[957]
now is that you make a list of all the
[959]
features that are important to you what
[961]
do you want your course experience to
[963]
feel like make notes and then once you
[966]
have that list you can go to the
[967]
different websites maybe do some free
[969]
trials and you can see what feels right
[971]
to you but also it meets your needs you
[973]
do not need to pay for features just
[974]
because they sound fancy and i don't use
[977]
a lot of the features that are on upper
[979]
tiers in any of these platforms that's
[981]
my business owner tip for you
[983]
i also want to share that i think there
[985]
are two very important parties when it
[987]
comes to which tool you choose the first
[989]
is of course you the way that the tool
[991]
feels to you if it's intuitive or not if
[993]
you enjoy using it if it makes sense
[995]
obviously there may be a small learning
[997]
curve to some of these course creation
[998]
platforms especially if you aren't very
[1000]
tech savvy but you may have kind of like
[1002]
a gut feeling that some feel better to
[1004]
you than others i think that's really
[1006]
important the other important person is
[1008]
your student the student experience
[1010]
feels very different in each of these
[1012]
platforms so for you a major
[1014]
consideration could be how that ux that
[1017]
user experience feels to a student how
[1020]
the branding of it looks i think that's
[1022]
a major criteria as well and that's
[1024]
totally a personal option one of you may
[1026]
prefer thinkific another podia another
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teachable that's not something that has
[1030]
a universal answer and overall one of
[1033]
the tips that i always give business
[1035]
owners is that there is no such thing as
[1037]
a perfect tool
[1038]
just the right tools for different
[1040]
people
[1041]
there are plenty of very happy customers
[1044]
on every single platform that i listed
[1046]
so the worst mistake that you could make
[1048]
is not choosing any at all or letting
[1050]
paralysis prevent you from launching
[1053]
your online course so if you are looking
[1055]
for all of the curriculum building tools
[1057]
that i use for my courses you'll find my
[1059]
complete online course toolkit in the
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description below or at whittenwire.com
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coursetoolkit otherwise if this video
[1066]
has been helpful i hope you'll give it a
[1068]
thumbs up and subscribe to wittenwire
[1069]
for more online business tips since
[1071]
you're interested in online course
[1072]
creation i would recommend this next
[1074]
video on how to create and sell your
[1076]
online course even if you aren't very
[1078]
tech savvy and don't know where to find
[1079]
students
[1097]
uh
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