Being An Online Teacher Can Be One of The Most Fulfilling, Lucrative, And Engaging Remote Jobs In 2021
… If You Have The Right Revenue Stream, The Right Audience, And The Right Tools You Need To Make It Happen!
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First of all, why do most successful, in-person teachers who want to learn “how to become an online teacher” have it so hard? Why don’t they have a substantial revenue stream right off the bat, with thousands of curious and engaged participants, and a stress free system for delivering learning in a way that stimulates the audience and commands their undivided attention and loyalty in perpetuity?
If you’re a genuine, caring teacher with passion, valuable knowledge, and/or practice skills to share, don’t you deserve that?
If you are a famous writer (like Stephen King), and you announced you had a “master class” for sale... it probably doesn’t matter how it’s delivered, if it’s any “good” or not, or if any students develop practical skills from the experience … he would probably going to sell a ton of courses regardless.
That’s nice for Stephen King (or Aaron Sorkin, Malcolm Gladwell, or Judy Bloom - who all actually do sell Master Class courses), but what about someone who isn’t famous or well known? What happens to the better teachers, who are more willing to engage their audience and help them succeed, that lack the fame?
They need more unique and compelling offers to stand out in the marketplace! Sure, you can watch “10 Stephen King” talking head videos on writing, but doesn’t that actually make you a better writer? For an aspiring writer, can the writing teacher come up with a more creative and compelling way to position themselves against someone like Stephen King and all those other writers?
Those people are famous writers, not famous writing teachers. So even if you don’t have the fame, you can stand out and take their students and customers by offering more beneficial and exciting alternatives!
“Write your first book with me side by side!”
“Join a group of 4 other writers, and share feedback with each other once a week!”
“Get help promoting your first book by generating an pre-audience list of 10,000 readers, even before you have the title!”
Each of these are more exciting learning opportunities than the offer to “watch 10 videos on writing.” So regardless of your industry or specific field, the key to standing out lies in the offer and actionable opportunity presented to the audience, no matter how famous or well known your competition may be!
Lastly, online teachers that don’t make enough revenue are not engaging their audience enough. They might send an email or post on social media here and there, but they have no way to consistently hold their audience’s attention and “keep them warm” with value. So when the time comes to promote, nobody takes action!
If you sent your friend from high school a letter in the mail asking for $5 dollars out of nowhere, they would probably be turned off and think you were crazy. But if you mailed them a letter once a week for 10 weeks telling them about how much you want to become an online teacher, and then asked them for a $5 donation to help you get started, wouldn't that make all the difference?
If you want them to act, they need to be engaged!
That’s just a fancy way of saying you need to message them directly (at least) once a week with something valuable, insightful, or helpful to keep them interested in hearing more from you. You can share stories, send videos, or just give them encouragement. It doesn't matter as long as you stay on their radar screen.
Social media is the worst for this (too many competing distractions).
Email is good for online teachers (but emails have a low open rate).
Text is the way to go.
You’ll not only spend less time creating your messaging (it’s way faster to write a text than an email, right?) but your open rates will be higher (over 90% of text messages are opened within 3 minutes), and you’ll earn valuable real estate in their phones (if they add you as a contact, you now stand out way more than any email, social media post, or other advertisement competing for their attention).
And with text message training, your offers will naturally be more unique, compelling, and effective, so you’ll help with #2 above, and if you do that right, you’ll gain more fame and notoriety which helps with #1.
Engage them at least once a week.
Create more compelling and unique learning offers.
Build a name for yourself by repeating those 2 things over time.
Do that, and you will *significantly* increase the chances of generating more revenue as an online teacher, especially compared to those who don’t.
With the wrong audience, any new online teacher will become frustrated, concerned, and despondent. They are likely to lose hope altogether, which is sad because it’s not their fault. It’s the way they look for students that’s the problem.
Most online “course creation” and “learning management system” advice for online teachers, or aspiring online teachers, is to use exaggerated headlines that make the learning experience seem effortless then they overwhelm them with content.
This is why course completion rates are so low, and why students get so excited to get started, but then they lose hope shortly after starting. Wouldn't you, too, if instead of writing this article, I sent you 100 hours of videos that promise “quick results?”
As a result of this commonly accepted strategy (that goes against logic and long term reasoning), the marketplace is saturated with over hyped courses that don’t deliver tangible, meaningful, long lasting results.
Those short sighted offers, or offers that try to repeat that short sighted strategy, only attract short sighted students and participants.
If your strategy is to attract long term students, create meaningful relationships that last years (not days or hours), and profit from that engagement repeatedly over time, those students will find you.
Why?
Because everyone else is offering them short sighted solutions!
And why they “try” those solutions, they don’t work.
If you focus on under-promising (with confidence) and over-delivering results (with personal, relationship-building touch), you will naturally stand out.
People will tell their friends about you, and they will keep coming back to you. While most other online teachers are looking for a one night stand (to make a quick but fleeting buck), you can be focused on creating rewarding relationships (that will yield profit for you in perpetuity).
This is how I stood out as a marketing trainer.
Instead of offering “overnight success” courses, I offered one new and actionable marketing exercise every single day @ 5 am that expired @ midnight to my audience.
And if they participated, I would give them personal feedback on their work.
The result?
They developed new marketing skills (not more marketing fluff), made real progress, and had tangible results from the marketplace to brag about.
Some students participated every single day.
Other’s once or twice a week.
And surprisingly, others would come and go at completely random times, but would always tell me, “even though I don’t take action every day, I read every single email and prompt, and I’m so grateful for them.”
Because students knew they could develop real skill over time, and that opportunity was always in front of them, it created a fear of missing out, a sense of excitement, and a sense of urgency (everyday had a midnight deadline).
To this day (years and years later) I still get messages from that group of participants I trained for about a year and a half. They still send me insights and real world stories about what I helped them learn. And if I ever offered it again, I’m sure they would jump right back into the training.
Why?
Because people knew I was helping them build real skills and something that was going to make a lasting impact, not a one-off transactional offer that only benefited the online teacher who was getting paid.
This is why presenting them with actionable opportunities will always be more exciting than presenting them with more information.
Information alone isn’t exciting anymore.
It’s everywhere, and it’s all free.
The question now that we have so much of it, and so much more of it being produced every single day, is what we’re going to do with all of it?
How will we put all that content into action?
Through opportunities!
Not information-delivery mechanisms!
You should be able to break through the noise of the marketplace if you’re positioning yourself and your offers like that to find your target audience. But if not, only one element remains.
How are your copywriting skills?
The headlines you use?
The buy pages you write?
The curriculum you develop?
Do you use engaging, exciting, and effective enough words to get their initial attention? Even if you’re the most honest online teacher in the world, you can’t expect students to get excited all on their own.
Ultimately, it’s your job to make it all sound exciting!
And you can easily do that with copywriting.
The difference between an engaging teacher who has all the right elements in place but can’t attract new students and the one who does .. is their ability to create enthusiasm in their messaging.
Imagine walking into a classroom with a boring, tired, unenthusiastic voice … now imagine a more energetic, excited, and enthusiastic voice.
That difference comes across in digital media as well as in person!
Objectively, they are overwhelmed by all the choices.
There are hundreds if not thousands of learning tools for online teachers to choose from in the United States alone.
And every single one of them has their own approach to “delivering learning” and some even claim to “engage your audience” but even fewer, if any besides us, claim to “create meaningful relationships over time.”
If you spend 6 months writing, filming, and producing a 10 video course … and then just deliver (or sell) it to your audience one day … then what?
That’s not going to create a long lasting relationship, that’s just going to give them an experience “they tried one time a few years ago.”
And that’s so much work for the teacher!
And then these video-module-delivery platforms (which makes up the majority of learning management system offers), give you all these unnecessary features they make you think you need. But these only add to the unnecessary stress and distract you from the most important part ... creating meaningful relationships!
Your students won’t care about the features you do or do not use!
They care about engagement, learning, and delivering practical results!
You don’t need all the bells and whistles to do that, you only need 3 elements to create an extremely effective learning experience that scales and builds trust and loyalty over time.
You need:
Do you need 100 features to be able to do that?
No; only 3.
And all available through text.
See the majority of other platforms are all digital. So you have to sign in, and your students have to sign in, and then there has to be somewhere for them to go to access content. And it’s just sitting there.
It’s that exciting?
Is that instant, engaging, and active?
No.
It’s overwhelming (and requires extra, unnecessary steps) for everybody, it’s not easy to use (so it causes everyone extra stress when thinking about using it), and it’s not fun (it feels more “corporate” than “classroom”).
Is it any surprise online teachers or people who want to become online teachers are so overwhelmed by all the options to choose a learning platform?
They’re all the same thing!
Video-module-delivery systems competing as sales machines to drive one night stand sales through your audience. Nothing before, and nothing after. No engagement, and no long term relationships that stand out.
Imagine it was 100x easier and more simple than that.
When you have something to share (or promote) to your audience, you text them. They get the text, through text they can access all your learning experience, and through text, you can follow up with them and their processes.
No unnecessary distractions.
No unnecessary features.
No unnecessary stress.
It’s naturally more engaging, attention-grabbing, and actionable!
It’s right in front of them!
And it’s fun!
Imagine your students getting a text from you @ 11 am announcing a new learning experience you’re offering. They could jump right in!
And imagine that new learning experience wasn’t 100 hours of videos and didn’t take 6 months to create.
Imagine it took you less than 10 minutes, and had a much bigger impact on your audience.
Does that sound easier?
More friendly?
More fun?
And more likely to result in a more engaged audience over time who knows you have their best interest in mind, compared to everyone else who is promising them the world and not delivering?
The difference between being full time and part time really depends on how much time you want to spend promoting yourself, how high you want your income streams to be, and what schedule your learning offers are on (daily, weekly, monthly, or evergreen).
When they first started creating, developing, and designing learning management software, they tried to replicate the classroom (sharing lectures) instead of realizing the digital opportunities in front of them (offering opportunity).
This is the way the marketplace is shifting.
Want to see a demo?