Less Is More. And Clients, Not Students.

Inflation.

Lot of people talking about it these days when it comes to money. I mean, massive money printing on a scale never seen before in history. Prices going up. Seen food and gas prices lately?

I could go on, but don’t worry… this isn’t an economics discussion. 😇

Inflation hasn’t only happened with money.

See, what is inflation?

It is where they print more and more money out of nothing but without value increasing, therefore the value of money drops and prices go up. More dollars chasing the same (or fewer) good and services.

It has happened with information, too.

We’re all drowning in information. So many things vying for our attention. So many things to read or watch. There’s just too much. 🤯

Remember when the ebook was a new thing? People would sell ebooks and make a killing. Then, everybody got onboard and the value of those ebooks went away. Nowdays, it can be hard to give one away as a lead magnet.

Remember launches? It was a big event on the internet – especially in the marketing space. But, everybody started doing it. It got to a point where people were thinking “another one?” And the big guys had to keep ramping up their game to full Hollywood-style studio productions just to stand out. Not even sure if that works anymore, honestly.

The same is happening to online courses. Seems like everybody is trying to do them now. Sites like Udemy and Skillshare have commoditized them to the point where the perceived value has dropped.

Don’t get me wrong… with the right marketing and positioning and value, you can still launch an online course and do very well.

But, perceived value has dropped. Now, you even see courses as freebies in some cases.

It’s inflation.

Increased supply more than demand was keeping up.

There are just so many courses out there that people are overwhelmed by them. They don’t care as much. In countries with massive currency inflation, people stop caring about the money. They start using it in campfires, in some cases. And in a weird way, we’ve seen this when it comes to online education and information products.

In a world of information inflation – and social media vying for everybody’s attention and literally creating attention and focus issues in people – then even the membership model has flaws.

Lot of memberships have taken the Netflix model… where they just create this massive library of stuff all under one monthly bill. But, I actually think that ship has sailed. Anybody trying to create a Netflix style membership still finds themselves having to lowball their price. People don’t care about library size anymore. People don’t value that anymore. They’ve got too much as it is.

A lot of students of these courses don’t get results. And that’s mainly because they’re too distracted. They literally don’t focus enough to get the job done. And, they know all that information means work they have to do. Work they probably don’t particularly want to do, either.

So, I think there are 2 big things here worth thinking about.

Bigger isn’t always better. Not anymore.

Those 2 shifts are:

  1. A shift toward smaller products. Instead of packing everything you can think of into your product, purposely make it smaller and more focused on the desired result. Less is more.
  2. A shift toward clients rather than students.

Big mega-courses are not the thing anymore. Smaller, more targeted offers that get right to the point and deliver the promised result in the fastest possible way is preferable.

But also…

A focus on having CLIENTS, not just students and/or buyers. Not going for a massive list of customers, but instead a smaller group of people you can serve on a deeper level.

Clients are people you work more closely with.

Clients are people you might even jump in there and do the work for them.

It is a different kind of relationship.

Also a lot harder to inflate.

Here’s another thing…

It is a lot easier to get people results, too. They pay more, but they’re getting more. And usually getting it faster.

You’re removing their pain point in the most direct possible way. Either by doing the work for them or showing them how in the most direct possible way.

I’ve been doing more client work lately. In fact, in many ways, the Blog Marketing Academy has pivoted to where client services are now a much larger part of what I do.

There will always be a membership. I will always be producing content. Not much will change on that front.

But, clients are more fun. 😎 I can get better results, too.

Getting people real, tangible results and doing it for them is pretty hard to inflate.

Sure, it can happen. Sites like Upwork have commoditized even things like website development, graphics design, etc.

But, that’s just a marketing issue. Not even a hard one to solve.

Here’s the powerful combo…

Real content. Good content. Building trust. THEN… attracting clients and charging accordingly. And where it makes sense, create product offers where information may be all or part of the offer, but you try to hone it down to the least possible, most efficient amount of content to get the result they want… as fast as possible.

That’s the business model.