The Best Online Courses I’ve Purchased in the Past 15 Months
If you’ve been following along the past month, you’ve seen me sharing lots of information to attract students to our How to Price Your Products and Services class (which starts today!). Believe it or not though, it took me 3 years to warm up to this idea. I’d had the impression that online courses were yucky and lacked integrity. And don’t get me wrong… many of them do. Just as many businesses do, whether they’re online or offline.
But then in October 2020, I had a problem that I couldn’t solve alone. I turned to an Australian woman I had followed from afar since 2017. She not only helped me solve my problem, but more widely, she shifted my view of the possibilities of online courses. Alongside her work, she led me to 2 other courses that have been game changers for me personally, and for Ellevated Outcomes. So today, I wanted to share the love with the 3 best online courses I’ve recently taken. In total, I’ve spent $5500 across these three. And I’m totally confident: the ROI has just begun… best online courses
1. Money Mindset Bootcamp
Denise Duffield-Thomas is the woman I allude to above. If you’ve been following for awhile, this isn’t the first time I’ve hailed her work. She specializes 100% in money mindset. You may be surprised to hear me talking about mindset, since at Ellevated Outcomes, we specifically say, “We’re not coaches! Strategy is our skillset, not mindset.”
Yet, we also say: you need both: a clear strategy, if you want to be most effective. And you have to believe that it’s going to work. If you do all the technical things without belief in the outcomes, you’re not going to get them (I’ve learned the hard way).
And like I said, mindset isn’t my top skill; and I happily pay for skills and expertise I don’t have. Many are surprised when I recommend this course, as I am so about the precision, technical levers, and math – which her work is not. But for me, that’s why it’s the perfect complement to my brain and day-to-day.
2. Five Minutes to Famous
I can only imagine you reading this, wondering, “Has she lost her mind? Hey Julie, remember when you used to write business development playbooks and detailed money management systems?” Don’t worry, I’ll get back to the brainy stuff in the future, haha.
And also, I have to preface: being “famous” is of no interest to me. But… obtaining 4 PR hits was on our 2021 annual plan. And while I knew strategically why this was important for Ellevated Outcomes, I didn’t know the nuts and bolts of how to get it done.
This course was additive for me because I love writing; I put together solid, integrous content (if I do say so myself, ha); and I have a clear, strategic view of why this fits into our business.
Yet I lacked the execution knowledge: how do you actually get press? And this course shows you how.. precisely! It was an example of really simple and elementary techniques… that you just have to do. And do consistently. Alongside expanding how I think about our marketing strategy specifically, it led to this feature in Curate & Cultivate and something in the pipeline that will be pretty nice for us… 🙂
3. Product Launch Formula
Something I’ve learned about myself over the past year (through paid personal development!) is that I can make things unnecessarily hard for myself. Because I have such a clear view on our brand, values, and how we do things, I’m often tempted to re-create the wheel, building things from scratch instead of buying the rights to systems that others have developed. I pride myself and Ellevated Outcomes on being different. I don’t want us to copy or look like others. But here’s the big aha:
I can buy systems or resources from others and then customize them to us. (Duh).
Jeff Walker’s PLF is one of those systems. Why in the world was I trying to do a launch from scratch, when I could outsource a framework? I have to admit: I was initially turned off because I don’t jive with his chemistry, and I didn’t want Ellevated Outcomes to look or feel like his (or any other) business. And I don’t say that meanly or with judgement; it’s just not true to us. But when I looked past the window dressing to understand, “Is this a solid system that I can adapt to our needs?” The answer was, “Absolutely. It will take you years to build and experiment with something you could just buy.”
You may think it’s strange of me to pivot from promoting our own course… to promoting others’ (these are not affiliate links, BTW). As I say to our Advisory clients, every day: we shouldn’t be the be-all-end-all. The more smart perspectives and expert resources you get, the better. Our job is to teach you how to think about things to then bring in the experts who will help all of us do more and do better.
Please comment below to share any others that you think we should check out!
