Best Online Learning Platforms for Your Intellectual Property?

By Lorianne Vaughan Speaks

In the past few years, online learning has drastically evolved and changed the face of modern personal development. A recent Forbes report stated that by 2025 we will be spending $1 Billion A DAY on our personal development: and as someone who supports speakers and authors this is a wonderful glimpse of profit to be made. There are many articles that help the user pick the best platform for their learning, but what about the best platforms for the teacher, mentor and coaches?

To gain traction on your message, I recommend submitting your class/coaching program to many sites. You may not be accepted by all, but why limit yourself.

At no cost to you are LinkedIn’s Learning portal Lynda as well as Ascira. While both offer you, as the instructor, visibility; Ascira will share revenue with you. For the student, LinkedIn costs the learner the Premium subscription at approximately $300 a year while Ascira is $100 per month and offers other perks to keep the subscribers coming back. Both offer unlimited courses to the learner.

I would recommend applying to both!

On the other side of the coin is Thinkific and Teachable. Thinkific has plans designed so that you can start building and selling for free, and then scale up to paid plans as your business grows, and there are no transaction fees. Teachable requires a paid plan for you to start running your business and doesn’t scale up to support high volume businesses. Though they offer templates and easy uploading of video and content – you are responsible for the video quality you can afford and have access to for your content. However, the upside is that you create your program; price it and collect the money for your programs. The higher quality WILL cost you, however.

I would recommend that if you put your program here, you make sure you have it on your own website as well. Or better yet, use these low-cost classes as your external funnel to you high-cost programs or one-on-one coaching.

There are many more platforms to choose from; and I recommend you do your due diligence on where you can stand out from the other programs and be unique in your offering. Other sites to look at are:

• Skillshare

• MasterClass

• Udemy

• Edx.org

• Udacity

• Coursera.org

• Futurelearn.com

I am steering my clients to all these options, but I have to admit, I am most excited about Ascira. It is actually in its pre-launch stage, so you are not competing with 100.000s of other instructors. And, if you are chosen, they will take on all the cost of filming, producing, editing and uploading your content in 6K (Hollywood quality!). You can be a content provider without being part of the business of marketing and share revenue based on your viewing numbers...though why you would not want to capitalize on the business side escapes me. You can become an affiliate marketer and collect commission on all who you sign up. For coaches who understand that they can’t provide all the learning that might be necessary for your clients, you are offering them content from other instructors in other areas of need. That is a winwin for you are giving them the ability to learn from many – and they see that you care about their growth from wherever it may come.

If you would like to learn more about any of these platforms, feel free to reach out to me for a free consultation at Lorianne@LVSConsultingServices. com.

Lorianne Speaks is an expert in the area of Speaker/ Author support. She amplifies the visibility of Authors/ Speakers/Messengers while they do what they love - SPEAK! Lorianne has helped spearhead multiple bestselling book campaigns - editing, proofing, through to launch and social media marketing to help authors create buzz and momentum throughout the social media platforms and increasing their message World- Wide. Lorianne and her team have made it their mission to empower speakers to deliver their message by handling the rest of the details!