This is a question I get asked a lot. Not by my clients, but by other people in my life once they find out what I do.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Trying to decide if a course is going to be worth the investment we would have to make in it. I’m not just talking about the money we would spend on it, although obviously that is one of the things I mean. I am also talking about the investment of time, energy, and effort that we would be making in completing the course after we pay for it.
It can be incredibly hard to answer this question, and at the end of the day you cannot be absolutely 100% certain that a course is going to be right for you before you start actually doing the course. Sorry, but it’s true. There are however some questions you can ask yourself and the providers of the course that should help you to make your decision.
But I’d like to start by talking about what the phrase “good course” even means.
A ‘Good’ Online Course
Good means lots of different things to lots of different people.
It could mean that the technology the course is built on is easy to use, or that the pace of the course suits the person taking the course, or that the course has been designed well for learning from, or that the course content is accessible to everyone, and a whole host of other learning design things.
Courses that are created from a learning design perspective have higher course completion rates. This means that students tend to get better results from taking the course and this usually also means there are fewer student complaints. Basically, in a course designed for learning the way the course is delivered does not get in the way of learning the actual knowledge form the course.
From a digital education perspective this is what a “good course” is. And it isn’t always an easy thing to get right. People (like me!) study learning design and digital education as subjects to high levels because these are complicated subjects.
However, this is rarely what people actually mean when they ask me if a course is a good course.
Most of the time, learning design is not what they are thinking about at all. Most of the time they are asking because they are trying to figure out if any investment they make in a course will be worth it for them – that is what will make it ‘good’ in their eyes.
Is This Course Going to be a Good Investment?
Clearly, this is often a personal question and what might be a good course for one person’s circumstances, might not be for another. So, the rest of this blog post is all about helping you to answer that question for yourself.
There are two sets of questions here;
- ones that get you more information about your own thoughts on the course, and
- ones that get you more information about the course itself.
Simply work through these questions, clarify your thoughts, gather more relevant information, and then trust yourself to make the right choice for you.
Questions to ask yourself when deciding if you should buy an online course
1. Why do you want to take this course?
This might seem obvious, but have you really dug into why you think that taking this course is a good idea for you? If you haven’t, then do that first.
Ask, does this course align with your goals right now?
There is a special kind of procrastination that women especially tend to do where we study more in order to put off actually doing the things that will move us forward. I am very prone to this myself (and I do also love learning, so sometimes it’s hard for me to tell which is which).
If this does sound like you, ask yourself if you really need to learn the things that you think you will learn from taking this course, or do you already have enough knowledge to move forwards? If you are having trouble answering that question about yourself, think about what you would say to a friend if they were asking you the same question. If it does seem like you are using learning as a safety blanket, maybe buying the course now isn’t right for you and you should consider taking some action to move you forwards instead. If this type of procrastination does sound familiar, then I recommend that you read Playing Big by Tara Mohr (this is an affiliate link to bookshop.org. If you buy after clicking on it I will earn a small percentage of the sale at no extra coast to you).
Can you simply outsource instead of learning something new?
Another way in which small business owners (especially women) often procrastinate is by learning as much as possible about something so that we can outsource it better. That’s right, many of us learn enough about something so that we become entirely capable of doing it ourselves, just so that we can be better at paying a professional to do it for us.
Written like this it seems a bit silly, right?
But it isn’t as silly as it seems at face value.
Investing in a paid for service or any kind business support is a big deal, especially for newer business owners. It is daunting and we’ve all heard stories of people being duped by poor service providers and scams. If you do want to learn more about something in order to pay another professional to do that thing for you then ask yourself; do I actually need to learn this to train someone else in it or do I just need to find a person that I trust to do the job?
If it is the first of these two, then you might need to do the course to be able to support your staff, or perhaps consider changing the type or scope of job role you are hiring/outsourcing for to one that would attract someone with more experience, who could work well without you learning their specialism in order to support them within your business.
If it is the second of these two, then I would recommend joining a network or community of entrepreneurs or businesspeople in similar positions to you, and asking for recommendations for professionals to outsource to. Locally, I love The Tribe Coworking in Totnes and internationally The Lab by Digital Nomad Girls is certainly worth the investment. Neither of these communities is solely focused on recommendations and people pushing their services, but they are both wonderful communities, that have been carefully curated by their founders to support women in business in many different ways. Getting trustworthy recommendations is simply one of the small benefits you are likely to get from joining them.
2. Do you need to take the course now?
Again, this might seem obvious, but many online courses are sold using scarcity as a tactic. Meaning it is very easy to read a well-written sales page and then believe that you do absolutely need to buy a course right now, this minute, or perhaps yesterday.
So, if you are unsure about investing in a course, I recommend that you take a step back and ask yourself; do I need to take this course right now or have I just been led to believe that I do?
If you really do need to learn what is contained in a course as a matter of urgency this one shouldn’t be too hard to answer. If you are unsure of whether you need it right now or not, it probably means that you don’t.
If there is a time limit to a special offer of some kind, then ask yourself; does this special offer make it worthwhile buying the course now? You can always reach out to the course provider and ask them about later planned sale dates, or if any offers are likely to be available again. They might not have decided these things for themselves yet, but the way they respond to you might help you to make your decision anyway.
3. Can you (or your business) afford to pay for you to buy this course right now?
I know that this one can seem really difficult at times. Especially if the content that you will learn from a course looks like it will help you and your business to grow in the longer term. But realistically speaking, can you afford the financial outlay right now?
The answer to this is going to be either yes, no, or maybe. If it is a yes, then great. If it is a no, then it is probably best to not spend it now (maybe have a look at this post on funding sources for some ideas on getting financial support for businesses). If it is a maybe, you need to weigh up the risk for yourself, no one else can do it for you.
There is a huge amount of emotional trickery in marketing these days. I’m not saying that all marketing is like that, but enough of it deliberately plays on our emotions that it can be hard to recognise what we think is best and what the marketing is cleverly convincing us to believe is best. So, if you are unsure about spending the money on a course right now, take a step back and try to consider the costs and potential benefits of the course from a rational perspective. Write out an actual pro and con list if it helps. Talk to a friend or someone who also runs a business if thinking out loud helps you.
And remember, if you are feeling pressured into buying a course that will put you into debt it simply might not be the course for you – a big part of the job of an educator should be creating a safe environment for people to learn in. This includes the time before a course, and the customer support throughout a course. If you are feeling anxious before the course then the conditions for learning are not likely to be ideal for you.
People Learn Best When They Feel Safe and Secure
Just how safe, and relaxed, and open to learning during a course are you going to feel if you have put yourself into significant debt to join the course?
I know that there are many (loud) voices in the online course world who strongly disagree with this, but they are wrong! This is not me saying that expensive courses are bad, it is me saying that encouraging widescale debt to join expensive courses is bad practice and irresponsible.
Responsible Online Course Provision
And just so that you don’t despair at the entire online course industry…there are some course providers out there who actively prevent people who have specific debt from joining their courses. Ramit Sethi is one of these people. He teaches about money, and his sales pages include a warning that he will ban you for life from his products if he discovered you bought from him when you already had credit card debt. If you are trying to get a handle on your own finances, I highly recommend reading his book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. (This is an affiliate link to bookshop.org. If you buy after clicking on it I will earn a small percentage of the sale at no extra coast to you). Just be sure to check which country version you are reading. I read the UK one, and some of the content is highly UK specific and wouldn’t be relevant to people not living in the UK.
P.S. Also don’t be afraid to ask course providers if they offer discounts or scholarship places if you are in a situation that means a discount would be helpful. They might say no, many businesses simply can’t afford to offer these things, and some believe that lower costs effect people’s commitment to a course, but if you don’t ask there is no chance of getting one.
4. Do you have the time that the course requires to study right now?
A well written course sales page or FAQ section should tell you what the estimated time commitment of a course is. This is often a range of time (e.g., 4-6 hours per week) because people work through things at different rates. But it should be enough for you to gauge the amount of time it will take against the amount of time you have in your life to dedicate to study right now. If you don’t have time, then maybe you shouldn’t invest in the course now. The chances are you will just feel stressed trying to squeeze it in otherwise.
Yes, you could buy it now and do it later if it has unlimited access, but in reality, that doesn’t work for most of us. We are too busy, and generally quite skilled at putting things off. In fact, I paid for a 4-hour workshop, on a topic that I am interested in almost three months ago. I knew I wouldn’t make the live workshop because of the time zones involved and added watching the replay to my to do list that week. And have then moved it to my to do list every single week since. For me, even knowing that I would probably do this I am still happy that I invested in the workshop. I know and trust the teacher. I know that the content will be valuable to me when I do watch it. And I know that I have another 3 months of access to the video before it expires. I will likely watch it during that last week of access, because in reality that’s what I’m like with my time.
Before you make the decision to buy, consider what you are actually like when it comes to your time. Not what you would like to be like, but the reality of the time you have available now and how you use it. If you aren’t sure about this and would like to get to know yourself better have a read of this.
5. Do you want to take this course?
Will taking this course, and learning about the thing it teaches, be something that you actually enjoy?
No, I don’t think it is realistic for most of us to only do things that we enjoy all of the time (it would be amazing if we were all in that position though, wouldn’t it?!), but if you are choosing to buy a course then you probably have some agency over whether or not you actually need to do it. Which means you can consider how much you want to do it.
If you don’t think a course is something that you will like, then it probably isn’t for you. I mean, why force yourself to do something that you won’t enjoy?
If a clear answer to why you should force yourself to do something that you won’t enjoy just popped into your mind, then that should help you to make your decision.
Bear in mind that there are clearly exceptions to this. Unfortunately, sometimes we all have to do things we don’t really want to. An example that I commonly come across is when a course is teaching a skill that you feel you really need in your business, and that you are not in a position to outsource yet. In this case just sucking up the lack of enjoyment might be necessary, at least in the short term for the long term gain you and your business will likely get. For many small business owners this might be along the lines of a bookkeeping for entrepreneurs course. But even topics that we often find to be dry and boring can be delivered in a good and engaging way, so if the course you are looking at does not seem interesting to you, try looking for another provider of a course on that same topic. You might find something better suited to you and how you learn – something that has been designed to keep your interest.
6. What do you know (and feel) about the company or person delivering the course?
Yes, you do have the opportunity to do some research and find out more about the course (and the questions further down this page will help you with that), but you should also ask yourself what you already know about the course and the course provider, and how they make you feel.
To break this down further; have you trusted their content (either paid or unpaid) before, and did that work out well for you? How do you feel after reading/watching/listening to their content; do you feel happy, balanced, and empowered, or do you feel lack, unsure, and unsafe? (Your gut feeling about their free-to-access content can tell you a lot about how their paid content will make you feel). Does anyone else that you know recommend them? Is the person recommending them paid to recommend them, if so, do you still trust their recommendation?
P.S. People being paid for recommendations, either as an affiliate or on a referral scheme, definitely doesn’t have to mean that their recommendation is false. These can be entirely legitimate ways to grow a business, and many people only agree to take on paid recommendations for things that they would recommend anyway. However, in the online knowledge industry the opposite of this is also often true, with many people and companies having affiliate recommendation circles – these feel quite insular and don’t seem to require a person to have actually taken a specific course in order to be recommending it to their own audience. There is no fast and easy way to tell the difference between these, but it is something to watch out for.
Remember you can always ask questions if someone offers a recommendation; why do they recommend it, and why do they think it will suit you?
For example, I highly recommend a business organisation and Asana course by Louise Henry, called Uplevel with Asana (this is also an affiliate link) and would recommend that anyone who wants to organise their business planning and systems reads more about it to see if it might suit them personally. I know it worked well for me, but I like Asana and it wouldn’t be as good for people who used another project management tool. I also really enjoyed Louise’s style of delivery, but that is a personal preference thing, and wouldn’t necessarily be true for everyone. Even though this is a paid affiliate link, I say that it will not be the best course for everyone, and I would happily discuss this with anyone I was recommending it to.
This is just one example of the nuance that should come with making recommendations in the online business world, and that I believe are part and parcel of responsible affiliate marketing. It should also be clear that any affiliate marketing is affiliate marketing.
7. Is there free content out there that will teach you the same thing as the course that you are considering buying? And if there is, do you have the time to find it and read/watch it all?
Most online courses contain information that is freely available in some other form on the internet. So, if you are having trouble making a decision about buying a course have a look at what is freely available out there for you to learn from as an alternative.
There are potential downsides to this; it can be more time consuming to find free content, the information may be far less structured and harder to follow, it may not have been written with someone in your position as the target audience which might mean it is harder to relate to than the online course, and free content does not usually come with support or the opportunity to ask questions, which many online courses do.
Having said all of that, it is still worth looking for free sources of the same information before buying a course if you are still undecided about buying it. Why invest if you feel it is risky and you can find the same information elsewhere, and for free?
P.S. There is an exception to this point as well. When I talk about free content here, I am talking about content that experts have chosen to put out there for free as a marketing strategy, such as podcasts, blog posts, social media captions, PDF downloads, and some online courses.
I am categorically not talking about content that has been stolen from someone else, in complete violation of their intellectual property rights, and is now illegally being made available online somewhere else. There are unfortunately many websites that do this now, and some that sell access to illegal copies of books as well. Using these services (if you can call them that) is theft, and is illegal, and is not simply a clever hack to save money. By buying or sharing these stolen materials you are stealing from a business and people, making yourself a part of a wider problem. Just don’t do it.
Ok, that’s the end of the questions designed to help you get a better handle on your own thoughts about an online course, and its’ provider before you make the decision to buy or not.
The next section is all about the research you can do to find out more about the content, the quality, and the overall suitability of a course before you make a decision. It may seem a bit more factual than the last section, but some of it will still come down to perception and your personal preference.
Questions to ask a course provider when deciding if you should buy an online course
Before we start with this section remember that you probably won’t have to actually have to ask anyone anything to get answers to most of these questions. Have a look at the course provider’s website and social media, most of the information should be there.
If you do have trouble finding all of the answers you want, then try emailing or DMing them on social media. Their website should tell you their preferred contact method. If you don’t get a response, or only get a vague response, then consider if you would be happy taking a course from someone who is not transparent with their (potential) customers, even when they are asked direct questions.
Unfortunately, some parts of the online knowledge industry, and the devious marketing methods that are used, which frame the purchase of an online course as something other than buying a product from a company. You can be made to feel like you are buying from a friend, or a tiny company (when that really isn’t the case), or that it is a privilege that you are even being allowed the opportunity to buy the course. All of these things are creepy marketing tactics, cleverly designed to change the way we think about buying and to make us forget that we are the customer, and that we are shopping for a solution to our own challenges.
As a customer shopping for the right product to suit your needs, you have every right to ask questions to help you decide if a product is the right one for you. It really is that simple.
Work through the rest of these questions, clarify your thoughts, gather more relevant information, and then trust yourself to make the right choice for you.
1. Are they an expert in what they are teaching?
This is the; “do they know their stuff” question. There are no set criteria to gauge someone’s expertise, but there are some good indicators you can look out for.
Remember though, if you are new to a subject and the course you are looking at is aiming to teach to an introductory level, then the course provider and any tutors only need a slightly higher level of knowledge than that to make it useful to you. Sometimes learning from someone who has recently learnt the thing they are teaching can be a benefit. The chances are that they will be able to break the knowledge down into manageable learning chunks aimed at someone in your position, because they can relate well to you.
This does not mean that someone with far more experience or knowledge will automatically be the wrong teacher in the same situation either. How they communicate, and how you learn, and how the two fit together will play a big part in your experience of a course.
What I am saying here is do not rush to judgement based solely on your perception of someone’s expertise. Yes, it is important but not the only important factor for you to consider.
So, what can give you a good indication of experience?
- We all know that qualifications are not the be all and end all of someone being an expert, but they can be a good place to start with this. Are their qualifications relevant to what you want to learn, what level are they, are they from reputable and accredited providers?
- Personally, I believe that experience gives you a much better idea of expertise than qualifications alone. How much experience do they have in the thing you want to learn about? Is their experience relevant to you and your circumstance? For example, a business finance course based on physical product sales experience would not be the best match for me and my business (as I sell services and a few digital products), regardless of how experienced the person running the course was in finance for physical product sales.
- These could be on their own website and social media, or through a review site such as TrustPilot or Google Reviews. I will talk a bit more about these in the section below but ask yourself if the reviews are showing that past customers (in similar positions to yours) felt the benefit of the course providers expertise?
- Do they do? Or do they only teach? This can be harder to figure out sometimes, but if they are selling a course on social media scheduling do they do social media scheduling for themselves or their clients, did they previously do this (perhaps before hiring in staff), or have they made a course on a topic without having ever been in the position of the person they want to support with the course?
2. Do they have social proof that they are an expert, or that people have found the course useful in the past?
Social proof is anything that provides evidence that other people have trusted and enjoyed (have been happy with buying) the products or services. This is believed to work as a part of marketing and selling because of a phenomenon called social influence theory; people usually follow the actions of others, especially in new situations. This phenomenon is also the basis of a lot of less scrupulous marketing tactics, such as buying social media followers to make it seem like lots of other people agree with what the account owner is posting, which I obviously do not recommend.
As a potential customer you are looking for reviews, testimonials, case studies, word of mouth recommendations, social media content created by other people, awards and accolades, and customer love in general. This one should be a deal breaker most of the time. Building trust with potential clients, and serving current and past clients well, are fundamental parts of business, and are vital for online businesses. You should be able to easily see reviews or testimonials from previous customers in some form or another.
If it is a new course that has not run previously, you might only be able to see testimonials for other parts of the business. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as it is clear that you are looking at testimonials for other things. As a customer you can still get a sense of how people have found working with, or learning from, the course provider in this case.
If you want to find out more about the course itself, and what people who have previously taken it thought, then ask the course provider if they have some past clients who you could speak to or reach out to them yourself if possible. This won’t be possible in some circumstances; many businesses (for example therapists) only post anonymous testimonials in order to protect privacy and confidentiality.
Are They Like You?
When reading any social proof, if possible, consider how similar the person writing the testimonial is to you – are they in a similar position to the one you are in now? This will allow you to decide if their perspective on a course is likely to be similar to yours.
Why is this important?
Let me explain using an example from my business. My clients generally fall in to one of two stages of business development; just starting out and needing to be extremely cautious when spending money, or well established and using my services to grow even bigger. The needs and perspectives of these two groups of people are quite different, and a service or course that I provide to one is very unlikely to be useful to the other at the current time. If you are looking for reviews written by people in a similar position to you, then it’s likely their needs and perspective will be similar to your own.
3. Is the course accredited?
Working out if something is accredited and if that accreditation is valuable can be confusing sometimes, but the general idea here is that an accreditation shows you that some other professional body has agreed that the course is up to a certain standard. There are many big accreditation bodies for education and also many smaller, less well-known ones that sit in and around the online course space.
Getting a course accredited is usually a lengthy process and requires a course provider to prove things to the accreditor. Meaning that if someone has gone to the trouble of getting a course accredited then they probably know their stuff and have built a good course. However, some accreditations are far less rigorous than you might expect.
If a course you are interested in is accredited, it is worth doing a little bit of research on the accreditation; is it clear what the process for accreditation is and is it a widely used accreditation? This information should be easy to find on the accreditation body’s website.
Having said all of this, there are relatively few accreditations in the online knowledge world when compared to other sectors of the education industry. Although this is slowly changing, at the moment a course not being accredited doesn’t not necessarily mean anything at all about the course. It just isn’t all that common for a course provider to go through the process of accreditation.
4. Do their values align with yours? Do you like how they talk about things?
This one should also be a big deal when you are making your decision. Does the marketing and messaging of the course provider or creator sound good to you?
I’m not talking about making an assessment of the quality of their marketing here, I’m talking about what they are saying. If you were having a conversation with them and they were talking to you in the way they talk in their marketing, would you trust them? Would you be happy with the things they are speaking about and the way they were saying them? Would you want to continue to talk to them? And would you be interested in learning from them? Would you be happy to give them your money?
Asking yourself these kinds of questions can give you an insight into how (and if) your values align. This can be harder to tell with bigger companies, especially if their marketing messaging is not clear (which is a quality of messaging thing), but you should still be able to get a sense of how they communicate, and if that suits how you like to be communicated to.
To get a better idea of their values you can also look at their content, any values statements, any mission statements, and how they treat their employees. How much weight you give to the alignment of values in making your decision will come down to your own values, its entirely a personal preference thing.
5. Is their refund and payment policy clear and in alignment with the law in your area?
An import thing to check when making a decision about purchasing an online course, especially if it is a big investment for you, is the course provider’s legals. By legals I mean their terms and conditions of purchase, their refund policies, their cancelation policies if it is a subscription, how they handle your data, if they have any non-disclosure clauses (mean that you cannot talk about course content ever) and anything else that you will be agreeing to by buying the course.
Now, I am not saying that I expect everyone who buys an online course to read all of these policies. Most people don’t. I read far more than most people and I don’t get through them all. To ensure that we understand exactly what we are buying we all should probably read more of them, but it just isn’t realistic for most people most of the time. However, most course providers can give you an overview of their key policies either in an FAQ section, or if you email them with specific questions.
Work out what information you absolutely need to have before you decide. As an example, payment and refund terms are likely to be very important for most of us. Then ask them the specific questions you have via email, customer service chat, etc. Many online course providers will do social media Q&As whilst launching a course. These can be a simple, easy way to get these types of questions answered quickly.
Your Consumer Rights
Finally on this point, as a consumer you probably have some legal rights here too. Knowing about them can be very helpful. For example, if a business is registered in the UK then any online course they sell that is at least in part for personal benefit (rather than solely for business purposes) should have a refund policy that protects your consumer rights in alignment with the law. Meaning that many UK-based online courses must give you a full refund within the required time limit if you ask for one.
There are things business owners can do to protect themselves from people buying a course, watching it all, and then asking for a refund, but none of these legally count in the UK unless they are specifically written in the terms of sale and are in alignment with consumer protection laws. Many UK online course creators simply don’t know this because it isn’t the case in many countries and having a no refunds policy is a reasonably common globally within the knowledge product industry. This doesn’t mean that your rights stop existing however. It is the business owner’s responsibility to comply with the law.
I am not a legal expert, so if you want to find out more about this, what your rights as a consumer are, and what laws apply to you as a course creator in your country I suggest you look for someone with legal expertise to help you. Many lawyers offer free initial consultations, and many charities offer free consumer advice support as a starting place. It doesn’t have to be scary or expensive to find out.
6. What content does the course cover and how does it cover it?
And finally, what are the topics and modules within the course? Does it cover everything that you would expect? Does it cover everything that you think you will need in order to learn the thing that the course is teaching? Do you get any resources to help you implement the knowledge from the course? Do you get support, or a chance to ask questions during the course? Are there videos, video transcripts, live calls? Is there a community for people taking the course? Are any of these features time zone specific and if so, does that fit with the time zone you are in? And how does all of that sound to you?
The End
And that’s it, you’ve reached the end of the list. Hopefully this blog post, and these questions, will help you to work out if a course is “good” and right for you.
Thanks for reading
Claire
