 If you've ever bought an online course and haven't learned to grow your fan base or made a lot of money, then something is wrong and I'm here to break down what that might be because as somebody who spent $100,000 at least on online courses, I haven't had a lot of problems that so many people have said when it comes to this course is completely useless or I haven't seen any growth, I haven't been able to make any money back. I can tell you the things that I've invested in have been more than worth it and the reason I'm going over this now on this channel is because artists especially seem to have problems transitioning to the entrepreneurial thinking that allows them to analyze what's going to make sense in terms of your investment in a course and what expectation you should have and how you get the value out of it. I'm going to do four things that will help you understand how to get your bang for your buck when it comes to these courses. Now, zero to $100. What do you expect here? This is organization. That's all you should expect. I know this might be the range of money you have at a time. I understand that what you should expect is organization. Nothing genius. You might be completely new to this thing so all of it could be genius to you at that time. But organization. Now there are some people who have some highly genius information there but that's a rare case. Generally speaking is $100 organization. $100 to $1,000 you're expecting information. That's more specific. So that means it's like you really know what you're talking about. This isn't just some general stuff that you might find in a whole bunch of blogs. I'm starting to find some true gems that are applicable to the specific category that I'm investing in. Now, once you get to $1,000 plus, this is when you should start expecting some... I want to say improvement. And this is a big word because you're like, well, why don't I have improvement right here and right here? Well, I'll get into steps number one through three but I want you to understand the organization levels and how much you pay for things and what you should expect out of them first. Once you get to $10,000 to $50,000 and this is what you're paying for the courses by the way. And I know this sounds crazy but this is a real thing. You should expect something consultative, truly consultative at this level. And then you have to be a certain type of person to actually take advantage of each of these. $50,000 plus, you're looking for experience that you're trying to borrow from people, ideas. You're looking for CEO type of advice. Let's put it that way. How to run your business in most cases. How do you run something once you get to that level? And you might not be the type of person not only to have this budget but you also might not have a business or idea or be a product if you're an artist that's able to take advantage of this yet. If you don't have a fan base and you're not moving and shaking and you already have a clear monetization engine then you probably don't need to be investing in anything at this level. I don't even know if there's a course up here but just for artists specifically since so many of you guys follow me, that level is for someone who's really established and they have something to immediately apply the knowledge to. People here, they can immediately apply the knowledge. Once you start getting down here it can be a little bit less clear. That's just one thing. That's how you look at the ladders of pricing. After that though, you got to understand your expectations of the people that exist at these levels. Right? So what does that look like? Well, look man, no one's really getting that rich off of a $5 product, a $17 product, $20 product, $50 product. In most cases even if it's good money to you, it's probably not great money to that other person especially considering all expenses. So how does this person live? Is this person even a certain level of expert when they have a lot of products at this level and they don't have anything at a higher level? Probably not. I'm not going to want to give you all of my time and really help you with every single detail of your career for $5. Would you want to do that for somebody? No. So just think about how you would want to do it regardless if you have a lot of money or not, if you're selling a course or not. If you have built your expectations to kind of think about how you would do things, you'll start to understand what you should expect on the other side. Right? One to a hundred to a thousand dollars. You know, that's better money. Right? Oh, if I get five people to pay me $500, shoot, that's $2,500 a month. And I was only making $1,500 a month working at a busboy at this restaurant. Yeah, cool. Right? So that might mean something to you. Right? But what do you expect of the other person on the other end? Because if the other person on the other end is thinking like that, do you even want to learn from that person? Right? Now, I'm not saying it can't be a really smart, talented, successful person that has something at this level. But if somebody's giving you this level of attention at this level, in most cases, you probably, they probably don't have a certain level of success behind them or establishment behind them. Right? Then when we get to improvement, because that means they can't get more. Right? Because that means they have a high skill. Right? If you have a really, really high skill, you can get so much more for it. Most people aren't going to just keep altruistically giving to the world just because I think it's for the good. And the reason is not just because people don't want to do it, but also it's a headache and it's a lot of work to keep serving people at this level with that level of attention. Right? So that's the reality of it. And I'm trying to help you understand the mindset of all these sides because I swear this is going to make you make better decisions when it comes to buying online courses, and it's also going to translate to other stuff. Because this is why we've had people in my business and this isn't even necessarily for a course. This is just like a marketing service for a label. We realize major labels will sometimes look at stuff as too cheap. Right? They're like, why are y'all so cheap? That's fishy. So we have to raise our prices so they can trust us because they're like, yo, if y'all are really that good at what y'all do, why are y'all charging this much? It doesn't make sense. Right? So they don't want the deal. They more are about competency, making sure stuff can get done and I don't mind paying. So this is what it looks like on the other level and that's what you're competing with. Right? When you're complaining about $50 or $20 and wanting a refund and whether you got your value or not, there's other people who are like, yo, no, I don't want to pay $1,000. I want to pay $10,000. Make sure every single detail is finished. Right? And done well. Right? And I have nothing to worry about. So improvement is what you're looking for at $1,000 to $10,000 level. Right? This means I have something starting point and I've improved through this process. $1,000 to $100,000. Yeah, you can have that expectation and you can take that information and improve but the actual measuring stick of these courses are you improving or not? And I know you like to imply these things and say I'm spending my heart on the money and so I should be able to have that here. But again, you have to look at the implications on the other person's life on the other end. Now, getting up here, I'm not going to even talk too much about it because that's a custom situation and if you're here, you probably understand if you start making those decisions. But yes, improvement, right? Improvement is what you are looking for after you're paying over $1,000. When we're talking about courses, right? Not a specific service that someone's supposed to go execute this service for you. All right? Now, with that being said, a good way to summarize this is if you're self-centered and only thinking about what people are giving to you and what value they're giving to you, then it'll keep you from understanding how to make solid decisions because that entitlement mentality will keep you from seeing what makes sense for other people to do. And then you're not going to understand how to identify the solid people because you're like, hey, if I was this person and I wanted to make this type of offering, it would look like X, Y, and Z. So not being so centered will help you make better decisions for yourself, ironically. Now, number three, what has the person that you're buying the course from achieved? Now, there's a saying that the people that you're buying from should achieve the things that you actually want to get from that course, but I don't agree with that. This is what it looks like. At $0 to $100, you're paying for organization to me. You don't have to have achieved anything, right? You literally hire people in companies to sometimes just go put together information, do some research in the marketplace. We have that in our company sometimes, hey, bro, you don't need to do it yet, but I need you to put this information together for me so then I can make a decision off of it. Organization. Information, I want you to have some level of expertise in this space, just some level of expertise before I pay you $500 for it. I want you to really, really know something, not just some stuff you've thrown together because you read a couple of blog posts or been on the platform for two weeks, right? Now, once you get here, yeah, you need to have actually achieved the thing that I'm learning from you, right? Now, it doesn't mean you have to be, let's just say, a millionaire, right? What if this course is how to make $5,000? Cool, I need you to have had to make $5,000 with this method, right? So you can show me that. You don't have to be a millionaire, right? I just at least need you to have had made $5,000 with this method. Why is that? Because that's what I'm paying for. I'm starting to look for ROI, some type of improvement. And it doesn't have to be a numerical value, right? Maybe you want to become a basketball coach in the Little Leagues. How I became a basketball coach in the Little Leagues and improved my team or something like that. I don't know, it's some type of improvement. Or how did I really become good at meditation? So the results weren't literally money, but you did feel some type of improvement. Once we get to 10K, 50K, and I have purchased at these levels, again, you really are looking for people who have achieved those things, right? And oftentimes, it's not somebody who just achieved it once. They've seen it from many angles because you need someone who understands and can think through many angles and not just did something once out of luck, right? That's the type of thing that you're looking for. And the people who are really successful aren't so concerned about what they don't know. This is something I find is a huge issue for people down here. I want to know more, I want to know more information. This course was too short, or I didn't learn anything new. Or, oh, I didn't learn anything new. That zero, even up to the $1,000 level, right? And then the people start getting weed out as you get higher because the people who are better at decision making aren't necessarily just thinking about what I don't know because they understand that it's not about necessarily what you don't know that's going to bring you improvement in your life. It's what you aren't doing. So I can know five different strategies and I just get some advice at this level or above and they say, yeah, do that strategy. Oh, so I need to do that? Right, I already knew this strategy, but this person specified to me that this is the strategy that I personally should be doing at this time. That is extremely valuable. I don't care to learn every single strategy in a book and feel like I know things just because I know them, right? But a lot of people mess up at this level. This is where they're hurting themselves because they come from the, or they haven't let go of the school textbook mentality where learning is the outcome. All right, I know more. Who cares what you know? Can you improve? What's the next step? What's the next level? All right, now last but not least, you, that is the last thing to consider. How do you think? Which I just touched on that a little bit, but I want to go a little bit deeper, right? Who do you blame for your results? All right, once you get up here, oh man, if you're blaming people, other people for your results, I just doubt that you're up there anyway, right? Unless you just had some money given to you. Once you're up here, you don't really blame people for your results. These people, they're always blaming their outcome on somebody else, right? And I'm not just talking about you're down here because of your budget, but just tendency, right? Most of the people who are paying in that range are thinking that way. And if you want to become somebody who can pay these things, doesn't mean you have to. I'm not saying you've got to go buy online courses, but the people up here are thinking differently, right? They blame themselves and they have something to improve on, right? So they can get direct value from this, by the way, right? And these people are easier to work with. I'm not going to lie because they already think correctly. So not only who do you blame, but what do you want? And what do you want can look like, hey, am I looking for information or am I looking to save time? Because I'm a CEO. I don't have time even if I could just find it for $100 in a course. I'd rather you just tell me because I don't want to go find things because my time is worth that much, right? Or do I want a result from this specifically? Or do I just want some feedback, right? There's different things that dictate where you are, right? And once you get to these other levels, that's what you're looking like, right? And that difference in how you think makes a huge impact because so many people get afraid, right? They don't actually believe in themselves, so they'll buy something and they immediately don't see like some massive life change. And I'm talking about within two hours, right? All of a sudden they're like, oh, man, I need to get a refund or oh, I need to call a credit card company and act like I actually got screwed over when you have to understand that there's a certain process to become successful, right? And when you understand that process and you understand that you're a huge person, right? To blame in that process, you're less likely to be as frantic and say, oh, I got to see some type of value in an x period of time. I have an extremely expensive program that I'm a part of and we did not immediately put everything to work. I got in the program, but I recognized that I know this thing is valuable because this person's achieved so much, right? And I don't have the time right now to put into it, right? Not to the extent that I should. I'm not going to act like the information isn't valuable. I'm not going to act like the results aren't there because I still desire the result, right? Like, why would I exit out of a program when I still desire the result, right? It's out of alignment of who I want to be, which a lot of people is like, you'll see them exit out of a program or get a refund on something and then call themselves chasing the actual result. But it's like, how are you ever going to get the result if you never did all the work to get there, right? And if it says this thing takes 90 days, I'm just making something up, and you were in there for 10 days and said, I don't think this thing is going to be worth it. Well, who decided that? The person who actually isn't even able to achieve it, the person who never achieved it before, that doesn't make sense. And that's how I try to think of myself. It takes a lot of humility. You have to understand you're not the best person to determine how to get there when you've never been there. Yet somehow you're judging the content, right? Now, there's obvious trash. There's obvious scams. That's completely different. But if you're able to go through a lot of these things at the beginning and understand what the expectations you should have, you should be able to make better decisions in who you choose in the first place. And that's the whole point of this video. And this thing is so weird because it's almost a complete flip where most people at 50k or is paying this type of money, they're not necessarily expecting their hand to be held, right? They're just expecting quality information to be given when it matters, right? Because they know that work has to be done and there has to be something to apply it to. I'm not coming in just to get told a whole bunch of random things that don't matter to me. Why? Yet at here, people are expecting their hands to be held when they're not even paying enough for the person's life to be impacted enough to hold someone's hand. You get what I'm saying? So small flips of mentality can help you become very profitable and very successful off of buying online courses. You just got to make the right bets. I've experienced massive growth when I finally start buying into some of these things and I was not an online course buyer at first. This wasn't me. But since I know so many artists are buying them, I wanted to make this video. Hopefully it was helpful. Let me know if y'all have any other questions or feedback. Peace.