 of all the things that you could talk about or write about, what of your content should be free and what of your content should be reserved for a paid course that you could teach? So I'm gonna answer that question in this video as long with another important insight about creating courses. So I just started teaching a series of workshops, online workshops, it's my own course, called How to Create and Market Your Own Online Courses Authentically. So I'm just gonna share with you two of the key insights from that course out of the several dozens that are taught in there. So one of them is this question of which of my content should be free and which of my content should be paid? So this is the way I think about it. Imagine a martial arts dojo, where people learn kung fu or aikido or jujitsu or something. And if you go to any martial arts class and you go to the beginners class, you're going to notice that there are a lot of beginners there, white belts, okay? And you also notice that there are some advanced people taking the class as well, practicing even the beginner moves. So the beginners are practicing learning how to just throw a punch for the first time. And the advanced people, the black belts are also practicing throwing a punch. But the difference is that the black belts know the nuances behind the punch, why certain parts of the body are doing certain things and why it creates a more powerful, a more stable punch. They might even know the history behind the punch and the cultural meaning of it. I mean, all the stuff that goes behind a simple punch. And the beginners are just trying to not hurt themselves by learning how to throw a punch that isn't completely weak. So in other words, your free content ought to be white belt, your white belt content, your white belt ideas and strategies and exercises and whatever you want to teach people. Whereas your paid content should be more like the blue belt, brown belt, black belt type things. Not that your paid course can't include any beginner stuff. You may in fact want to teach a beginner type of class. But most of the paid courses that people would love to pay for are things that are harder to implement. Now, with the white belt, black belt idea, I don't want to confuse you and say that you should only teach the most advanced things in a paid fashion. But what you should teach in a paid course is something that's harder to describe and really allow people to implement effectively by themselves in a just by casually watching a free video, casually reading a free article. They're probably not going to have the motivation nor the nuances and the details to be able to really implement that piece of content. Does that make sense? So the free stuff is sort of the overview, the beginner stuff, the inspiration, the motivation about the thing you want people to change. The paid stuff is the how-to, the details, the nuances, I tried doing this, but then this problem occurred, what should I do? The troubleshooting, again, sometimes free content has some of that stuff, troubleshooting some of the how-tos, but generally your paid content is the organized curation and collection of the how-tos, the best of the motivation, the troubleshooting, the nuances, the advanced stuff. Does that make sense? So let me know if that helps just to have that idea of white belt content is generally free and black belt content is generally paid because in a course you are able to, okay, let's remember this. Somebody who is just watching a free video, like you're watching this free video, you're not in a space of like, all right, I'm going to get my notepad and pen and I'm gonna really pay attention to George for an hour, and this is not an hour long video, but I'm gonna pay attention, I'm gonna really make sure that I implement this really well. 99%, this is something also that Gary Vaynerchuk says, 99% of the people who watch your free content are not gonna do anything with it. They might enjoy it, they might click like, they might comment on it, they might even share it forward to a friend or a colleague or share it on their social, but the vast majority of people watching your free content are not gonna really take the advice that you have offered them in that free video, that free article, okay, that free piece of advice. Now over time, as they watch lots of your free advice, it might eventually shift their mind toward being ready and willing to apply some of the things you're talking about, but it's only when somebody decides to pay for a course, by paying for your paid course, they have already signaled to you that they are ready to be serious about applying something. When they're just casual and just wanting some inspiration, some ideas, some thoughts, they'll consume your free stuff and just over the years, they might have some kind of little shift, but when they buy your paid course, they are signaling to you and to themselves, that's really important. They're signaling to themselves that, okay, now I'm gonna be serious about making this change in my life or my health or my relationships, my career, whatever it is you help people change in that course. So because you are filtering in the people who are serious about that change, you can therefore give them more challenging steps to take to actually make that change. Okay, so this is the other nuance I wanna give you, right? When you are talking to somebody who is like, ah, just give me some easy ideas, some something really easy. I want to be entertained. That's what your free content is. Your free content is there to entertain your audience and over time, by keeping their attention, entertain them, when I say entertain, I don't mean you have to be funny or be beautiful or be handsome or be engaging or whatever. Entertain just means however you show up authentically in a way that it speaks to your strength. For me, my entertain, I'm not funny, okay? I'm not beautiful or handsome. That's not how I entertain you. I entertain you by my tangesters. That's kind of entertaining. I entertain you by my high energy. Now you don't have to have high energy like me, right? You can be entertaining just being really, really quiet. And people might be really, your audience might be really engaged with how you draw them in with your quietness. I don't know. But you have a particular strength for how you engage people. You ask your friends, hey, what do you find entertaining or interesting about how I talk or how I write? That's how you entertain your audience. So your free content is there to entertain them and if you are lucky, they might get some consciousness shift, some mindset shift, some, they might get some how-tos from you that they might actually do something with over the years. But to expect that your free content is gonna actually, that everybody is gonna take it and change their life, that is a tall order and that's putting too much pressure on yourself and putting too much pressure on them. The watcher of the free content, the reader of the article. I mean, for example, you've been consuming, I don't know, maybe this is the first video you've ever watched from me. I'd love to know if that is. But most of you watching this have been watching me for weeks, months, maybe years. And you've watched a bunch of my free videos and I'm not pressuring you to have to change your business immediately based on my free video. I'm just saying, hey, if you find this interesting, great. That's the bottom line. First of all, do you find this entertaining? Great, okay, you're engaging. I'm lucky if you do. And I'm even luckier if you decide to take one little thing and do something with it and try it out. And maybe it doesn't work and you're like, ah, that doesn't work. Of course, it doesn't work because you didn't ask the nuance. You didn't ask to get the nuances and that's why maybe that's why it didn't work. And that's what the paid courses are for is to go through the nuances and the troubleshooting. And just so you see the difference now between a free content and a paid course. Let me know if that helps. Comment below. The other key insight I wanna share with you from the course that I taught starting yesterday is, and I put the link in the notes of this video for the entire course if you wanna buy it and take it. It has several dozen of these key insights along with how to actually create your paid course, how to market it, my entire marketing plan, the tools and systems that I use in the backend to create market the course, all that stuff is in the paid course itself. But I wanna give you one more key insight that I think can be communicated for free in a way that's more casually consumable, right? That you can actually get here. So that you can actually consume and maybe do something with this. And the key insight is to understand where your paid course fits into your overall business model. So think about this here. Think about this with me for a moment. Imagine a series of concentric circles. I don't have a diagram for you here, but you can draw it out for yourself. So just draw a circle in the center and that's you, okay? Just draw a little circle in the center and that's you. And then draw another circle overlapping your circle, just a larger circle around your circle and call that inner circle, okay? It's called that the inner circle or one-to-one, okay? So that's the second circle from the center. And then the third circle, which is a larger circle that encompasses the two circles is group programs, okay? And then further out, the fourth circle is, oh, I'm sorry, yes, I think we're on the, yes, the fourth circle, the first circle was you. The second circle is one-to-one or inner circle. The third circle is, I'm sorry, third circle is group programs. The fourth circle is your paid courses. The fifth circle is your books, audio meditations, audio programs, low price offerings, lowest price offerings. And then the outermost circle is, which is the sixth circle, is your free content. That is what I recommend as a business model for all of you who are interested in possibly creating and selling online courses. Do you see that the online course is in the middle there? It's not your complete offerings. Okay, so let me just go from the outside in. The outside most, the very outside is the whole world. The people who could become part of your audience, the millions of people who could benefit from your wisdom, from your knowledge, things that you could share with them, okay? That's the whole world. And then your most outer circle is your free content. Your free content is what contacts the rest of the world and draws in just the right people who resonate with your energy, with your style, with how you look, with how you sound, with how you write, or whatever it is, with your images, whatever it is you're posting on social media, on your blog, on your podcast, on your video channel, wherever you create and share free content. That's the outermost circle, and that's the biggest circle. That's the most number of people who will contact you is from your free content, you see, okay? That big circle, your free content, is the least amount of contact that the world will have with you. You are there in the center. Does that make sense? You are there in the center. The outermost circle is the world. They're contacting you, they're finding you and interacting with you a little bit through your free content. They can't have one-on-one time with you. That's not fair for your time management, and that's not fair, well, that's not, you can't expect them to say, oh, I want one-on-one with you for free because I contacted somebody with free content. Well, it's the outermost circle, okay? You're in there in the center. And then from the out of free content in, you have your lowest price offerings. You might not have this yet, but you'll eventually write books. If you want to create paid courses and share, you'll probably eventually write books. I would recommend you to do that. Maybe you'll eventually have some audio books or some audio programs or whatever it may be. Your lowest price offerings. Somewhere between, sometimes people sell books for a few dollars. Sometimes they sell books and audio programs for a few dozen dollars. But somewhere there is your lowest price offerings, right? One in from your free content, lowest price offerings. And the next level in is your paid courses. This is what we've been talking about. Your paid courses are, could be video-based. It could be audio-based. Usually it's either video or audio-based. And it's pricier than your lowest price offerings of your books or your audio programs. So these are, your paid courses might include some group Q&A with you, but it's mostly do-it-yourself. People buy it and you expect them to kind of work on, work through the material themselves. And then maybe they have some group interaction with you at a very cat, not one-on-one, but just a larger group level. Your paid courses. And then inside the paid courses, not inside, but closer to you from the paid courses, therefore, is your smaller group programs. This is your group coaching program, your group mentoring program, your mastermind program, something that is even more expensive than your paid courses. But people, therefore, get more contact with you. They get more contact with you. And guess what? They also expect deeper transformation as they go in further. And this is another key insight, right? People make the mistake. People who are creating and selling paid courses. They often make the mistake of expecting that their paid courses should create deep transformation for their student. Should be comprehensive and deep transformation. Again, that's putting too much pressure on you, the teacher, and on the student. It's a do-it-yourself course, isn't it? They're buying it maybe for $60. Maybe they're buying it for $100. And to expect that it's gonna create deep transformation for them is a tall order. It's not your one-to-one. Remember, you're in the center and just outside you is your one-to-one clients. The people who get the most contact with you, they should be expecting the deepest transformation that you are able to provide in your business. That makes sense for you to expect deep transformation from your one-to-one clients and for them to expect that. Makes sense. They're paying you the most and they have the most contact with you. Through video calls or through direct emails with you or whatever it is you serve your one-to-one clients with. Outside of that, your group programs, your small group programs, your mastermind groups, your mentoring groups, yes, they should expect some deep transformation because they have quite a bit of contact with you but not as much as your one-to-one clients. And then further out, your paid courses, you sell more of those than your mentoring groups, they shouldn't expect very deep transformation because it's a do-it-yourself and you may have some larger group Q&A calls. Does that make sense? I hope this kind of concentric circles model makes sense to you. Let me know, again, I wish I had a diagram to show you, I don't, I'm just using my hands. One of you designer, graphic designer, please create a diagram so I can share it with my audience. So I hope this is helpful. I wanna keep this, it's already gone on 17 minutes so I'll let you go today but just wanted to share those two insights with you from the course that I am teaching now on how to create and authentically market your own online courses. It's been going great. I hope you decide if you want to create online courses and you like learning from me, I hope you decide to join me for it. The price is quite reasonable for all the things that you're gonna learn and get as resources there. So click on the link in the notes and see if you want to buy it. If not, I just hope you continue enjoying and benefiting from my free content and I hope this video was helpful to you as well. Take care, have a great day.