If you ask me, being a freelancer is the best way to work. However, we all know that not every freelancer spends every single day working at the beach with a piña colada to hand. In fact, I don’t know any freelancer who can afford working like that on a daily basis – and make money. Sure, I work everywhere I want to, and I love this flexibility, but a couple of hours enjoying the sun usually means another couple of night-shift hours! And yet, not all freelance jobs are the same. In fact, online teaching may make it possible for you to enjoy the beach a little more 😉

Online Teaching & Productivity

When I talk about online teaching being one of the most productive ways of freelancing, I don’t mean giving live online classes. What I mean is creating and recording an online course that you can sell over and over again.

Think about it, you create the course once, and then sell it to as many people and as many times as you want! This would be simply impossible in the “real” world, right? I mean, a day has just 24 hours, and unfortunately, we can’t be at different places at the same time. How I’d love that though!!

Now, of course, you’ll have to update your course from time to time, both to keep your existing students and to get new ones, but the core work will be done. And that’s what I call productivity! It’s not about getting as much done as possible – and get exhausted, but about getting the most out of as fewer work hours as possible! And that, from the comfort of your home!

How Much Work Does It Take to Create An Online Course?

Now, creating a course does take hard work. However, contrary to what you may be thinking, you don’t need lots of time, but a very focused work. The more focused, the better. Why? Because it’s much easier to create a course from the beginning until the end if you’re working on it almost non-stop. Once you’re in the creativity flow, stay on it!

There’s a way for you to test if your online course idea is going to be successful, but how do you test an online course without making the previous work, that is, creating the whole course? Well, you could write and record the first lessons, create a small group of students who know that you’re testing the course with them – for a smaller price. As you advance with the course, you can keep on creating more and more lessons, based on your students’ feedback.

I have never done it this way as a teacher, but I’ve joined a couple of “testing courses” as a student and the experience was fantastic! The teacher was more than open to hearing our thoughts, and she would change her course accordingly. And the best of all this? We got access to all her future course updates, which were much more expensive, by the way!

If you’d like to start creating your first online course, check out this easy 6-step strategy to start writing content for your online course.

Online Teaching – Who Are Potential Customers?

If you’re second-guessing the chance of someone being interested in your teaching, think about how many different people could be your customers:

• Individuals – People who’d like to learn any skills, like yoga, finances, cooking, crochet… You name it!
  • The good thing about teaching individuals: You help people accomplish their goals and dreams, and what’s better than that, right?
  • The not so good thing: If you don’t offer any advanced courses, your students will pay your one course and you’ll probably lose them as customers once they’ve completed it.
• Companies – I used to work as a teacher for companies whose employees had to learn Spanish. Their company paid the courses, and my students were more than happy to learn!
  • The good thing about working with companies: If they’re happy with you, they may keep hiring you for any future employees!
  • The not so good thing: They’re all about “special” pricing packs, but that’s more than doable with an online course! You don’t have higher costs just because they’re more students. Try to think long term 😉
• Schools – Depending on your teaching subject, you may want to sell them to schools. Think reading methods for small children or a special skill for high-school students.
  • The pros and cons of working for schools are similar to companies, plus you’re helping children in their education 😉

Recap – Online Teaching As One of the Most Productive Ways to Freelance

Unlike service-based freelance businesses, with which you can only earn money by adding up hours to your work-day, online teaching offers you one of the most productive and comfortable ways to freelance:

• You create content once and can sell your course over and over again.
• You don’t even need to have the whole course ready to start selling.
• If you update your course regularly, you won’t only keep your current customers, but you’ll also get new students.
• You can choose different customer groups: Individuals, companies or schools, for instance.
• You can create and sell your online courses from the comfort of your home.

Would you love to become an online teacher but don’t dare to try it? Read why you shouldn’t consider yourself an expert to start teaching and lose any fears!