In my last post on building online courses I suggested that it’s vital to understand what your clients really want from your course. And in particular, whether their goal is learning or results,

Self evidently, those two different motivations lead to two very different types of course.

But it’s also worth remembering that real life is a little bit more complex than people who want to learn vs people who want to get results.

In fact, life is a lot more complex than any simple marketing model that suggests “all” your customers behave a single way.

The reality is that in your market there will be some people who want to learn and some who just want results. Just like there will be some people who are ready to buy and some who need nurturing. Or some who prefer to interact online and some who prefer face to face.

And the wonderful thing is that unless you're a giant multination that needs a huge customer base, you can choose which segment to go for.

There may be a lot more people who want results vs want to learn – but that doesn't matter. What matters is whether there are enough of the people you want to work with to give you a great business.

If you're a small business and you have the ability to reach people online, that's almost always the case.

Back when business was constrained by our ability to see people face to face, most of us were forced to gear up our services to cater for the most common type of customer. The exception being businesses based in big cities where there were plenty of every type of customer.

Now, thanks to our ability to reach people around the globe, it's like we all live in big cities. We can focus on much smaller niches and still have easily enough prospects for a thriving business.

And those niches don't have to be the traditional ones defined by industry or demographics. They can be defined by the type of people we want to work with. As long as we can find a way to reach them or get visible so they can reach us.

I'll give some examples of how course builders are doing that in my next post.