Here’s something I see all the time. Someone is thinking of making an online course so they ask which platform they should use in a large Facebook group.
The problem is that they get lots of ‘I use platform X and I love it’ – type answers when the people doing the recommending know nothing about the aspiring course creator’s goals, technical ability, budget, strategy… you get the idea.
Even worse, many people doing the advising have no idea that they should be paying EU VAT if they are selling an ‘automated’ course to a European country. EU VAT potentially applies to anyone in the world, but most Americans don’t know about it, or turn a blind eye thinking they’ll never be caught.
That’s entirely their choice, but Europeans need to at least be aware of the EU VAT rules, and in my experience they aren’t getting that info in big online marketing Facebook groups. EU VAT will affect your choice of online course platform because different platforms handle it in different ways. Some don’t handle it at all.
So this all sends the person asking the question on a long journey to check out all the platforms, even though they probably don’t have a clear goal or audience for their course yet and don’t really know what they’re looking for. And it can get overwhelming pretty quickly.
If this sounds familiar to you (or if you’d like to avoid it completely) then please do come over to my free Facebook group where I will help you plan your course in the right order and avoid the overwhelming race around the online training platforms!
www.facebook.com/groups/onlinecoursebrainstormers/
By the way, this drawing is by me! Over the last few months I’ve been learning about visual communication (yes, drawing ideas with a pen!) and wanted to try illustrating this post. I’ve exhibited some of my art work in local exhibitions, but until now my drawing has never crossed over into my business. I need a bit more practice yet, but I’m enjoying drawing and it’s a great way to get your point across in seconds.