Why Most Paid Courses Are a Waste of Your Money

You might be thinking, “Yowsa! That’s a hot take!”, so let me preface it.

I fully believe that there are no shortcuts in business. I also believe:

You’re probably doing 80%—if not 90%—of the stuff the big dogs are already doing.

It’s both a freeing realization and an arresting one. When you can’t chalk it up to some hocus pocus system that your competitors have devised, it puts a lot more of the responsibility on you.

But what it also does it levels the playing field.

Most likely, you have already established many of the resources you need to succeed.

But is this course / guide / Facebook group / whatever actually going to take your business to the next level?

Consider this:

If the person selling you a course actually had a revolutionary approach that no one else knew—and it was the key to their monumental success—they probably wouldn’t be releasing it in a course!

It’s some kind of irony that the people that sell you this lie actually make their money from the thing they’re trying to sell you: their course. Everything else is just the sales tactic they’re employing to close the sale.

Ouch.

Quick side note I expand on later: not everyone selling a course is evil at all lol. I know many good people that do it. But I’ve had quite a few bad experiences and I think they elude to a trend in the educational industry. I’ll return to this thought in a bit. Hang tight.

What no one tells you about business:

There are a lot of things that come with running a business you don’t find out until you’ve done it. Here’s a big one.

Success in business is equal parts skill and sheer, dumb luck.

It sucks, but it’s true. Courses are often marketed towards being the be-all-end-all of your business journey. They say, “Here’s the exact framework, step-by-step, word-for-word templates that took my business to nine figures in a year.”

Bull spit. Why doesn’t the KFC Colonel release the recipe for his 11 herbs and spices?

Because an industry secret that leads to success has to stay a secret in order for it to work.

Much of the time, what someone is selling you in an online course is general knowledge they compiled with a few personal stories mixed in.

Unless it’s explicitly clear how they are not making a competitor out of you by selling you their secrets, they might just be selling snake oil. These people want you to believe there’s a secret so they can sell you the answer. Rarely is it true.

Let’s go back to my “business is based on happenstance” argument for a second here.

Growing up, I knew a multitude of indie bands that were as talented as the musicians on the radio. They had the look, they had the name, they had the guitars, the lights, and they often even had better music! But many of them failed.

Why?

Because as much as they had every element they could control working out in their favour, there’s elements of right-place-right-time that can’t be taught or planned for. They just happen.

Kind of a depressing outlook, Aidan. Why run a business at all?

Because it can be done.

I am proof that you can make it happen.

So if success is equal parts luck and skill, my hope that teaching you about marketing is that the “skill” part of the equation is firing on all cylinders, so that all you need is a little bit of luck to make it out there.

Circling back to the reason we’re here:

Is there ever a time to buy a course?

Of course. Make no mistake: I am firmly in favour of continued education.

But what I’ve learned over the years of buying courses is that many, many of them are geared towards beginners and other people that are relatively new to the industry. If you’ve been around for any length of time, chances are you have already learned much of what any educator is going to be able to teach you in their course.

So… How do I find good courses?

Well, that’s the hardest part.

You cannot know a course is beneficial to you until you’ve bought it and gone through it. By that point, your money is spent. And for many legitimate reasons, educators don’t offer returns on course sales.

A quick personal story:

I once paid $1000 for a course that I was sure was going to level-up my business overnight. I hummed and hawed over the decision for weeks. The course dropped with its introductory pricing, and after deciding to put-off other business purchases I’d been budgeting for for months, I went for it.

I worked through that course over the next 2 days and was supremely disappointed by the time I reached the end.

The marketing for the course was exceptional. I was in love (metaphorically) with the instructors. But the course was nothing like it was promised, and here I’d pissed away a considerable chunk of my annual revenue on something I definitely didn’t benefit from.

This is not always the case. Again - there are certainly good courses out there. But since then, I’ve adopted an approach to online education that has helped save my bacon later.

My personal rule about buying courses: Only spend a max of $150. Anything else is too big a risk without a guarantee or refund if it sucks.

Once in a while you’ll find an educator who promises you your money back if you aren’t impressed with their course.

Ironically, these are the people you’re least likely to need to take up on their offer. This subliminally indicates their confidence with their course, and how much they believe you’re going to get out of it.

Also, most of the time, those courses are in and around the price range I specified. Then, even if you do eat the cost for any reason, you’re not out more than one or two fancy dinners out with your spouse.

Pro Tip: Look for the 3 star reviews

If you’re about to take a chance on a course and want a more realistic idea of what to expect, search out the three star reviews of that course.

These reviews are honest about what’s lacking in the course while keeping the tension of what was good.

I find these folks are the most fair and most straightforward about what I might get out of a purchase. They are not always accurate to what your experience will be, but they might be.

For the last time: there are no shortcuts.

I am confident you already know much about what you need to do. It’s just a matter of putting in the work. The rest you will figure out along the way.

Bonus fun / awful story:

I once had an educator I followed who routinely put out courses (we’re talking like 4-6 in-depth courses a year) that were solid, solid stuff. It also helped that I was very new to the industry and needed to hear other people’s brilliant ideas. He was also a super-talented businessman; much more than a craftsperson.

Anyways, he was offering 10 lifetime access slots to all the current and future courses he would ever produce. The cost was a couple hundred dollars (the price of a few courses) but the reward seemed significant.

I wasted almost no time buying that lifetime membership. I worked through some of the back catalogue, but was more eager about what was coming up (mainly because I’d already bought some of those other courses individually, meaning I paid twice for some courses).

Know what he immediately proceeded to do?

He moved his entire educational empire onto Patreon, where he started posting all of his new content daily. No more courses coming down the pipe.

I messaged him about access to the Patreon page. He said he couldn’t offer it for free because of technical limitations. I asked about new courses. He said the industry hadn’t changed so he wasn’t planning on dropping anything new any time soon. I asked about a refund. In his defence, he offered to provide it. But I didn’t take him up on it because he’s a local guy to me and we run in some of the same circles. I saved more face by eating the cost.

Do I have a right to still be bitter about it? Writing it out makes me think I do. Whatever. Lesson learned. Won’t do that again.

All of this to say:

You are smarter than you think.

Unless you are brand new, you probably already know 90% of what you need to. How valuable is that last 10%?

The best instructors stand behind their work. They teach you objective, actionable stuff. You know you aren’t being scammed.

Beware of lifetime access non-sense. No one is enforcing them to keep creating.