If you are a content creator, an expert in a specific field, or an entrepreneur who wants to earn a meaningful income from online courses, Forbes offers seven simple steps to turn your knowledge into money.
Whether you are a fitness trainer, a lawyer, a marketer, or even a Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon, for your Knowledge There is a market. But you have to treat it like a business.
In 2019, Kyle Scott pitched celebrity real estate agent Ryan Serhant a simple idea: turn his best-selling book Sell It Like Serhant into a course. Scott had never created a course before, but he realized something most authors miss. People don’t buy information, they buy transformation!
Two weeks after its launch, the course generated $500 in revenue. A few years later, the business was getting nearly $10 million a year from online education, coaching and memberships.
Today, Scott is the General Manager of High Growth Creators at Thinkific, where he helps creators and professionals turn their knowledge into real income. His message is clear: the tools have never been easier to use, but business strategy still matters.
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“The product is not the hard part,” he said. “The hard part is structuring it, pricing it, creating demand for it. The hard part is building the business.”
Step 1: Go from Creator to Expert
The first and most important step is not technical, but mental. For many content creators, the challenge is realizing that they are not just creating content. They are selling their knowledge. This subtle shift changes everything.
Scott calls this the “expert economy.” It’s a growing segment of professionals who use content not to entertain, but to educate and convert. If you rely on social media to secure brand deals and AdSense revenue, he says, you’re in the creator economy. But if you use social media to drive attention to a product or service based on your expertise, you’re in the expert economy. And it’s the latter that offers long-term business potential.
This shift is especially relevant in a world driven by artificial intelligence.
“You can’t fake time and experience,” Scott says. “AI can give you buzzwords, but it can’t do the work.”
Step 2: Sell transformation, not knowledge
One of the most common mistakes content creators make is creating a course around what they know, rather than around who their audience wants to become.
The distinction may seem subtle, but it is critical.
People don’t pay for content, they pay for results. They want to lose weight, find a client, or get a promotion. Creators don’t sell information. They sell transformation.
Scott suggests a simple structure. Identify who the course is for, what it helps them do, and why that outcome is important to them. For example, a real estate course isn’t just about selling houses. It’s about making more money so agents can live the life they’ve always dreamed of. It’s that emotional payoff that drives buying decisions.
Step 3: Build a pricing strategy that cements value
Most creators of new courses understate the price. But pricing is not so much about numbers as it is about psychology.
Scott recommends starting with high, mid, and low price points. In his first course with real estate agent Ryan Serhant, they priced the basic course at $499, bundled it with a membership for the mid-level option, and offered high-end coaching for nearly $10. Even if no one bought the premium course, it signaled value. Eight people bought it in the first two weeks.
The goal is to anchor your price and drive customers to the middle. It’s the same strategy used in SaaS, e-commerce, and car sales.
Step 4: Focus on Marketing, Not Just Creating
A great course without visuals will fail. That’s why Scott emphasizes the importance of marketing and positioning.
He argues that content creators have already figured out the hard part: the content itself. The bigger challenge is raising awareness.
“You can be the best spine surgeon in the world,” he said, “but if no one knows it, it doesn’t matter.”
Building an audience, distributing content, and telling your story are all prerequisites for launching a course.
Step 5: Treat the launch as a business, not a project
The next step is to think of your course as a business. This means thinking in terms of sales funnels, sequences, and value throughout the course.
Scott’s approach involves clear pre-launch strategies: email waitlists, launch campaigns, ongoing learning sequences, and values that drive customers to higher-priced products or services. Even if the course itself costs $500, the business model is built on multiple revenue streams: coaching, memberships, templates, or speaking engagements.
This tiered model helps balance costs.
Step 6: Use AI to Accelerate, Not Replace
Far from being a threat to online education, AI is becoming one of its greatest enablers. At Thinkific, AI now powers everything from sales pages to course plans, allowing content creators to focus on what matters most.
Scott prefers Claude over ChatGPT for content planning. He uses the AI to write drafts for posts, emails, and even course text. The trick, he says, is to treat it as a collaborator, not a replacement.
“AI saves time. But you still have to bring a perspective that only you have,” he noted.
Step 7: Don’t Lose Confidence
Ironically, self-doubt is the last hurdle for most content creators.
Experts often underestimate themselves because they see complexity where others see clarity.
Scott points to the “Dunning-Kruger effect,” whereby true experts are more likely to question their own expertise simply because they know how much nuance there is.
But if you’ve spent years developing a skill or career, you’re likely much more qualified to learn than you think.
“To a kindergartener, a fifth grader is king,” Scott concluded. “You only have to be a few steps ahead of someone to lead them.”
