• Who: Lee Wilson, a.k.a Coach Lee
• Website: myexbackcoach.com and marriageradio.com
• Course Topic: Relationship Recovery
• Revenue Stats: $30K/month

Who are you and what course have you created?

My name is Lee Wilson, a.k.a. Coach Lee and I run myexbackcoach.com

My market is in the relationship-advice niche. Specifically, it’s in the area of relationship recovery. Like getting your ex back after a breakup or your spouse back from separation. People who find me are often in a panic and suffering a great deal of anxiety. Begging and pleading to make this person want to get back together with them hasn’t worked. They feel helpless so they are looking for an expert to give them some direction and hope.

My main course right now is the Emergency Breakup Kit.

The course essentially teaches people how to get their ex back.

What’s the biggest benefit of taking your course?

Most people say it gives them a map to accomplishing their goal of getting their ex back and helps them understand the mindset of the person who dumped them. So instead of just winging it and acting on desperation, they are given clear direction and precise steps to take. They are also given steps to take when certain things happen that they weren’t expecting. Since I’ve learned from thousands of professionally observed cases, I have an unusual vantage point to offer help.

It also helps calm people down because they have it in their mind that they have to get their ex back right then and there or else they have lost them forever and that’s just not the case. So the course shows them that they have time and that time is actually on their side if they do the right things and avoid the wrong things – both of those are extremely important.

How did you get into the market?

I started working for a marriage-coaching company nearly twenty years ago. I recently went out on my own to do dating coaching and continued marriage coaching as well. This is an industry that demands experience and having two decades is certainly a solid way to build credibility and trust among those seeking help and coaching.

What’s funny is that while I was still working for the marriage coaching organization, I had been doing dating coaching on the side for years but thought I would put a few videos on my YouTube channel just to give hurting people some direction. It seems the instincts people have after being dumped are completely wrong. People usually do the exact wrong things that actually push their ex further away. I told my wife that I thought I could make an extra $500 or so a month. Literally a few months later, it was my full-time job, completely overwhelming me as it turned into my primary business.

Why did you decide to create an online course in the first place?

The number of people booking coaching calls with me was nuts. I had a video that went viral with over 1 million views on YouTube in just a few months and the others I put out did well also so people were wanting to talk to me.

At one point I was nearly two months booked out so I realized I had to duplicate myself because I was overwhelmed. I knew people were frustrated that they had to wait for such a ridiculous amount of time to talk to me. So, I stopped doing the coaching calls except for regular clients and offered the course as my primary service. It’s been great because I can help more people. Plus I’m not completely overwhelmed with calls which had really done a number on me as far as just being mentally fried by the end of the day.

Did you have any moments of doubt before you created it?

I didn’t have doubts mostly because I didn’t have time to. I was trying to get the call load off of myself and had to have something to offer the people wanting help.

What’s your online course like?

It’s all video. About 10-20 minutes for each module with about 15 total modules. It’s just me speaking into the camera to the people who bought the course.

How long did it take you to create your course?

I sat down in a chair in my office and used natural light from the window. I just put my cell phone on a tripod using a piece I bought on Amazon for $15 and a microphone for my phone from Amazon for about the same and had the course ready in a couple of weeks.

Since I knew the topic so well after nearly twenty years with it, I just wrote down on paper the main things people needed to know about what to do after a breakup to get their ex back. I divided it up into what made sense to be one video at a time and so on. I didn’t want to over-complicate it since I’ve seen people plan and plan literally for years and still not have a course up to sell.

Tell us a little about the process of launching your course and getting your first sales.

I knew a mailing list would come in handy so I had already been taking sign ups for that on my website.

I had been adding articles to the site like crazy - two or three a week in fact and was getting a good amount of traffic. Second, I would turn every article into a YouTube video. -Lee Wilson Click To Tweet

So I was building my audience that way as well. When the course was ready, I just emailed the mailing list and mentioned it in my next YouTube video which would go out to the subscribers of my channel. I also went to all the YouTube video descriptions and added a link to the course (which is called the Emergency Breakup Kit).

Finally, I went to all the content on my site and added ads and mentions of the course there. So I just built my audience knowing I’d probably do a course or something in time and then when I did I went to them. It wasn’t a big, fancy, loudmouth launch like a lot of people do. I didn’t bring on guests and do an hour-long webinar. Maybe I should have, but I just went to my audience with it and knew that the new people coming to the site for the first time would want it as well.

The key, in my opinion, was finishing it and getting it up without overthinking it.

Do you have a lead magnet?

I don’t really have a lead magnet. I have a mailing list on the site where I tell people I’ll email them when I have new articles for their situation and on relationships in general. In many ways the content on the site is my lead magnet since it pulls in a lot of traffic along with the YouTube videos since both the videos and the articles are evergreen content.

What’s the traffic strategy that works best for you?

YouTube and articles. I write the article and then do a video on that same topic. Then I embed the video on the article page and share the link on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I also take time to do interviews. 😉

One rarely talked about quality indicator that can increase your video’s rankings by itself is adding captions. In fact, YouTube video captions will almost certainly increase the average time your video is watched. It will not only allow the hearing impaired to properly consume your video, but also allows for people who can’t utilize volume at the moment to still watch instead of saving it for later or from closing your video altogether.

So adding captions has a compounding effect in that it tells YouTube your video is higher quality because it offers maximum use compared to other videos lacking captions. That appears to help your video rank higher in YouTube and also in Google search results. What’s more, since more people will be able to consume your video for all its worth, the watch time will increase which will also help your rankings on YouTube and Google.

Finally, captioning also allows you to provide translations of your video in other languages so that you greatly expand your audience. Since a YouTube video can be an evergreen asset that continues to provide exposure and revenue for you for years to come, investing to optimize each video – even your older ones – is a very wise move.

You can use a service or do it yourself although it’s somewhat time-consuming and tedious with a learning curve. You’ll have to learn how to format a file to tell YouTube the timing of when to show words and when to bring up a new line of words. The other option is to edit Google’s auto-captions by double-clicking on it in YouTube studio. (INSERT IMAGE “self-captioning-youtube.jpg”)

Whichever route you choose, captioning your videos will give you an edge over your competition since most YouTube videos are not captioned.

What about YouTube’s auto-captioning?

You can get YouTube to make an attempt to caption your videos with the push of a button. The technology isn’t there yet to say the least. You can see what I mean by going to your video in your YouTube studio and going into the edit section symbolized by the pencil. ( INSERT IMAGE EXAMPLE “pencil-symbol.jpg”)

Select “More Options.” (INSERT IMAGE EXAMPLE “more-options.jpg”)

From there, you can select the spoken language of your video. Then YouTube makes an attempt to caption your video. Sounds good, right? Well, to say that YouTube’s ability to caption is limited is putting it mildly. Technology to determine spoken words and sentence structure is much more complicated than it might seem. You might be tempted to think that YouTube’s auto-captioning is, “better than nothing,” but I strongly disagree. I bet you’ll see things my way if you look at some of the auto-captioning.

To do that, go to your video after you have saved the language in YouTube studio. Click the “CC” button at the bottom right of the video. ( INSERT IMAGE EXAMPLE “closed-caption-button.jpg”)

The first thing you might notice is that the captions are one giant sentence with no commas and not even a final period. There is almost no capitalization. If that weren’t enough, you’ll notice that many of your words are mistaken for other words and sometimes a series of words is mistaken for being one word that is nothing close to what you intended. This is extremely common and it makes you look pretty silly to viewers. (INSERT IMAGE EXAMPLE “youtube-captioning-error.jpg”)

In my opinion, poor captions actually make you appear LESS professional and credible than having NO captions at all. That’s why I opt for not using YouTube auto-captions and, instead, to wait until my video has been captioned by a real human being.

I can’t recommend strongly enough that you get your videos captioned. You’d be surprised at the sheer number of people who prefer to mute the video and read the captions rather than have the volume loud. Imagine being in a waiting room with no earbuds. You are missing out on those views and sending strong quality signals to YouTube by not having your videos professionally captioned.

What online course platform are you using?

Paid Membership Pro which is a WordPress LMS Plugin.

It has been simpler to use than some of the others that seemed like they were speaking another language.

Ease of use is so underrated! Plus they have good support. I’ve recommended them to other people who are in other niches and patterning themselves what I’ve done.

Are there any features you wish it had?

It’s had all that I’ve needed so far. They have a lot of add-ons that do things I hadn’t even thought of. I added some features that I wouldn’t have right off but after reading about what the add-on did, it made me think it would be helpful.

What made you decide to use your chosen platform over others?

I finished all the videos and then kind of thought to myself that I needed a member area. I didn’t have any experience with any of them so I started Googling and looking in the plugin database for WordPress. I’d read about some of them and a lot of them tried to do too many things or when I activated them I couldn’t figure them out. That was frustrating.

PMP was up and running quickly since it was simple to set up. If I wanted it to be more complex, I could do that as well. It gave me a membership area where people could buy the course and start using it.

What other tools do you use to run your online course business?

I use the Post Adverts plugin to put ads for the course in posts and pages (you can see an example in the How to Save a Marriage blog post.

That’s it other than getting traffic with articles and YouTube. Did I mention YouTube? 🙂 I hired people to transcribe the videos so that the hearing impaired could also get something out of what I create. I’ve had some people who are hearing impaired reach out to me about that so I know it’s been helpful.

YouTube tries to do an automatic transcription but I have checked and it’s just kind of okay. It misses a lot of words so having a professional transcribe your videos is the way to go.

Please share some idea of revenue.

The course is making around $30k a month right now. I’m getting ready to launch the Emergency Marriage Kit in the next few weeks. I anticipate it doing close to that number as well.

Please tell us a little about what the money you’ve earned from your course has done for you.

Freedom. That’s why I cringe when I hear politicians say they want to take it away. I’ve worked hard for this. Two decades of my life learning this. Then last year I was working seven days a week, often ten-hour days. Now I have it down to a video and article or two a week at most.

I finally feel like I can sleep in some, go to breakfast with my family, have coffee and contemplate the universe, and just be. My sons ask me if I can go do something with them during the day and most of the time, I can. I’m the boss and I’ve got a handle on this.

The work for the course has been done and now I’m reaping the rewards for that work. I was able to take my dad on vacation with my family, pay off debt, help a friend who couldn’t make ends meet, and we are considering adding on to our home.

What has creating your course done for you personally?

It’s taught me that experience matters and that building my own future instead of just working a job is the way to go. The marriage organization that I was part of actually forced me out. I was just doing dating coaching on the side but they wanted to get into that area too. So they decided to let me go since they would be competing with me. My course and future courses helps me not be at the mercy of an organization, a new CEO, board members, etc.

There’s certainly a place for having a job because bills have to be paid and your family must be provided for and it’s not always ideal.

But working on an escape route makes sense if you have an entrepreneurial mind and the desire to be out on your own. -Lee Wilson Click To Tweet

I know it’s not for everyone, but it is for me.

Do you have a story of a transformation from any of your clients?

The one that struck me the most caused me to just sit and stare for several minutes. It was a married couple and she took the time to email me about six months after he had come back to her. This client enrolled in my Emergency Breakup Kit.

She told me how difficult it was but that she stuck to what the course said. She described him coming home to her, crying, wanting her back and wanting to be a family again with their children. Then she began talking about how difficult the separation had been on the kids. How they had cried themselves to sleep because he wasn’t there. Now, she said, the kids are so happy and they all do things together as a family again.

Knowing that there are children out there who will go to bed tonight knowing that dad is home and isn’t going to leave them brings quite the lump in my throat.

I didn’t just make a course and make some money. My course helped real people and made a positive difference for the future. That is more satisfying than the income. -Lee Wilson Click To Tweet

What advice do you have for people just starting out?

Don’t worry about giving your “secrets,” or good information away for free. There’s plenty of information for a course and people appreciate having it all stepped out and organized for them.

When people are helped by your free content, they’ll be more willing to pay for your content that has a cost to them. They’ll appreciate and trust you already so they don’t mind paying you for something. -Lee Wilson Click To Tweet

Also, don’t wait until your course is perfect and you feel like it could win best picture or the award for best special effects. Ask yourself, will this help my audience? Will it serve their purpose and provide a solution to their problem?

If the answer is yes, go ahead and start selling it. You can always redo videos and tweak it later. In fact, you can get feedback from the people who buy the course that way to make it better instead of just guessing.

That’s how I view my course. It’s always a work in progress because I want it to look as professional as possible and provide as much help as possible. But once your product is viable, start selling it. Don’t delay. It gets you nowhere.

Learn more about Lee Wilson and the Emergency Breakup Kit:

• Website: myexbackcoach.com and marriageradio.com
• Facebook 
• Instagram
• YouTube