Ask Me Anything - Phil Ebiner, long-time instructor

[PhilEbiner]

Hi, 

I'm Phil Ebiner. I'm a long-time Udemy instructor - been here since 2012. And I'm excited to be a part of this community. Please feel free to ask me any questions!

Since 2012, I've made over $1.5 million from Udemy. And I don't say that to brag, but to show you what a normal guy like me can do... someone who started like many of you without an audience, experience teaching, experience selling, email list, website... nothing.

It has taken a lot of hard work and time to do this, but I believe you can achieve your goals if you have the right mindset and put in the right amount of effort!

I love Udemy, and hope to help you out on this amazing platform!

Cheers,

Phil

[DennisTraub · Accepted solution]

Twins! Congratulations!

[Vijay_Saini · Accepted solution]

Woow. That is impressive 🙂

[PhilEbiner · Accepted solution]

Thanks!

[PhilEbiner · Accepted solution]

I teach creative skills like photography, photo editing, video editing, motion graphics. 

Great question about how long a course should be. I always say that they should be 'as long as it takes to teach the topic.' I wouldn't focus on just simply trying to reach a certain length of course... just focus on teaching a topic in an efficient and easy-to-digest manner. You don't want to drag on and on about a topic.  On the flip side, I've seen longer courses do better on Udemy. So adding additional topics/content, and making the course comprehensive enough to be 5+ hours is generally my rule of thumb.

In terms of finishing the course - do it! Just get the course done and launched!

[RubbieNKing492 · Accepted solution]

Wow. That's impressive. I have been procrastinating with my courses. They are written but I've not taken the first stepl to launch. What advice do you have as to making it grow once i launch the first course.

[JoseSalvatierra · Accepted solution]

Hey Phil, thanks for doing this. Big fan of your Online Course Masters podcast.

How many Q&A's do you get per day? How long do you spend managing that? How big is your TA team?

How many people work with you in course production (if it's more than just you)?

Jose

[JaskoKoyn · Accepted solution]

Hey Phil! Congrats on your success on Udemy. Along with being an instructor, I'm also a student of some of your courses. I wanted to ask about your marketing. I noticed that a decent portion of your earnings come from self promotion (basing this on the screenshot you've posted).

What do you do to market your content? Which platforms do you use? Do you do Facebook advertising? I would love to know your strategies. Thank you for doing this AMA!

[UmairSimjee · Accepted solution]

That's all becasue of hard working and your consistency 

[PhilEbiner · Accepted solution]

I definitely think free courses are a great way to build your brand and student base. Not only should you put that free course on Udemy, but also on YouTube and potentially on your own website so you can use it to build your email list that you will send the paid course to when it's done. 

You'll have to pay attention to the rules on Udemy though, because you can't send free coupons to students in a free course via an announcement. This would have to be done with your own email list or on a website/YouTube channel to your own audience.

[PhilEbiner · Accepted solution]

At the end of the day, what ends up making more money is making more great courses. So while I truly believe building your brand (website, YouTube, social media) is super important for the long run, I also think if just starting out, you might want to just focus on creating as many good high quality courses as you can.

[PhilEbiner · Accepted solution]

Great question! What I've learned is that those ups and downs are just the normal trends across Udemy for all instructors. November, January, June, August... those are usually peaks. Other peaks will be when I launch a new course. 

As for when it's a new month, and it's going slow... I just want to ask what you are doing to improve it? Are you working on a new course? Are you building out a website? Are you growing an email list? Are you growing a YouTube channel? Are you testing out new ways to promote? 

What are you doing to grow?

[gztibs · Accepted solution]

Thank you for being selfless and sharing with us. What do you have to say about the many sites that promote udemy free or discounted coupons？ Is it worth a try？ If it is, which sites are recommended？

[AliRazeghi · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Do you think using Google Ad is uesful for marketing my courses?

[AdimoraChimex · Accepted solution]

Hi Phil,

You have done so well for yourself and for that I say congratulations to you.

Please am new on this platform and really don't know how to start up.

Is there a way you can help me?

[PramodAgrawal · Accepted solution]

Hello Phil!

I am Pramod from India, a brand new instructor raring to go. Your story is amazing & inspiring.

I need your suggestions on - how to reach where you reached or better it. I give a few details about me and my class.

My class name: Stock sutra

What does it teach? Stock trading, currency trading, commodity trading.

Total class length - 3.45 Hrs

Total videos - 101

Design - Powerpoint slides and me talking in the background. The class is engaging with pictures and examples. The class is in such simple words that even a 15-year-old child in any part of the world can master stock trading and benefit from it.

Current status - Class is completed. Instructor verification on.

About me: I am from India. I have been trading stocks for the last 15 years. Also, I have many years of work experience in other fields too. I am now 60. This is my 1st class ever anywhere online. I am a passionate teacher and love teaching. I have worked for over a year on this class and invested all my money and loans from friends and family. I would like to return the loans as early as possible with handsome returns. I want to make my 2nd class on - Simple Yoga & Meditation.

Could you please give 5 tips to success that I should be looking to act upon.

Best wishes.

Pramod

[Naeem-Malik · Accepted solution]

I see you haven't published a course yet. 

[LaorKaelHel200 · Accepted solution]

Hello Phil, how can we talk in person about your offer? 

[Ibrahim13 · Accepted solution]

Amazing job Phil... I'm really impressed! I hope I can make my first $1.5 🙂

[G2ondbeat]

I believe I can achieve this too congrats 

---

@PhilEbiner wrote:

Hi, 

I'm Phil Ebiner. I'm a long-time Udemy instructor - been here since 2012. And I'm excited to be a part of this community. Please feel free to ask me any questions!

Since 2012, I've made over $1.5 million from Udemy. And I don't say that to brag, but to show you what a normal guy like me can do... someone who started like many of you without an audience, experience teaching, experience selling, email list, website... nothing.

It has taken a lot of hard work and time to do this, but I believe you can achieve your goals if you have the right mindset and put in the right amount of effort!

I love Udemy, and hope to help you out on this amazing platform!

Cheers,

Phil

---

[Israel9246]

Please I have a question. I am new to udemy and I don't know how to introduce a course 

[ElianaC]

Hi @Israel9246 You can start here https://teach.udemy.com/course-creation/ this course creation section of the Teaching Center.

Eliana Cerna

Udemy Community 

[DarylleJohnson]

Wow, this is very inspiring! 

I noticed that many of the highly successful instructors are doing tech-based courses. Do you think that somebody can be highly successful teaching dance? Or perhaps leadership and self-help topics? 

Do you teach exclusively on Udemy and is this the platform you find to bring you the most success? 

I'm very excited to learn and get started! 

[JoeConstant725]

HI Phil

I just watched your video and think its great that you want to help newbies like me. I am 61 years old living in the UK and this is my very first attempt at creating an online course. I have been in personal development for over 25 years working with both young people aswell as adults.

My question is where do I begin I want to create a course for people who are over 50 plus that might think it's to late to pursue their goals and dreams and this course is about overcoming obstacles to achieve your dreams, based on a book by Ryan Holiday called the Obstacle is the way. And my course title is to be called 'Beyond the Obstacles' any help and advice you can give would be greatly appriciated. Joe

[SabrinaElai225]

Hi Phil,

I'm trying to do a bit of marketing, and was wondering how did you make your email list??

Cheers

[Yahyakhan472]

So inspiring..

I have a one question that I have posted in the community many times, but have got the accepted solution. 

The question is that I am about to publish my first course on Udemy, but I am new instructor and I have not an audience right now. So I want to publish my course for free for a while, but there is a rule of Udemy that

[AhammadAdel]

What you did is inspiring, indeed. I plan make my course through mobile camera. What do you say? Do you recommend any learning links within Udemy before I jump offering my course.

[AndrewDobos990]

Hi Phil, Do you rec to offer the 10usd price promotion, go for the 75% off promotion or stick with the regular Full course price? I ask epxecially for the beginning stages when I lauch a course.

[Francisoji048]

Hi,Phil. I am new in this community and I am just struggling to publish my first course.After watching your video, I was highly motivated to work harder in order to achieve this goal. However,the challenge I have now is I don't know the best software to edit my video. Please can you kindly help out.thanks.francisoji048.

[StephenZAMB993]

Hi Phil, how do you choose your subjects? I mean, I'm a software developer. Software development courses are always long > 5h or 10h. So It takes weeks to create one, how can I be sure that it something that people want? 

Do you test the market before? If it's the case, how do you do?

[mwitiderrick]

Congratulations Phil. Very inspiring 

[FarzanSajahan]

Phil, You have been a great inspiration and a wonderful teacher. I have enrolled in your wordpress and digital marketing courses and they are amazing. Your story inspired me to start my journey with Udemy. I just launched my first course last weekend . Thank you for being a such a wonderful inspiration.

Cheers,

Farzan

[ScottDuffy]

Congrats and good luck!

[FarzanSajahan]

Thanks Scott!

[MariaDru2020]

very inspiring, thanks for sharing! If I may ask, how many courses does one needs to be able to hit the 1Million sales milestone?

[ScottDuffy]

Could be "1", if it's the right course.

https://www.businessinsider.com/rob-percival-online-coding-courses-2015-2 

[EstelleB]

Hi,  I am new on Udemy and have just published my first course.  I am a Baby Boomer with limited advanced Tech skills!!  My daughter had to help me with the editing of my videos but I am glad I discovered now that you offer a course in video editing for beginners.  So, if I need to do things myself in the future I will definitely invest in your course.

I am on a major learning curve so looking to see what I want to an need to learn to become better as an instructor.  

Estelle

[BruceAlexander]

Phil - thanks for the offer to help first time Udemy instructors

My problem is that customers I direct to my landing page via my own promotional efforts and my direct course link are shown my landing page populated with pop up ads for other courses!

If Udemy originated the enquiry they can show whatever they want. But when I generate the customer interest by my specific course link I expect the customer to see my landing page without Udemy trying to steer them to alternative courses

It seems to me that Udemy's reason is that if they can steer the customer to some other course they get around 50% of the course fee but if the customer buys mine Udemy get only 3%

Thus Udemy have a perverse motive for persuading a customer who enquired about my course to change their mind and buy something else

Any suggestions?

But if the customer buys mine, Udemy get 3% 

[LaorKaelHel200]

I belive you are right. 

Personally I have zero understanding why Udemy doesn't have a PPC option

Inside their own platform. 

It will benefit the users and them. 

As for your statement... Yes, they are a business aimed to gain profit. 

As long as they control your students list

You have zero ability to promote again to your audience. 

Promotions are nice, coupons are nice, but there is no compersment to a good solid aimed promotion that brings paid costumers to you. 

Hope they will give us more tools to promote and earn

[VivianAdemy360]

Nice meeting you here Phil