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 🙂

[MachhindraK356]

Your teaching awesome! i love it

[Jerry535]

Wow!!! Really motivating 

[KloudBahnas1212]

Hi phil 

So happy for you. wish you more success.

so i just started my first course on udemy . I have so many questions.

1- how to attract student to take my course ? 

2- should i make facebook adds , youtube adds ?

3- I noticed that students take the courses which are not comprehensive more. what do you think should i keep it light ? or should i really put all my knowledge on it?

Thanks

[yasmineshafie86]

Hello Philip, I'm Yasmine, I'm  happy for your success and I wonder if you can guide me how to start on Udemy I'm a new instructor here and I don't know which is the best method to be  used to start  preparing my course and I feel a little bit lost here on Udemy so  i will be really glad if you could tell me the right steps to follow. Thank you in advance.

[Jack_Bosma]

Did you learn a lot from the community platform?

[tallojuuday]

Yes, we can learn.

Welcome

[ChidamberKr]

Hi @PhilEbiner 
Congratulations on becoming a successful instructor on Udemy.
I'm new to instructor community and looking for some leads to begin with my first Udemy course.

In the video above, you mentioned about a process that you follow. It would be a great help to me if I could get to know it. 

Also, it would be grateful if you could share what video/audio recording/editing tools would be best to use.

Thanks

CK

Chidamber Kumar

[MartyRitz_23]

Thanks for the video! I'm new here and I want to create a Udemy course. I am not sure what the first thing is I need to do. Is there a step by step process I can run myself through that will show me how to set up a structure for my course content, how to upload a video, delete a video, move a video around within my course content? Can I do all of this 100% from my phone? I have so many questions but I'll start with that

Thanks

[ChijiokeOtikpa]

Will love to be close close to you Phil, I'm just starting out with a lot of confusion

[nicolasschurman]

Thank you Phil for your will to share with the community. Recently I created a paid course and also an unlimited free coupon to share with my audience, I got 25k students enrolled and that helped to kick things up, however I received a strike 3 because some ratings were flagged by the spam filter. Do you know if anything like this has happened before? now I'm afraid to do the same strategy again. Did I violate some rule? 

[LeighWhites481]

Hi. I'm a new instructor on Udemy. I'm struggling to work out how percentage of fees work. I thought instructors get 50% of course fee but every time a student buys my course I only seem to be earning between 3 and 6 USD even though Udemy has my course up for between £11.99 - £13.99

Ive Read through all the info I can find but can't seem to find an answer to this. 

I'd so appreciate it if you could tell me where I'm going wrong? 

[Astrohansraj]

Hello sir.... I am new here.... Can i create a course with teaching on whiteboard?? 

[tallojuuday]

Yes, you can teach but since its digital u would prefer video or at least PowerPoint and completely its up to you but just thought of sharing my point.

Happy teaching

[aakriti-elearn]

Hi @PhilEbiner, first of all thanks for doing this and sharing your vast knowledge with us.

I run 2 courses on Udemy, and my question is - After the initial launch, marketing etc. and once we have got to the point where the course is selling somewhat, how can we build on that momentum, and keep getting more new students? 

Do we still continue our marketing, or rely only on Udemy promotions? Will Udemy keep promoting my course?

Thanks,

Aakriti

[Milivoj108]

hi Phil!

Congrats on your success!! It is amazing to see what one can do! Thank you for taking the time to answer questions. I wanted to ask you one thing. I have a highest rated best selling course on Udemy called "Sculpting in Zbrush". I was selling exclusively on Udemy for a year now, but i decided to try selling on other sites as well, so i made my course available on one more site (putting the same price as on Udemy site).

I noticed that my sales on Udemy have dropped since then (past two months), upon inspection i've seen that there was a drop in add program and affiliate program revenue. This would indicate Udemy is not marketing my course as much.

Do you think Udemy doesen't like when we sell on other platforms so they tend to support such courses less? Or is one not connected with the other and this is just some natural progression or a bump in the road for the course?

I would appreciate any insight on this matter.

tnx!

[PhilEbiner]

Hi Milivoj108!

It's been a while since I posted the original post, and I'm planning on making a video soon that includes a response to your question! Keep a look out for that!

Cheers,

Phil

[gleyderh]

Hi @PhilEbiner congratulations, here is my question:

If you could go back to 2012, what piece of advice would you give to you about something you didn't know at the time regarding teaching on Udemy?

Thanks

[PhilEbiner]

Hi! It's been a while since I posted the original post, and I'm planning on making a video soon that includes a response to your question! Keep a look out for that!

Cheers,

Phil

[حليمامين891]

هذا رائع   امل ان اكون مثلك لكى اربح المال 

---

@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

---

[KatiePud]

Phil,

I did buy one of your courses about 2 years ago FYI. 

Can you tell me how much you are allowed to self-brand on Udemy?  I already have a long format course I host on a non-Udemy site (totally self promoted). Would like to do a similar topic but more focused and shorter on Udemy. How am I allowed to mention my longer class? I think it would be an important part of my background but don't care to mention often in my Udemy course b'c heck, they just bought something. Can I put my logo in the bottom corner of the Udemy video??

Thanks

[JeffSharman592]

Hi Phil,

You obviously have put time and effort into your courses. What topics are you teaching? What is your marketing strategy? 

I have 7 courses on Udemy and have been publishing for about 3 years. My average monthly income is around $700.00. My fields of expertise are Control Systems, Instrumentation and Networks. What would you suggest to increase my sales? I am in the process of building a website which I hope will help? Any other ideas?

Jeff