Udemy

LawrenceMMiller · ‎09-03-2020

@GirishIyer1971 I think you are getting some bad advice here. You are asking "do I need" or "do I have to", in other words you are asking for MINUMUM critical specifications. Is your purpose to just publish a course so you can say you published a course, or are you trying to sell that course, gain followers, and create a profitable business? No one succeeds in business by doing the minimum required because you are competing against people who are not doing the minimum, they are doing the BEST they can possibly do. They are doing the maximum, not the minimum. They are seeking to provide the best possible experience, the best value. Those are the instructors who succeed in selling courses and making money. Students want to connect with their instructors. They want to know who they are. They want to be able to trust them. And... they even want to LIKE them. No one likes a voice behind a powerpoint! You are not making a personal connection. You aren't selling yourself to your potential students. You are disconnected, faceless, boring! No, you don't "have to" show your face. But that is the wrong question.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-31-2020

@Kanchan_Bhujbal Just so you know, the market for online courses has been extremely strong since the Covid19 shock. Most of us, at least, many of us, have seen a dramatic increase in our sales. Good luck and focus on your own marketing efforts to get sales of your course going.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-30-2020

This may be a stupid question, but didn't your course content come FROM your computer? If you created it, it would be on your computer, right? When you develop a course, I would strongly recommend that keep all files and be sure to back them up so you have duplicate copies on a separate hardrive or storage device, or in the cloud. You should not need to retrieve them from Udemy.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-29-2020

@salwa1barawi Individually yes. Collectively no. Many of us instructors have our own websites, FB page and LinkedIn pages. Having your own website enables you to build an email list, publish articles and resources, etc. If you google my name or the name of other instructors you will probably find their websites.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-22-2020

This is my Udemy homepage: https://www.udemy.com/user/lawrencemmiller/

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-10-2020

I can only speak from the U.S. experience. When the payout appears in my PayPal account, around the 7th of the month, I transfer the money to my BankAmerica account and that transfer is immediate, within seconds.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-10-2020

You definitely do not need to have a company to be paid by PayPal. Most Udemy instructors are simply individuals and they get paid through PayPal.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-09-2020

Is this a question??

LawrenceMMiller · ‎08-05-2020

This is the course image for the overall course and it appears whenever someone finds your course in search. It also appears in your revenue report for each course. To find this go to your course management page, then scroll down to "course landing page." Toward the bottom of the page there is a place to upload your course image and a place to upload your promo video. Udemy can create an image for you, but I prefer to find an image that I feel is relevant to my course content. I find images on istock but there are lots of others sites to find images. I modify them, putting in my own face in the corner. I use Corel Draw to do this, but you can use any graphics program. If you go to my home page you will see all of my courses and images.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-28-2020

I've been here for six years and the refund rate, at least for my courses, is very consistently between 0.5% and 1.5% of sales. I have never considered it a problem and my assumption is that the guarantee and the sales it attracts outweight the cost of refunds. I think my refund rates are fairly normal. I agree that it would be nice to require the student to leave some reason why they were asking for a refund. that would be useful feedback.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-24-2020

Assuming your live calls are for the purpose of enhancing the educational value of your course, rather than directing them to buy things like courses at a different site, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that. Many instructors have Facebook pages where you can ask them questions and have discussions. But, if you are concerned about this you should emai policy@udemy.com to get an official answer.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-23-2020

I am pretty sure there is nothing against that.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-23-2020

@Lili "We’re also updating our policy to eliminate Private Label Rights (PLR) content. " I am not sure what PLR is. Can you explain?

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-22-2020

You do know that Udemy automatically issues a certificate of completion for all paid courses, right? I issue a Green Belt certificate for two of my courses when a student has both completed the course and completed thirteen assignments that demonstrate competent application of the lessons. This requires a good bit of work on theiir part and they have to send me a portfolio of those assignments.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-06-2020

@PragatiSuni103 It is unfortunate that this is the only rating you have received. I am sure with other ratings it will improve. However, do what you can to improve your course. I looked at your intro video for about 30 seconds. I can hardly understand anything you are saying. Slow down. Enunciate clearly. Remember that the largest audience speaks U.S./British English, not Indian English. Also, just having a PPT slide is very uninviting. Jazz it up with better graphics. Your first course is always a learning experience. You can succeed if you learn.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎07-01-2020

Your analysis is correct. Udemy is becoming a more mature marketplace. However, consider that this isn't different than almost every other business. If you want to open a new coffee shop, sandwich shop, create new software... you have to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the current players in the market. You have to do something better than the current best players. Why is your course unique or better than the other courses? Is your own experience unique or does it give you an advantage in some way? Woody Allen said "80% of success is showing up." That was true when Udemy was in its early stages. No more. Now 80% of success is being creative. Be creative. One other thing: Udem now has somewhere aroung 100 million students wandering around looking for courses. Maybe one percent of them are in your category. So... one million students who may be interested in your course. Do you have to dominate that category to consider yourself successful? Maybe you can get 10% of that market. Maybe that is success!

LawrenceMMiller · ‎06-20-2020

You are seeing the effect of free courses and free coupons. It is completely deceptive. A much better indication of how an instructor or course is doing is to look at the number of reviews and the ratio of reviews to enrollments. You can get 10k enrollments quickly and have no reviews because no one is actually going through your course. Pick a successful instructor and look at the ratio of reviews to enrollments and you will find that it is around 4X to 6X. In other words, if you have 10k reviews, you probably have 40-60k students who actually bought your course. Anything above those ratios (like 1k reviews and 100k enrollments) just indicates that the instructor has been giving it away. In this case Rabia Khan has 108 reviews which means he only really has 400-600 actual students. Yes... it is possible that the other 9,000 bought the course but haven't got around to watching it. But that is not credible.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎06-07-2020

May was down 10% from April, which was fine with me since April was such a killer month. I will be happy if June can just be down another ten percent from May. It will still be very good. But, like everyone else, the first week has been slow. Maybe a sale will kick in this month.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎06-04-2020

I hear you. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to explain those changes. But, this is stepping beyond the current topic, may I make a suggestion: You are right that your topic is a very niche topic and there will, therefore, be a relatively limited number of students interested in that topic. My course sales were relatively slow until I stopped trying to be unique and presenting the latest and greatest stuff, and I asked myself the question "What could I teach that the most number of people would be looking for?" The answer to that question was a basic course on management for new managers. That course is now about 40% of my Udemy income and everything changed in terms of the number of students and revenue. If you really want to make money on Udemy would it not be smart to develop a more general course on playing base guitar? Surely the audience for that must be many times the audience for African Bass. No?

LawrenceMMiller · ‎06-04-2020

I don't think any of us fellow instructors can answer your question. I am quite sure that most of us do not watch each purchase so closely that we would notice this. I certainly do not. I know you didn't like it when I said this before, but... I really think there are better ways to spend your time. The Udemy system is complex with all the different coupon codes, sales, currencies, etc. etc. When you have hundreds or even thousands of students in enrolling in your courses you simply have to trust that Udemy is not "stealing" your revenue, although there may be mistake from time to time. I had 9600 new course enrollments last month. I am not paying any attention to what each student is paying. I am paying attention to the rate of enrollments, revenue compared to previous months, UFB revenue, and a lot of other things that I think are important. In the end what matters is your net revenue each month. Good luck.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎06-02-2020

If you go into the Published Instructor Club and then the Marketing tab you will find several posts that give a lot of suggestions for marketing your courses.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-31-2020

There are many cameras that will do the job. I am using a Nikon Z6 and I have been surprised how well it focuses automatically. It has excellent facial and eye recognition and set to continuous focus it stays right on my face. I previously used a Fuji XH1 and a Nikon D810 but they needed to be set to manual fixed focus because the auto focus would hunt. I don't know anything about the Canon so I can't comment. I am not saying this is the case, but often people do not know their own camera very well in terms of what settings work and how they work. If I were you, before buying another camera I would make sure I have tried the different auto focus and manual focus settings. Something that could be a problem is depth of field. I assume you understand that if your lens is set to f.2.8, for example, you have a very narrow depth of field and this makes if very hard for the camera to focus on anything moving. I always make sure my f.stop is at least 5.6, preferably more. But that is a matter of having adequate light as well as a good lens. Random thoughts that might be useful.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-31-2020

OK, @AfricanBass I'll be a leadership coach. You are making an accusation that is absurd. Udemy is NOT STEALING your revenue! No company succeeds by stealing the revenue of their partners. You may not understand what is happening, there may even be a technical glitch. But, my "leadership coaching" advise is don't ever accuse someone of stealing unless you have absolutely clear evidence of that. Udemy is your partner. You want them to do marketing for you. Accusing them of stealing is not the way to develop that partnership. My coaching to you is to focus on things that have a more value-adding payoff, like improving your courses, creating more courses, doing your own marketing, writing a blog. Sitting around worry that the revenue has changed for some particular student is a total waste of time. That is like obsessing over the fact that one student gave you a bad review. Forget it. Move on. My previous comment was obviously sarcastic.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-30-2020

"Has Udemy been stealing anyone else's revenue?" No. They only steal yours. Everyday they watch your purchases and say "Aha! Here's one we can steel." Only for you, with almost one hundred million students and fifty thousand instructors, they spend their time steeling your revenue. Yes, that's right. I am sure its true.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-29-2020

@Cristi S. I wrote the original message a couple years ago, to be helpful to new instructors. I didn't write to win applause from you or anyone else. Obviously, it was helpful to a good number of new instructors. If it wasn't helpful to you, that is fine. Perhaps you can share your own more brilliant and creative ideas that have helped you be a successful instructor.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-13-2020

There are so many unknowns. We don't know what will happen in the Fall. There are some predictions that it will be worse than it has been in the Spring. But, we don't know. I would not hold my breath waiting for "normal" to return. There was already an upward trend to more online training and that has now permanently accelerated in my opinion. We shall see.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-12-2020

The old normal is dead! Now we learn to adapt to a new normal. Data Point One: Many corporations are completely re-evaluating their need for office space. This article on New York gives the picture. Working at home will equal learning at home will equal revenue for us. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/nyregion/coronavirus-work-from-home.html?referringSource=articleShare&fbclid=IwAR2hweswlBgovNLQ1sgsxrrDonh9vXiCF9hWriG2NFf450VEoSoDQ2Tts_c Data Point Two: Cal State University system, the largest in the world, has just announced that they will not be having on campus classes in the fall. That will spread to other state universities and probably private universities. Learning online, like it or not, is going to become much more normal than it ever was. Good for us. A month ago I posted a conversation asking whether people thought the uptick in our sales would be permanent or temporary. Obviously there will be fluctuations. But, in the end, this trend is significant and permanent. Get on Board!!

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-11-2020

Of course. why not?

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-11-2020

@RabiyaNiazi404 I think you should not be concerned about using your own photo wearing a hijab. There are other similar instructors. If that bothers someone then that is their problem. There are certainly no restrictions in that regard. And, welcome to the community. You will receive support here.

LawrenceMMiller · ‎05-10-2020

It doesn't mean much and if I were you I would focus on the substance of producing great courses. Everything else follows. I also agree with Thor. Change your profile picture to your own, a real human being, rather than a cute plastic blond imaginary figure. Real works best.

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Lawrence M. Miller, Miller

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Lawrence M. Miller, Miller

LawrenceMMiller • Community Champion

Best Selling Instructor, Author & Leadership Coach

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