A couple of weeks ago I published a series that caused quite a stir:
“How a 7-figure Business Dies”
Since then I’ve had a lot of emails from seasoned entrepreneurs with a similar story to tell.
“Olly, WTF - you’ve just described my exact situation.”
Tldr;
- 10+ year old business
- Grew team too large
- Spent too much money
- Founder removed themselves from the business
- Didn’t diversify media
- Significant traffic decline
(You can find and share the series here)
But even those businesses who have weathered the storm are experiencing something else:
Declining Course Sales
This is happening across the education landscape, but it’s happening in specific situations, and to specific types of businesses.
For example, in legacy course businesses this is being felt most acutely in backend promotions.
Front-end sales aren’t affected that much.
But those course promotions you’ve been running for years on the backend?
They’re 50% down on what they were in 2021-22.
What this is NOT down to:
- Less traffic
- Fewer leads
- Post-Covid lull
It's happening to businesses with the same amount of traffic and leads as before… or even more.
What’s changed is buyer behaviour.
Conversion is down.
People are simply buying less.
Anyway, I’ll skip to the punchline:
As disruptive as this is, my belief is that this actually presents a massive opportunity, above anything else.
A window of opportunity to adapt your business model, in a way that not only allows you to weather the storm, but (I believe) emerge with a much stronger business on the other side.
So, in these emails I’m going to discuss these opportunities.
The most important thing to understand is this:
Doing nothing is not an option
This is one of those times where you have to roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty.
Frankly, it’s a miracle that course creators have been able to run the same playbook so successfully for 10-15 years without much change to the model.
But that time is coming to an end.
So it’s really a mindset challenge – will you rise to the challenge?
Keep doing business in the same way, you’ll soon be in trouble.
Be alert to what’s changing, and summon the energy to adapt, you’ll be just fine. (And emerge even stronger than before.)
It's Not AI's Fault
Yesterday, I was in the gym, telling my PT about a conversation I was having with ChatGPT.
I was asking it about trade deficits/surpluses, trying to understand some of the nuances and implications.
My PT’s reply:
“So, you can actually talk to it, can you?”
This guy is my age, smart, drives a Tesla…
Exactly the kind of person who you’d think would be all over AI like a rash…
But he’s simply never engaged with AI.
Doesn’t care.
Avoids it like a cat dodges a cucumber.
As far as I can tell, this is the case with most people.
Despite the hype in our entrepreneur circles, there just isn’t enough awareness of LLM tools in the general population to have a significant impact on buyer behaviour.
Most people are still just getting on with life, searching for stuff on Google, tuning out of the news, trying to get their kids to school on time.
So…
When people say “AI is killing course businesses!” it’s a massive oversimplification.
The general population simply isn’t abandoning their regular ways of learning in order to spend ages meta-prompting Claude.
So what is it then?
It’s a Mixed Picture
When I look across different businesses, what I see is a confused picture.
In some niches, course sales are down significantly.
In others, they’re skyrocketing.
In some spaces, this is exacerbated by fluctuations in traffic (Hey, Google!), but this is a traffic issue, not an intent issue.
In StoryLearning, for example, our Google search traffic is down about 50% from 2023 levels — but we’ve done product work that has successfully increased free trial conversions by 15%, showing the appetite is still there.
Among entrepreneurs I mentor, some have seen backend sales drop to 50% of what they were — meaning that people aren’t buying as often as they did before.
But there are others who are scaling 7+ figure businesses selling $200-300 courses on Meta Ads all day long, like it’s 2010 again:
(From my 2025 private mastermind group.)
It’s a big, mixed picture. Like Jackson Pollock painting after a night of heavy drinking.
And that’s what’s interesting…
There’s a lot of opportunity within the mess.
It’s vital to understand what factors are at play.
If you misunderstand the situation, you risk making extreme decisions.
Take this post I saw on LinkedIn recently:
This course seller has seen monthly sales declining, and took the extreme decision of making all their courses FREE, stating:
“Clearly people had less money to spend.”
Now, I don’t know his business at all, but to me, that’s quite a leap.
Why exactly are course sales dropping?
Isn't it too simplistic to say people have less money?
Or could it be...
- traffic is down?
- conversion is down?
- backend sales are down?
- Some combination of the above?
- Something else altogether?
If traffic is down, the answer is not to change your products.
If conversion is down, the way you sell needs to evolve.
If backend sales are down, you need to work harder to increase LTV, by reevaluating the way you deliver value.
My experience with course creators is that they tend NOT to know their numbers.
And not knowing your numbers makes it very difficult to diagnose problems and take remedial steps.
Problems Don’t Disappear
None of this is as strange as it seems.
Now, my PT has the exact same problems and challenges he had last year.
He’s looking for solutions just like before.
He has no less appetite to pay for solutions to problems — that will never change.
So what does that mean for course creators?
We have to:
- Commit to evolving
- Precisely understand our own situation
- Understand what’s changing in our industry
- Create value in new ways
It's true that many course creators are experiencing declining sales.
But they’re also jumping to conclusions about what’s happening:
- “People don’t have money”
- “AI is changing everything”
The true picture is mixed:
- Google has made sweeping changes (but that only affects SEO)
- Backend sales are down across the board (showing a fatigue with ‘collecting’ courses)
- Frontend sales are strong (showing a continued appetite to solve problems)
- Paid ads are working great (in specific niches that solve specific problems)
- YouTube is going strong for course creators (even though AdSense is 30% down on 2023)
Whatever your specific situation, there’s one thing you need to get super clear on:
Know your numbers!
We don’t want you to be clamouring to fix the wrong problem.
First, understand what’s going on in your business. Then, take steps to fix it.
So, let’s talk about fixing it.
The New Model
Out of everything I’ve covered so far, here’s the bit I’d be paying most attention to:
Course businesses that solve acute problems in highly specific scenarios are doing better than ever — even to paid ads.
What does this tell you?
Well, like with saw with my Tesla-driving PT who’s never used ChatGPT…
Problems are always gonna exist, you can continue to solve them (profitably).
However…
The market is becoming flooded with free information (AI), meaning that people will look to authority for reliable solutions.
The best way to position yourself to ride this out is to:
- occupy an ever-smaller niche, solving acute problems
- build your brand and grow your personal authority
- apdapt your business model for a low-traffic environment
- provide more effective help with direct student contact
Let’s unpack this a bit.
The Old Way: Get a bunch of traffic with internet marketing techniques (like SEO) then use that volume to make money selling digital products passively.
The New Way: Choose a specific problem for a specific bunch of people, become the best in the world at solving it, build your entire brand around it, and offer an expensive, high-touch way to solve it.
For example…
One entrepreneur I’m mentoring helps doctors pass their consultant interviews.
Talk about specific — it’s like a spiritual advisor for atheist goldfish, or a matchmaker for identical twins.
That’s all she does.
It’s her entire brand.
She only offers that.
But guess what? She has a 100% success rate.
But damn! — if you happen to be a doctor in this situation, you’ll pay handsomely for that result!
Now…
Like I mentioned earlier, there are many people who are continuing to crush (gotta love that word) with courses + paid ads.
Just like there are YouTubers who are still selling digital products to their millions of subscribers and making bank.
But here’s the thing:
This is still the vast minority of people. (And you already know if it’s you!!)
So, it’s best to assume that this won’t work for you…
Or, if it does, that it won’t last forever…
And to build your future business on fundamentals.
Low Traffic, High Profit
In many ways, all this is nothing new.
(“Niche down” — how often you heard that old chestnut??)
But what this speaks to is orientating your entire business model around it…
Asking:
“How can I offer something that guarantees a solution to a problem for those who are willing to pay for it?”
And really building authority in as many ways as possible around this.
For example, at StoryLearning, we’re in the process of signing two new book deals, and spending quite a bit on PR.
It’s a hyper-long-term move, but I believe will be very powerful over time, because, basically:
People trust brands who publish great books and appear in the press!
All of this basically puts you in a position where you can the highest possible LTV from every lead you get.
In turn, this gives you higher margin to work with.
And then, business is actually gonna feel a lot easier, and you’ll spot a lot more opportunity, because:
- You don’t need many leads
- Paid ads are more likely to work
- A tiny YouTube channel can yield great results
- Partnerships are easier because you can pay more to get them
And to be clear:
YES - this means no more “passive income” course dreams YES - this means offering 1:1 / group help
Those who cling onto “I don’t want to manage people” are going to find it harder to adapt.
In many ways this is only a problem if you’ve come from a background of tonnes of ‘free’ SEO traffic.
This new way is gonna feel a lot more like ‘work’.
But in the end, it all just feels like better business to me.
So, the direction of travel in the information economy is that information is losing value.
If you’re a course creator, this matters.
15 years ago, it was worth paying for information in a course, because you couldn’t get it elsewhere, or the teacher had a unique way of conveying it.
But now information is freely available in a personalised format with AI, meaning there’s gradually less appetite to pay for it.
Add to this a general realisation among the course-buying population that collecting courses (AKA information) ain’t gonna change your life.
And so they buy less often...
And with more skepticism.
Wait, But Why?
But why isn’t information gonna solve your problems, exactly?
Understanding this is key to what’s coming next…
You can know everything in the world, but if you don’t do anything with it, you won’t get any results.
As Derek Sivers famously said:
If more information was the answer, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.
And this explains why people are fatiguing with courses…
15 years after the course boom began…
- You ain’t no billionaire
- You ain’t got no six-pack
- In fact… your life hasn’t really changed that much at all
By why not?
It was never about the information, stupid!
It was about whether you could apply it.
Apply the information well enough and consistently enough to get result.
So now, we can get into the meat of things.
How do we go beyond providing the information, and actually getting students results?
1. Specific Problems & Tangible Outcomes
The broader the problem you’re fixing, the harder it is to solve.
- “Learn a language”
- “Learn to draw”
- “Be more productive”
People have been teaching this for millennia.
And students have been struggling with it.
What are the chances of you inventing a radical new way to teach these things that works for everyone?
(If you do – I for one want to invest!)
So, instead, we tend to gloss over the "you've just got to implement!" point, and fall back on making content and creating courses with your face on it, making it feel fresh and personal...
But still avoiding the thorny issue of implementation.
That’s the creator economy in a nutshell.
The businesses who are succeeding right now are not the ones who get tonnes of followers and just talk loudly about a topic.
The most successful businesses are getting REALLY good at delivering credible results by focusing on more specific problems and providing tangible outcomes.
- "Pass your consultant interview"
- "Score 7 on your IELTS (English) test"
- "Perform this specific veterinary procedure"
I believe the future is going to see businesses niching down even further.
The more specific problems you solve, the easier it is to get better at what you do.
The better you are at what you do, the better results you get.
The better results you get, the more people will pay you for those results.
Ain’t that neat?
2. Sell Implementation
So one thing is the size and scope of the problem.
The other is the actual "doing" of the thing.
One of the reasons StoryLearning has done relatively well, is because the method gets people to read in their new language.
Our method doesn’t just say “Hey, reading is good!”
Our method gets you reading stuff from day 1. You literally have to read into order to take our courses.
So, there’s behaviour change baked in…
But only if you do it!
Ultimately, we can’t force you to log in every day…
We can’t force you to come back tomorrow…
Or the day after that…
…which is the thing that actually get results. (Consistency.)
So, from a business model perspective, education businesses need to start focusing on something beyond the information we provide:
Implementation.
The question is no longer:
“How do we create a cool course and charge for it?”
but rather…
“How do we help our students actually get a result?”
Given that human students don’t reliably take action by themselves, you need to create structures that hold them accountable:
- 1:1 support
- Time-bound offerings
- Peer accountability
Yes, this is more expensive.
Yes, this increases complexity.
Yes, this is going to send those who are still chasing the “digital nomad passive income” lifestyle dream fleeing to the hills of Chiang Mai in a blind panic…
But s*** – do your students want a result or don’t they?
If all your students get great results… that’s good for business.
Because then:
- They’re happy
- They pay you more
- They tell their friends
Yet this doesn't paint the full picture.
You need something more.
3. Offering ‘More Complete’ Solutions
If the money is flowing away from endless course purchases, this makes it harder to rely on volume of sales for revenue.
Instead, you’ll need to maximise LTV from the customers you do have.
Imagine that, moving forward, customers would only ever buy one thing from you.
Better make sure that offer works as hard as possible for you.
Recently I was working with one entrepreneur to rethink their email sequences.
They were offering a <$50 product on the front-end. In their words, the reason was:
“People say our products are too expensive, so we’re offering something more affordable.”
But, inside every audience is 2% of people who are willing to spend large amounts of money for a complete solution. So we reworked their offer to sell a higher-value product instead ($300-800 depending on the option they took).
It wasn’t just more expensive, it was a new product entirely. Multiple “complete solution” products, including bundle options, creating a full learning pathway, which is more appealing for people with money to spend.
This resulted in an 11X jump in revenue from their email sequences.
(See the full case study here)
This is an example of creating more value while sticking with a simple course model.
Of course, we could go much further by adding implementation etc.
The point is to run a thinking exercise:
If I only had one opportunity to make an offer, how would I maximise the perceived value?
Those customers who are prepared to invest in a great solution will spend 10-20X what your average audience member will.
4. Using Software
This one is “handle with care”, but it’s important to complete the picture.
In the education world, software is the easiest and fastest way to lose your shirt.
Kickstarter is a graveyard littered with the carcasses of apps that begun starry-eyes, but quickly realised that multiple $150k dev salaries are no joke.
But…
If you get software right, it’s the fastest way to transform your business.
All around me right now, I’m seeing entrepreneurs using software to add massive value to their businesses.
The App Store is an amazing place.
People will search for, discover, try, buy and subscribe to apps for the sheer fun of it… in the millions.
But you can’t just “add software” to your business for the sake of it.
The key is to ask:
“Where is there an opportunity to use software to genuinely make it genuinely easier for my students to get RESULTS?”
In the language world, there are AI apps like Langua or TeacherAI, where people can get unlimited speaking practice on-demand in a foreign language.
This is legitimately game-changing for language learning. Not just a nice-to-have… but a totally new opportunity.
I’m co-founder/investor in these apps and it’s amazing to see the financial dynamics.
Elsewhere, Ali Abdaal has VoicePal that offers a similarly new opportunity for his audience…
But it’s also opening up an entire new direction for his business.
But it doesn’t have to be AI…  If you’re producing training videos for vets, do you want to make them log into a Kajabi account to access the videos, while propping up an unconscious animal on their operating table?
Or might it be better to provide an iPad app that can be propped up on the theatre table and controlled by voice?
If you did, that wouldn’t just be something you sold to your existing audience…
It would be found on the App Store too.
These things aren’t just cute add-ons.
They’re major new sources of revenue that attract people beyond your existing customer base.
Reversing The Decline
So, we’ve looked at a lot of stuff in this little series.
What I’ve tried to do is dig beneath the surface of the people who matter in this equation – our students.
What’s changing for them? How are they behaving differently?
And then crucially…
How can we adapt our businesses in order to not just keep up…
But to continue to help and serve them in increasingly useful ways as everything evolves around us.
Namaste,
Olly
P.S.
Remember – the future’s bright :)