Here’s a bold prediction:

“What you’re about to read and discover will become the STANDARD best practice for scaling online course businesses in the near future”

But why aren't course creators and business owners actively doing this already?

Because the "classic" customer journey model is broken. 

Just look at currently most acceptable model of customer journey by Digital Marketer. 

All their milestones are valid, but crucial parts are missing and it's almost impossible to get to the final milestones (advocate and promote) by just blindly following that model. 

Let me explain why.

We’ve been conditioned to focus most of our attention and time on getting the actual customers, upselling them as fast as we can, and then SOMEHOW turning them into lifetime fans.

Yet, as you grow, the “SOMEHOW” part tends to become a BIG obstacle.

Just take a look at graphics above again, and you'll clearly see the "somehow" part is hidden between ASCEND and ADVOCATE milestone.

I'm all up for strategically placing upsells and increasing customer lifetime value...

BUT...

Just that won't magically turn your regular course students into "successful customers", and that's one of the biggest things stopping you from building a sustainable business.

I’d estimate that most business owners are spending 90% of their focus on the front-end (getting new customers) and maybe 10% on the back-end (increasing the retention and lifetime value of current customers), and that's being generous.

While it's important to focus on the lead gen and sales part of the journey, especially when you are starting out...

If you want to scale effectively, at some point, neglecting your back-end becomes detrimental to your long term growth.

A lot of times business owners say "I care about my audience", but then shrug their shoulders when trying to figure out the actual success rates of their students. 

And I don't blame them, because most of them have read somewhere that having "low success rates" is just a normal state of our industry, or think it's too hard to optimize lead gen / sales and customer success rates at the same time. 

It's not, you just need to know WHAT to focus on. 

I also refuse to believe marketing and sales departments need to focus ONLY on getting people in, and then passing them on to the customer support department for everything else.

One of my most successful clients (multiple 7-figures in three different markets), realized early on the importance of everyone working together when launching courses and membership offers.

So now when we do huge launches together, all teams work together and we “start with the end in mind”, first:

What does success look like for our students?
What does success look like for our company?

And based on that we put together a launch strategy that supports both sides (front-end and back-end). 

And that’s why I’m proposing a different approach to you as well.

Stop trying to add more and more and more customers, via different launch strategies, hoping that next launch will be the “tipping point” for you and your business.

Instead, zoom out (by using our 8x4 matrix) to see and understand your ENTIRE customer journey first.

Here are just some of the most important benefits you will get when you ZOOM OUT and focus on the entire journey that someone takes through your business - from the moment they hear about you, to their experience in your program or course and getting results based on it...

Benefit #1: When you start tracking the ENTIRE Customer Journey, you instantly double your scaling potential (instead of just 4 leverage points, now you have 8, and all are equally important)

Benefit #2: You’re able to afford to spend more money to acquire leads and customers, even as paid ad costs continue to skyrocket. Increasing the lifetime value of your customers is easier than you think (when you know what makes them tick)

Benefit #3: You probably started your business to make some kind of positive difference in people’s lives. Yet amidst the daily hustle of your business, it can be easy to fall short on delivering results. Focusing on the WHOLE journey lets you WALK your talk and create the change you want. Plus, win for your customers is a bonus win for you (more testimonials, case studies and referrals...just to start with a few)

Now that you know HOW the 8x4 Matrix helps you to uncover more hidden profit points in your business, what tends to happen for a lot of people is their brain goes into overwhelm mode: 

“Who’s going to keep track and optimize all these milestones?”
“We can’t slow down now - let’s just stay focused on what we know works”
“I care about my customers, but without getting new ones we’ll start bleeding money”

​If you have these thoughts popping up right now, just know that it’s totally normal.

Anytime we are challenged to think in different ways about something, our brains want to protect us by staying in comfort zone and refusing everything else. 

So first, take a deep breath.

I haven’t created this framework to make your life harder.

That’s why we still need to talk about vertical vs. horizontal growth and how to identify what your business needs next.

FirstClass Success helps visionary CEOs and digital course creators grow their business by focusing on the “unsexy” parts: tracking, dashboards, and data to make smart decisions that lead to more leads, sales, and better customer results.