Don’t put all your Eggs into one Basket

I bet you know this common quote, don’t you?

Have you ever thought about the question what it means for your business? Right, you shouldn’t concentrate all your efforts at one place. But isn’t it better to do that actually? Because if you put all your energy into one things it works better, doesn’t it?

That’s on of those what I call business questions I’ve been asking myself for years. What should I do? Spread myself and my efforts or simply concentrate on one thing? No question, concentrating on one thing is the less stressful way. Because you wake up, do your job and then you are done. Jumping from one place to another means exactly that: Much more stress, much less free-time.

So far I thought that concentrating on one thing is the better way to go and then I got an email from Skillshare three days ago and woke up. Don’t get me wrong, I never did that. I always jumped from one place to the other because as a Multipassionate Entrepreneur I just had to. This way I kept myself and my brain going. But I always had a bad conscious. I always thought: What great things could happen if I  would just concentrate? Would I earn much more? Would I have much less stress? Most probably – at least for the short term. But what about the long term?

Don’t put all your Eggs into one Basket

For the long term I was right. The email I got 3 days ago from Skillshare announced that they would change the way teachers earn money on their platform. So far we got paid by premium enrolments and yes, some people tried to game the system by creating short, 10 minute, classes and then put their efforts in creating a series. So if one student liked the first part of a series they would most probably watch the second part as well and the third. And yes, the teachers were paid again and again. So Skillshare was kinda lucrative. We “just” had to find new students who would like to watch our classes. However, we wouldn’t have to take care of them. Get them into the course and create the next one. By doing that, without meaning it bad in any way, we had enough to do.

But then Skillshare changed the rules. Now teachers are paid by the minutes premium students watch. So this means that if you have a good class with good information you will earn more because people will stay on board longer. After all this means engaging your students and give them quality content.

Just as always.  Give quality, engage and then make money from that. The point is that most probably the teacher on Skillshare will earn significantly less until they have adapted to the new system. So if I now had just Skillshare as my main source of income I’d be afraid that next month I’d make maybe half the money. I’d try to adapt quickly but after all I’d just make half the money, maybe. And that until they decide to change the game again – after all it’s their site. They can. Just as YouTube or Google can, just as Facebook can change their algorithm – and there is nothing we can do about that if we depend on another platform.

So the best advice I can give you is to work on your own assets. Most Internet Marketers will tell you that the best way to build your Internet Business is to build your own email list of people who like you and read your posts. After all that is what counts – people who want to hear from YOU and not anyone else. It doesn’t matter then if you do it on Skillshare, Udemy or whatever platform, they’ll will follow you.

So you might spread to different platforms but make sure that you build your business, your email list, your blog, your list of courses and your list of affiliate sites or whatever you are up to. In the short run you might be happy when you concentrate on a specific site but in the long run it’s better if you build your own business because there you decide which rules you follow.

My own Academy

Because of that I’ve decided to set up my own Academy. It’s far away from being ready and I haven’t even uploaded all my courses yet. But I will because I believe this is, in the long run, the better way to go. Because I’m German it contains German and English courses. The platform is an English one so I guess you don’t have any problems.

You can check it out here

PS: Let me know what you think!

Filed in: Blog • Blogger Tools For Online Business