Thinking about learning how to dropship is already a good first step in your entrepreneurial journey. However, with all the lousy products (and free content) around the internet, it’s only natural to feel like they’re simply not worth your time and money.
Well, I’ve been a dropshipper for a fair amount of time, and you can bet I’ve taken more courses than the average person. Therefore, I’d like to think I’m prepared enough to answer this question.
And yes, a dropshipping course is a good investment, but it depends on which one you get and what it offers.
I guess a more appropriate answer would be “dropshipping courses CAN be worth your money”.
A good dropshipping course should teach you how to tackle this business model properly, thus saving time and even money down the road. It should provide you a comprehensive but easy-to-understand guide on the steps necessary to building, running, and scaling your eCommerce business.
However, not all courses are worth it: some are too expensive, and others don’t have enough information.
For every good course, there’s at least a couple of poor alternatives. The key not to waste your money when buying training is to research properly. You want to learn as much as you can from a course and its author since not all programs have the same target audience, content and, of course, value.
The main culprit for this low standard is how easy it is to create a course quickly and market it through social media platforms. A course creator can come up with a course in a couple of days and spend a few more marketing it to make a quick buck. That’s why you can’t trust anyone based only on the adverts – engagement and shares don’t really mean much either.
So, let’s see what you should expect from a good dropshipping course.
What you want from a dropshipping course
When looking for a course to get yourself, you have different elements to consider. Sure, not all entrepreneurs have the exact same needs, but there are foundations that make up a good course.
First, the course must teach you skills that you can apply to different businesses – besides being vital for eCommerce and dropshipping. This content must be delivered in an intuitive manner that you can understand and implement without too much trouble. Of course, the content must also be tested and proven as effective – not something the author is making up or based on theory alone.
Secondly, the course must be a good investment. This means it shouldn’t break your bank while also giving you the skills to make your money back somewhat quickly with nothing but the lessons it offers. That means you want it to cover different topics with enough depth so that everything taught can be applied for a profit.
Finally, you want the course to have strong support. This means you should make sure the course is still up-to-date and that it won’t be abandoned with time like countless other training programs.
This could be the most complex factor since it takes more time to determine than just taking a look at the content.
Basically, you want the course to support different devices: mobile and desktop – that’s a good start. Then, you want to be able to have lifetime access until you feel like you have nothing more to learn from it; preferably, you want this access from a single payment as opposed to a monthly subscription.
Besides that lifetime access, you also want the course to be updated at least now and then with new content. This ensures it stays relevant and you can learn something new with every addition; your lifetime access should include these updates so that you don’t have to pay for every new addition.
The last factor related to the course support is, of course, how much help is available. Yes, that means a good support team, which should be standard, but that’s not the only element. It should have a large community with new and former students that promotes interaction between the members to engage in discussions, exchanging tips, and even helping others with their own doubts. This community should include the author as well as the chance to reach out to him directly.
It’s easy to miss checking out these criteria, but it’s important that you keep it in mind when determining which course you want.
Every low-quality course (and quick cash grabs) fail to deliver at least one of these features, which should be the standard for most courses.
Again, training programs are easy to make these days thanks to the different platforms available to simplify their development. That’s why you need to know how to filter the bad ones to ensure you get your money’s worth.
Good courses will take you through the different processes and methods to build a successful business – focusing on a long-term venture instead of teaching you how to make a quick buck and exit. They’ll present you complex subjects broken down into digestible lessons which help you not to notice the learning curve while applying every teaching to your store.
Speaking of applying, the content should be structured so that you can work on your store while looking at the lessons. Following every step in real-time.
It should be obvious that a good course should offer content that you won’t find anywhere else. There are countless courses simply paraphrasing content from YouTube or blogs, basically charging you to teach you free stuff.
That’s because trending businesses always attract dishonest people. They’ll try to take advantage of others’ interest by misleading them into lousy products, and dropshipping’s version of these products is low-quality courses. A quick YouTube search will show you dozens of channels created a year or even mere months ago, boasting their “knowledge” about the business while – of course – promoting different courses,
You should also be careful of the “proof” provided by these “experts” of their success. You’ll always see them showing off sport cars or helicopter rides that they could easily have rented or hired. That’s just a marketing strategy, coming from people who might be marketing experts but know nothing about dropshipping.
The truth is that these gurus don’t make money from dropshipping – but from the illusion of making money through dropshipping. In other words, they convince you of their success to get you to buy their content, which is their real income source.
The damage they make is quite more than you’d expect. Lots of people even believe dropshipping to be a scam just because of the message driven by these people.
That’s especially funny since dropshipping isn’t anything new. Amazon is one of the oldest websites on the internet, and their business model is dropshipping – quite literally. While it might not be their only focus now, it’s how they started and probably the reason you learned from them.
eCommerce is growing wildly, and it drives trillions in sells per year. It’s definitely not a scam, but this huge success is what attracts false experts.
How can you benefit from a course?
You already know what to expect from a dropshipping course, but how exactly do those elements benefit you as an entrepreneur? Yes, it should teach you all about the business model, but what does that content translate into?
Well, both the content and how it’s given offers insight into the industry. This is critical when making decisions regarding your store and what to do in your own situation. That’s besides the skills and mindset it will provide you as well.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s divide these benefits into 5 separate advantages.
Train yourself
Training is basically the main reason you buy a course: obtaining skills as well as developing the ones you had already. You’ll also learn how you can use different platforms to make your venture more effective.
You’ll even acquire skills that will be useful for other business models or industries, so you’ll have an advantage over most entrepreneurs regardless of where you’re venturing.
The most important skill from a good dropshipping course is selling correctly. Learning how to advertise your business is one of the most important steps for any dropshipper, and it’s also a skill that’s critical to entrepreneurship as a whole.
Become more confident
Learning all of these skills will prepare you (both in knowledge and mindset) to take risks you wouldn’t take otherwise. It’ll teach you how to work under pressure without making a mistake.
Good courses help you start from the ground up, becoming a confident businessman by the time you finish. You might even be surprised with the choices you make after going through a course.
Learn how to negotiate
Negotiating with suppliers is very important due to how it lets you get better prices and long-term partnerships. Good courses will aid you in developing this skill and how you can apply it to real situations. Of course, this is another skill that you’ll want for other businesses.
Feel more committed
An often-overlooked benefit of buying a course is that it’ll make you feel a stronger commitment since you already made your first investment. This will benefit you from the beginning since you’ll pay more attention to the lessons and their application.
Improve your focus
Finally, a good dropshipping course will teach you what you need to do and the right moment to do it. That means you’ll find it easier to focus on the important tasks at the moment instead of worrying too much over things that shouldn’t be an issue.
What’s the best course available?
After all of the courses I’ve taken and tested, my favourite so far is Franklin Hatchett’s eCom Elites, so that’s my recommendation.
It has all the knowledge you’ll need to scale your business all the way to making several thousands every month. You might even learn about strategies and methods you might have never thought about as well as acquiring the confidence necessary to use them.
Besides, it’s one of the most affordable courses available right now: $197 for the standard version and $297 for the premium package, so you won’t have to kill your savings for it. Besides, that’s the price for more than 30 hours filled with content, and it applies for more than just dropshipping thanks to its focus on marketing.
Conclusion
A dropshipping course can be either your best investment or a waste of money, and it depends entirely on how much you research.
A bad course will leave you with more questions than answers, but a good course will give you all the skills you need to gain an edge over your competitors. It’ll send you on the right path towards success – always as long as you apply the concepts taught and take your business seriously.
Click here to find the best dropshipping courses out there today!
