Show Notes:
Understanding the legal requirements when running a course can feel overwhelming to say the least.
So this week we are jumping into some of the things you’ll need consider for your course terms and conditions, with the wonderful Emma Heuston.
There are five common problems with online courses that I wanted to outline to you today.
- Money Back Guarantees: How do you protect your course from people who sign up and then ask for a refund? How do you honour a guarantee on something you can’t control the outcome for? These are all things that need to be considered when including a guarantee for your course.
- Online course price points and when you should offer instalments: Usually the guiding factor for when you should offer payment instalments is the price point of the course.
- Privacy and selling your course overseas: If you have a world wide audience, it is worth writing your terms and conditions to cover the most full on international obligations so that all your students are covered.
- Enforcement: If things go wrong, can you enforce your terms and conditions? It is wise to ensure that whatever you include in your terms of use covers your specific course and your business. Each online course is different and that directly impacts your terms of use.
- Disclaimer about using a third party platform: A third party platform is a platform that you don’t own. Any product or platform that you use can be hacked and you need a disclaimer in your course terms and conditions to protect your business.
Emma Heuston is a lawyer, author and online business entrepreneur.
10 years ago, Emma was on the traditional lawyer corporate path with an office job in a boutique firm on the North Shore of Sydney. But a near death experience changed her views on work/ life balance and showed her that life is way too short not to take chances. This led Emma to a sea change with her young family, moving from Sydney to the far north coast of New South Wales. After the sea change, Emma worked remotely at partner level in a law firm for a number of years. But that didn’t light that fire in my belly to help others build their own online empire and let them know it was okay, they didn’t have to buy into the 9 to 5 corporate life while trying to raise a family.
In 2018, Emma wrote the work from home bible, “The Tracksuit Economy: how to work productively and effectively from home”, she was also named “Thought leader of the Year” that year by Lawyers Weekly at the Women in Law Award. In 2019 Emma won a gold Mumpreneur Award in the Women’s Business School Excellence Award (Ignite) and in 2020 became a best selling author for the second time with her contribution to “Back Yourself” edited by Peace Mitchell and Katy Garner.
Emma specialises in online and remote work and has developed a strong niche helping people with the legalities surrounding their online courses.
You can find out more about Emma on her webpage, The Remote Expert.
Action Step:
Go and really look at your terms and conditions. Make a list of some of the things Emma mentions and see if you have them covered.
If you don’t have terms and conditions, this is a timely reminder that they are necessary and you should speak to someone who can help you with them.