The rising popularity of digital products like online courses has created a massive opportunity for creators to turn their expertise into a digital product business.
However, building an online business involves much more than creating a high-quality product. You need to build an email list, craft an offer, build a sales funnel, scale systems, and do many other things.
Many online programs have emerged that teach entrepreneurs the skills needed to build a knowledge business, and James Wedmore’s Business By Design is one of the popular ones.
In this guide, we’ll provide an in-depth review of the Business By Design program, giving you insight into what it offers, how much it costs, and who it’s best for.
Let’s get started.
High-Level Overview of Business By Design
Business By Design (BBD) is an online course designed to help creators launch digital products and build lasting online businesses.
The course is designed to help launch all kinds of digital products, including online courses, membership sites, coaching, etc.
The program is taught by James Wedmore, who is one of the most accomplished names in this space. James started his career as a bartender and became a multi-seven-figure entrepreneur using the strategies and tactics he teaches in his course.
And he has helped over 5,000 creators in the past 12 years through his courses while netting over $9 million in earnings last year.
The Business By Design program brings a design philosophy to every aspect of creating an online business. The basic idea is that nearly every step in your online business journey can be carefully designed with tested methods to achieve the best results instead of adopting a trial-and-error mindset.
Here’s an overview of what Business By Design includes:
- Six core modules that cover all the fundamentals of building a digital products business.
- 11 Launch Execution Guides for different types of digital products, marketing strategies, and scenarios.
- 20+ processes and templates for achieving highly-specific goals.
- 8 Live group coaching calls with James Wedmore.
- Free Ticket for a 3-day Live In-Person Event
- And many other bonuses!
A big part of the BBD program’s appeal is its 360-degree approach to training digital creators.
On the one hand, it covers all the high-level stuff like offer design, sales messaging, and productivity, while on the other hand, it gives you step-by-step action plans to achieve specific goals like building an email list or launching a webinar funnel.
Moreover, the course encourages you to take action and launch your product while you are going through the course instead of consuming the entire content first.
Business By Design is currently closed for enrollment, and the cart will open in June 2024.
What’s Included in Business By Design?
The course covers nearly every aspect of launching and scaling a digital products business, from mindset, productivity, creating an offer, and sales techniques to building teams and scaling processes. And they all come with workbooks and step-by-step procedures.
Moreover, it also comes packed with launch plans, templates, and execution guides to help you implement high-level strategies.
Now, let’s take a deeper dive into what’s offered by the BBD program.
Module 1: Business By Design
The Business By Design module is created to help you think like a Digital CEO and move away from the thinking that more hustle is the solution for every business problem.
And what makes this module effective is that it doesn’t just offer you high-quality content but also comes packed with tools like assignments and exercises to help you build the right mindset.
The module is designed to help you:
- create a business vision that’s aligned with your life so that you can execute it with more conviction
- think like a digital CEO from the get-go instead of being stuck in the mindset of a solopreneur
- uncover and deal with your limiting beliefs about business and money
- improve your relationship with time and move out of the hustle and sacrifice mindset
- figure out what’s really holding you back and let that go forever
While most online business courses skip over the mindset aspect of building a business, the BBD program brings that into clear focus, as it has been created by James Wedmore, who clearly knows what it takes to create massive success from scratch.
Module 2: Working By Design
In the Working By Design module, you’ll learn the productivity strategies and habits that James Wedmore has used to achieve consistent results in his business.
The module is designed to help you manage your time like a successful CEO, including planning correctly, prioritizing the right things, delegating effectively, and ultimately getting things done.
Let’s get into some of the specific things this module will help you with:
- plan your breakthrough year and work backward to achieve your goals for the year
- understand what it means to work as an entrepreneur instead of becoming an employee in your business
- focus on the key metrics of your business and projects that matter instead of taking a spray-and-pray approach
- create 90-day sprint plans to achieve specific goals
- figure out what it takes to get things done and manage your tasks effectively to get results with the least amount of effort
- learn how to delegate work and manage your team to get the best results
If improving productivity and managing your time has ever been a challenge for you, this module offers a lot.
Module 3: Offer By Design
James Wedmore introduced the Offer By Design module as he noticed that many digital entrepreneurs struggle to create a well-converting offer that works with their audience.
This module is designed to help you learn what an irresistible offer looks like, and it shares all the steps that will go into creating that kind of offer for your business.
To be more specific, in the Offer By Design Module, you’ll learn to:
- identify the key ingredients of an irresistible offer
- create your offer promise and craft a story around your offer
- price your digital product effectively
- create bundles and bonuses for your digital product
- create scarcity and urgency in the mind of your audience
- assess if you have cracked an offer that hits the home run
Additionally, the module will show you several examples of offers that have worked for other creators. So, if you are running an offer that’s not converting to your expectations, the Offer By Design module should be useful.
Module 4: Sales By Design
Often creators struggle to build a real business despite having real expertise simply because selling is not their primary skill set.
And to help creators with that, the BBD program packs in a module that covers nearly everything needed to create a well-converting sales machine, including understanding the customer, crafting the right messaging, creating a launch plan, etc.
Let’s get into the specifics. In this module, you’ll learn to:
- identify your ideal customer and their pain points
- create sales messaging that appeals to your potential customers
- identify the possible objections your customers may have and tweak your message accordingly
- create free content that helps you sell
- identify the first steps toward making sales
- come with the right launch plan
- and much more!
The interesting thing about this course is that it starts by focusing on the more fundamental aspects of business and sales instead of just handing you out templates.
And there are separate sections in the course which cover the more tactical elements like templates for webinars, sales pages, and checkout pages, which we’ll discuss later in this guide.
In our experience, it is the fundamentals like the sales messaging and learning about the customer pain points, which people often don’t get right.
Module 5: Team By Design
The Team By Design module gives you the strategies and tips to build the right team for your business and transition from being a solopreneur to an online business owner.
To begin with, the module explains the four phases of hiring — working as a solopreneur, outsourcing simple tasks to virtual assistants, building a team of freelancers, and building your in-house team.
And then, it shares with you actionable steps for building your team and helps you learn to:
- identify which hiring phase you are at
- understand your role depending on the stage of your business and who should you hire in which phase
- hire a Virtual Assistant
- build a team locally
- delegate work to your team effectively to get things done
James has built a large business on the back of a strong team, and in this module, he shares with you tips and strategies that he has used in his business for hiring.
Module 6: Scale By Design
Many first-time entrepreneurs struggle to scale their businesses because it requires a skill set that is quite different from what it takes to launch a product successfully.
The Scale By Design module gives you the system and the strategies to scale your business and deal with setbacks on the way.
In this module, you’ll learn to:
- set up post-launch processes that help you scale
- tweak and improve your marketing performance
- grow your email list
- automate business processes for scaling
- analyze the performance of your launch and take corrective steps when your initial launch fails to deliver
In this module, James breaks the myth that your initial launch needs to succeed for your business to work. And it firmly places the focus on post-launch analysis, learning from your mistakes, and tweaking the systems to improve your results.
Launch Execution Guides
While the previous sections of Business By Design help you learn how to build an online business, this section covers launch plans and execution guides that show you the exact steps involved in launching a digital product.
And what makes this section stand out is that the resources you get here are not limited to a specific method — instead, they cover an extensive range of scenarios and different kinds of digital products.
For instance, this section gives you plans for launching a membership site, a masterclass, or a paid mastermind. There’s a guide even for getting clients for your coaching business.
On top of that, you also get detailed execution guides for different launch strategies.
For example, you get guides that help you launch your product through a webinar or a series of videos. You even get a guide that helps you sell and monetize your digital product even before creating it.
Plus, the execution guides don’t just walk you through the steps in the launch processes, but they are also accompanied by emails and templates for executing each stage of the launch.
Resources and Business Processes
While the previous section was about launch plans and execution guides, this section goes one step further and gives you guides and templates you can use directly in your sales and marketing system, with just minor tweaks.
Let’s take a quick look at some of them.
To begin with, this section gives you a useful list of all the essential business processes you’d need for launching your digital product.
You get guides that help you plan the different phases of your business, like the pre-launch phase, launch phase, and post-launch analysis.
Plus, this section comes packed with guides that help you achieve several specific tasks like building a landing page, creating a waitlist, and deploying a survey.
On top of that, they give you several useful templates for things like crafting an email, creating a follow-up email series, and creating a webinar.
As you can see, the Business By Design course supplements high-level business strategies with specific templates and resources for implementing those strategies.
Group Coaching Calls with James Wedmore
A big part of the Business By Design program’s appeal is that it gives you access to eight weekly group coaching calls personally conducted by James Wedmore.
In the group coaching program, James shares presentations on the topics inside the BBD program. You also get a chance to interact with James about your specific challenges and listen to him share advice with other digital creators on their issues. Plus, you get access to all the recordings of the coaching calls.
On top of this, you get 2-3 weekly coaching calls for 8 weeks with a team of BBD coaches, where they answer questions related to the BBD topics and help you work through your business’s challenges.
Other Bonuses Included in Business By Design
The first major bonus you get access to is a members-only Facebook Community, where you can share your experiences, network with other entrepreneurs, and ask your questions to coaches trained directly by James.
The program also gives you a free ticket to the Business By Design Live Event in 2023.
The virtual live event is a 3-day program conducted by James, and it comes packed with live coaching, activities, and useful networking opportunities.
Another bonus we found really useful in the BBD program is the Quick-Start Bonus Bundle, which is designed to help you launch your digital product as quickly as possible.
And it gives you the steps to build your initial email list in 30 days and create an online course over a weekend.
Finally, BBD includes a bonus module called Attraction Module that is designed to help you attract a bigger audience and reach more people.
This isn’t a complete list of BBD bonuses because they also offer some additional bonuses.
How Is Business By Design Different From Other Courses?
While there are many things to like about the BBD course, a few elements make it truly unique in this space. Here’s a list of things that make the program stand out:
1. Takes a 360-Degree Approach to Its Content
Most courses in this niche focus mainly on the tactical aspects of building an online business, like building an email list, launching a webinar funnel, etc.
However, the BBD program goes above and beyond and takes a 360-degree approach to its content.
It also covers the fundamentals of building an online business, like developing the right mindset for success, crafting the right offer and sales messaging, building a team, and automating processes.
These aspects of building a business are hardly covered in competitor courses, and we have often seen entrepreneurs struggle with the fundamentals.
Moreover, the course content is not limited to any one type of marketing approach or a specific launch strategy.
2. Packed With Action Plans and Resources
The Business By Design course covers launch plans, execution guides, and templates for all sorts of marketing strategies and digital products.
The bonus sections are packed with actionable resources, and they give you step-by-step plans for specific goals, like conducting a webinar launch, building an email list, getting coaching clients, etc.
You also get ready-made templates for specific things like crafting an email, creating a webinar, and processes for all kinds of launch tasks.
Moreover, all the core modules come with workbooks and step-by-step processes, making it easier for you to implement and retain your learnings.
3. Best-In-Class Student Support
As we discussed earlier, the private Facebook Group in the BBD program allows you to interact with coaches trained by James.
So, if you get stuck somewhere in your launch process or need post-launch feedback, you can get advice from experienced coaches directly.
Moreover, you get access to live coaching calls from James, where you can take his feedback on your queries and challenges.
4. Proven Record of Success
Another thing that stands out about the course is its stellar record of delivering success for students. To date, nearly 5,000 digital creators have built their businesses with the help of the BBD program.
Plus, the course comes from James Wedmore, who is one of the most successful names in this space, and you can rely on his experience of having built a multi-seven-figure business.
Who Is James Wedmore’s Business By Design For?
While Business By Design by James Wedmore is one of the most comprehensive courses in this niche and works for a wide variety of digital products, it won’t be right for every creator.
So, let’s assess if Business By Design is right for you.
Business By Design Program Is Right for You If:
You already have an engaged audience
If you already have an engaged audience through a blog, Youtube channel, or podcast, and if you are confident that your audience will be willing to pay for your premium content or coaching sessions, Business By Design can be a great investment for you.
For example, Rick Mulready, who runs The Art of Paid Traffic podcast, used James Wedmore’s teachings to build a 7-figure online course business.
You know how to drive website traffic
Even if you don’t have a ready audience but have experience generating traffic through social media channels like Facebook ads, the BBD program can be useful.
Since you already have one piece of the puzzle figured out, investing in building a premium online course/membership site can be a good idea.
You have a digital product, but you are struggling to sell it
If you already have a premium online course/membership site but struggle to generate enough sales, Business By Design is worth considering.
The course can help you tweak your product, offering, and sales processes, among other things, to help you achieve success when you relaunch your product.
You are looking to scale your online business
If you have a digital product that is doing well and looking to take things to the next level, the Business By Design course can help you get new insights and strategies for scaling your business.
For instance, Britt Seva, who helps hairstylists grow their business with her courses, had two $20K launches before joining the BBD program. She took the program intending to scale her business and made $164K with her next launch, just one month later.
Plus, if you run an online coaching business, the BBD program can help you learn how to diversify your business by building more scalable products.
You want to make a serious investment in building your business
Finally, even if you are new to the world of digital products but you are willing to make a serious investment in building your business, the course is certainly worth considering.
For instance, Tiffany Lee Bymaster didn’t have a digital product when she joined the Business By Design program, but she could still use the tactics she learned in the course to create a multi-six-figure group coaching business.
On the Other Hand, Business By Design Isn’t Right for You If:
You are still testing the waters
If you are not fully committed to launching a digital product or operating with a low budget, joining a premium course like Business By Design won’t make sense.
And you’d be much better off learning from free resources on the internet or buying a relatively inexpensive course to get an initial idea about the space.
You are struggling to build an audience
If you are struggling to generate traffic and build an audience, you may want to get that piece of the puzzle right before investing in the BBD program.
There are many dedicated courses around generating traffic through Facebook ads, SEO, or Youtube, and they might be a better investment for you.
You are selling low-priced digital products
If you are selling (or plan to sell) low-priced courses on a marketplace or even on your platform, the BBD program may not be the best investment for you.
There can be exceptions to this. For example, if you have a large audience and are confident that you can sell your online courses at scale, you may still want to consider the program.
You already have a successful online business
If you are already running a six-figure online business and have cracked all the important processes and systems for your business, you are much less likely to need a course like Business By Design.
Frequently Asked Questions
Business By Design Review Conclusion
Business By Design is one of the most comprehensive courses in this space. The core philosophy behind the course is that you can meticulously design every part of your business and rely on proven systems.
The program takes you through the steps of launching a digital product and shows you how to build and scale a real online business. And it is packed with marketing strategies, implementable plans, and guidance so that you don’t have to rely on guesswork at any stage.
So, if you have knowledge or expertise that you want to monetize through a digital product or need help to take your online business to the next level, the Business By Design program can be an excellent asset.
We hope you enjoyed reading this in-depth review of James Wedmore’s Business By Design and that it helped you make a decision on whether the program is right for you or not.
If you have any questions regarding the program, please post them in the comments below.
