Is It Worth It To Buy Online Courses in Ebook Bundle Sales?

I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post. Your price remains exactly the same. I share products and services that I think are amazing, you pay the same price and I get paid? That’s a no-brainer for both of us, right?  

You’ve seen the ads floating around the inter webs trying to get you to buy online courses. Buy this ebook bundle sale! Buy online courses! Short time only! Incredible resources!

You look, think “That’s interesting, but holy cow, that’s an overwhelming amount of information.” Then you shut down that browser window as fast as you can to avoid the madness.

I’m a huge fan of bundle sales and have found some of my favorite personal and business resources through bundles. Since I like to read and devour information (see StrengthsFinder: Input), I especially love having all the information I could ever want about any given topic readily at hand.

As we talk about making it easier to get life and business done, buying a bundle of resources – literally a whole grouping of books, online courses and bonuses – might seem like the opposite of making life easier.

And it can be.

If you’ve ever bought a bundle, you’re likely to have sat there at least once, dumbfounded, staring at a list of resources, not having the faintest clue where to start.

Why buy online courses or an ebook bundle?

By definition, an ebook bundle sale is a chance to buy a whole group of books, courses, worksheets and bonuses together at a massive discount compared to list price for all the resources. Typically it’s also a limited duration. You’ll see these marketed as “$5,000 worth of resources at 97% off!” or “99% off this amazing bundle go 67 resources!“

Who has time for 67 resources?! You may be tempted to write off the idea entirely as too much to even know where to start. Don’t. You may just miss out on some incredible, life-changing information.

What you need is a framework to remove the overwhelm so that you can use and apply the right resources that you got for a steal.

How to take the overwhelm out of ebook bundles and online courses

Lucky you, the Strategy Sarah framework works perfectly to take the overwhelm out of a bundle sale.

• Make a Plan
• Get Organized
• Take Action

Step 1: Make a plan: Decide whether or not a given ebook bundle is worth your time.

If you’re a nerd like me (and you should be in this instance), you’ll do the math and determine how great of a deal a particular bundle really is.

For me, the threshold for a deal is any bundle that has one or more resources I would pay full price for that cost more than the total value of the deal.

For example, Bundle A costs $47 and has a course I’ve been eyeing that regularly costs $67. Sold.

Bundle B might cost $27, but I’m only truly interested in one resource that costs $15. Pass.

Action Step: When you come across a relevant bundle that’s a deal while it’s on sale, buy it.

Bonus budget tip: I keep a stash of cash (not literal cash, but the electronic version that I track in my budget tool, YNAB) at hand for those hot deals that come up unexpectedly but are too good to miss out on. FOMO, anyone?

Bonus bonus tip: FOMO is NOT a reason to buy a bundle. I repeat. Do not buy anything, bundle or not, simply because of FOMO. You’ll regret it. So will your YNAB account. #affiliate

Step 2: Get organized.

You’ve already scanned the list of resources in enough depth to determine if there are resources that make the bundle a good deal. Now it’s time to dive deeper.

Print the list of resources (or copy into your favorite tool like Evernote or Google Docs).

Quickly scan the list of resources and highlight all resources that look potentially interesting. You likely mentally did this while you were making your purchase decision, but this time make it concrete.

This step should take less than 5 minutes. Don’t spend a lot of time, but scan the titles and descriptions and see what fits. For some bundles, not as many of the resources are immediately applicable and this first step provides an easy list to prioritize. For others, most of the resources are appealing and this may feel like it didn’t narrow down much.

Side note: One of the many reasons I love and am an affiliate with Ultimate Bundles is their focus on making bundles accessible in a non-daunting way. Every bundle comes with a Getting Started guide that lists out all of the resources by type (book, course, printable, etc) and by level (beginner, intermediate advanced). This makes it so much easier to review and prioritize!

Rank order your highlighted resources. Review your list of highlighted resources. If you have five or fewer, rank order them in order of importance and move on to step 3, Take Action.

If there are more than five, review the entire list again and ask yourself, “Will this make an immediate positive benefit on my life?” Place a 1 next to those resources.
Next, ask “Will this make a positive benefit in my life in the next 6 months?” Place a 2 next to those resources.”

Place a 3 next to all remaining highlighted resources.

Review your list of items marked with a “1” and rank order them in order of impact. That’s where you start!

Action Step: Prioritize resources you’re going to use and get ready to get started!

Step 3: Take Action

Download the bundle.

Download the individual resources you listed in step 2 as once you will use.

Many ebook bundle sales have an easy “Download All” button. If you’re interested in more than 3-4 of the resources in a bundle, this is usually faster than downloading individually. However, I highly recommend that you immediately delete any resources that didn’t make your prioritized list. You don’t need more reasons to be distracted! Digital clutter is just as real as physical clutter.

You have a clear plan of what resources you’re going to use, and they’re safely downloaded and filed on your computer. Yay!

Review your calendar and block off time specifically to work through these tools. 

Failure to plan is planning to fail. Cliche, but true. Identify specific time to work through bundle resources, clear your calendar to make it happen, and don’t let amazing resources gather dust.

Action Step: When the scheduled work time pops up on your calendar, you have a clear plan of action and are ready to focus on taking the next step forward!