How to Build an eLearning business That Creates Global Impact

Why Global Impact Matters in eLearning

When I first stepped into the eLearning world, I believed that online education had the potential to transform lives. What I did not realize at the time was how expansive that potential truly was. Over the years, I have seen learning programs save lives, create new career opportunities, unlock confidence in people who had been overlooked, and empower entire industries to raise their standards. The question that eventually shaped my work was simple but powerful. What would it look like to build an eLearning business that does more than generate revenue? What if it could serve millions and leave a lasting mark on the world?

This question led me to develop a three-step process that now guides my work with mission-driven organizations, entrepreneurs, and enterprise leaders who want their learning programs to matter on a global scale. Building an eLearning business that creates global impact is both strategic and deeply human. It requires vision, discipline, and a willingness to rethink how business is done. In this post (and in the YouTube video linked here and podcast episode linked here), I share what I have learned, how my approach has evolved, and the framework that continues to help leaders scale their influence and transform lives around the world.

Step 1: The Power of Setting an Impossible Goal

The first step in creating global impact is surprisingly counterintuitive. You must begin with a goal that feels impossible. When a goal feels attainable with small tweaks or incremental improvements, it does not challenge your thinking. It does not push you to innovate. It does not require you to evolve. Impossible goals, however, force transformation. They reshape how you think, how you plan, and how you allocate your time and resources.

I learned this through my work with my VIP coaching client Mario in Australia. When he first launched his Support Over Suicide program, he was serving individuals one person at a time. His mission was noble and heartfelt, but his impact was limited by the structure he was operating in. When we crafted his impossible goal together to help halve the world’s suicide rate within three years everything changed. A goal of that scale demanded a different strategy. It required reaching organizations rather than individual consumers. It required training entire workforces, healthcare systems, and communities. It pushed him to think at the level required to actually change the world.

This experience reinforced something I now teach every client. If your goal does not scare you at least a little, it is not big enough. My own impossible goal at eLearning Partners is to serve 100 million people worldwide by partnering with mission-driven organizations that are already doing meaningful work. Alone, I could never reach 100 million people. But by collaborating with companies like CoStar Group and leaders like Mario and Salusall, I can help accelerate their impact which in turn amplifies mine.

Impossible goals expand the field of possibility. They force you to imagine solutions that do not yet exist and to create systems capable of sustaining exponential growth.

Step 2: Changing Your Mindset to Think on a Global Scale

After setting an impossible goal, the next step is to change the mindset that will carry you toward it consciously. Most people fail to reach transformative goals not because they lack skill but because their thinking remains tied to their current identity. If you operate from who you have been in the past, you limit your ability to become who you need to be in the future.

My thinking around this has been shaped heavily by the work of Dr. Benjamin Hardy. His books, including “10x Is Easier Than 2x,” “Be Your Future Self Now,” and “The Science of Scaling,” illustrate how psychology influences achievement. When you set an impossible goal with a time horizon of three years or less, you give yourself permission to think differently. A short timeline disrupts complacency. It forces creativity. It removes the luxury of waiting.

I teach my clients to compress timelines because long-term goals rarely create meaningful urgency. Most organizations set five year or ten year goals and then operate as if they have unlimited time to figure things out. But when you give yourself three years or less, there is no room for outdated strategies. Your mindset must shift from incremental gains to exponential thinking. You begin to ask different questions. You look for partners instead of doing everything yourself. You evaluate systems with a sense of clarity you did not have before.

Mindset is the bridge between your impossible goal and the strategies that will bring it to life. Without a mindset shift, even the most ambitious vision remains trapped on paper.

Step 3: Implementing the ASAP Method to Scale with Speed and Clarity

Once your impossible goal and mindset are aligned, you need a system that can help you operationalize global impact. For this, I rely on my ASAP Method, a framework I have spent years refining through hands on work with enterprise organizations. The method stands for Audit, Simplify, Automate, and Profit. Each step builds on the previous one, creating a repeatable process for scaling efficiently and sustainably.

The first step is to audit your business. Before starting eLearning Partners, I worked as an IT auditor for PricewaterhouseCoopers, examining how large organizations used their systems, protected their data, and managed risk. That background taught me how to uncover hidden inefficiencies and missed opportunities. When I audit an eLearning business today, I am looking for where money is being wasted, where processes are bloated, and where opportunities for growth are being overlooked. Most organizations are unaware of how much unnecessary spending is hiding inside their systems especially in their learning technology stack.

Once the audit is complete, we move into simplification. Simplifying a business is not about cutting corners. It is about focusing attention on the small percentage of activities that drive the majority of results. I rely on the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 Rule) and its deeper extension, the 64/4 Rule, which shows that 4 percent of efforts often drive 64 percent of outcomes. When you simplify ruthlessly, you free your team to spend their energy on what truly matters.

After simplifying, automation becomes the next priority. I work with clients to integrate technology and AI to handle repetitive tasks, streamline content creation, and enhance learner experience. Automation is not a replacement for people. It is a way to elevate your best team members so they operate in their zone of genius. When you automate effectively, you reduce the need for excessive hiring and empower your existing team to scale their contributions.

When these three steps are executed well, profit naturally follows. Profit is not simply the financial return that hits your balance sheet. It is the reinvestment potential that fuels global impact. Every dollar saved through efficiency and automation becomes a dollar that can be reinvested into expanding reach, improving content, and strengthening systems.

Scaling for Global Impact Through Profit and Reinvention

Profit in an impact driven eLearning business is not the end. It is the engine. Once you maximize profit, you reinvest it into the initiatives that help you scale globally. This reinvestment mindset is how organizations compound results year after year. It is how companies like CoStar saved multiple six figures annually even after partnering with us. Their cost savings became fuel for expanding their training programs, increasing learner reach, and improving outcomes.

Scaling globally is a cycle, not a destination. You audit again. You simplify again. You automate again. You reinvest profit again. Each round strengthens the foundation for even greater impact. Over time, this creates exponential growth and positions your eLearning business to serve not just hundreds or thousands of learners, but millions.

Final Thoughts: The Future of Global Impact in eLearning

Building an eLearning business that creates global impact is not a linear process. It is an ongoing commitment to vision, mindset, and disciplined execution. It requires setting goals that stretch your imagination, cultivating a mindset that supports exponential growth, and implementing systems that allow you to scale effectively and sustainably.

The world needs more mission driven organizations that use learning to save lives, create opportunities, and spread hope. If you are committed to being one of them, then you are already on the right path. Your mission is needed. Your work matters. And with the right frameworks in place, your impact can reach farther than you ever imagined.

If you want support implementing this process, I invite you to explore the Enterprise Learning Accelerator™ and my free eLearning Platform Finder. Together, we can build something that truly changes the world.