[00:00:00.000] - Speaker 2

Welcome to the Grit Reapers, the podcast for aspiring online entrepreneurs that cuts through all the crap in the online business world and dishes out the raw and real truth about what it really takes to have a successful online business. No sugar coating, no get-rich-quick schemes, just honest advice with a healthy dose of humor and hope.

 

[00:00:23.950] - Speaker 1

We're your hosts, Gail and Candice, two online entrepreneurs who've been there done that and lived to tell the tale. So if you're looking for straight talk, practical tips, and the occasional reality check, to get your online business moving, you're in the right place. Let's get down to business.

 

[00:00:46.860] - Speaker 2

Welcome to this week's episode. Welcome back to all our listeners. We've got such an exciting one plan for today because Gail recently launched her program. Some of you may know, some of you may not. We are going to be doing a bit of a launch debrief. Gail is going to be talking us through the launch, what worked, what didn't, was it a success, was it a flop, what did she learn? It's really helpful to hear from someone who, guys, honestly is going to tell you the truth, isn't going to make it sound so amazing, but it was really a disaster. She's going to really give us the absolute raw honest truth about how it went for her. Gaily, I'm going to just hand over to you, and I think my opening question, and then you'll run with it, is just looking back now, now that you're out of it, would you say that the launch was a success in your eyes or a flop, or are there elements of both?

 

[00:01:52.140] - Speaker 1

Okay, thanks so much, Cans. Wow, that is actually such It's been an amazing question because I think if you had asked me that question on the 16th of July at 08:00 PM, South African time, when I had just finished the first webinar, I would have told you that it was a complete flop. Maybe I should just go back even a little bit, though.

 

[00:02:24.120] - Speaker 2

Okay, give us context.

 

[00:02:25.450] - Speaker 1

To where we start. I I did to launch. I've actually done this program three times already, but they were really just soft launches. What I mean by soft launches, I literally just put it out to my friends or my connections. I mean, they are friends, definitely, but the people in my world, so people that I'm in programs with, people that I've got to know over the time that I've been in the online world. Really, really hot leads, I would say, because they know me and everything. I've done it three times. This time I decided to do what I would call a real launch, although it's quite funny because even When I'm saying that I decided to do a real launch, I don't think I had any idea of what a real launch really entails. I know that sounds so weird because in theory, Sorry, I know exactly what it entails, but the actual doing of it, like we don't, it's difficult to explain. Anyway, let me carry on and you'll see in the context. I had decided to do this, and it just so happened that there was another big program who were doing their pre-launch, and there's a pre-launch to it where there's a three-day training, and I hopped into that training.

 

[00:03:55.560] - Speaker 1

I've done it before. I've actually bought the program. I've done it before, but I decided to do it again just because I wanted to get this program of mine, Your Brand genius, up and going. One thing stood out to me in that launch, in his launch. He Basically said, So many of you think you are on the field playing. I think he said football, but actually you're on the sidelines. You're running up and down the sidelines, you're creating stuff, But you're not actually on the field playing. I've heard that before, and I was like, That is so true. I've only ever... Very little promotion to my people, where I feel safe, where I feel comfortable. I was like, You know what? I'm not sitting on the sidelines any longer. I'm going to do this. Then I just happened upon a social media account as well, where there was a creator who was doing a series on how she was busy launching her program. She did a week's debrief. In that first week, She was like, I've done this. I've done this. We've got this many people in. We've got this funnel going and this. I suddenly was like, She's done all of that in a week?

 

[00:05:25.520] - Speaker 1

Suddenly, it really brought that I had to do stuff. Anyway, I got talking with her, and she just said to me, because this was a completely organic launch, she runs Facebook ads. And she said to me, You need to get 100 people through your funnel so that you can start looking at your numbers. That was the first time I thought to myself, You know what? I'm actually going to do this properly. It was the first time. I'd heard it so many times, but it It was the first time that somebody had said, A hundred people through your funnel. I was like, Okay, that is what I'm going to do. Now, before that, when I decided I was going to launch, I had written down, I want 15 people. That's what I had decided, 15 people in this launch. I'm also being a program- Sorry, Gail.

 

[00:06:20.300] - Speaker 2

So just to interrupt you, do you mean you chose that number, and in your head, if you could get that number, then this was going to be a success? Or how did you... Yes. Right? Is that what you mean? Okay.

 

[00:06:33.230] - Speaker 1

So I basically decided to take... So I only ever take 15 into my course, into this particular program because it's very hands-on. So I wanted the maximum. I was like, that's it. And I can do it. In my head, I've done people before and why couldn't I do it? And everybody says, write it down. So I had written down, I want 15 people from this launch. You hear and I've been through programs that say, okay, 10 % of people show up, so you need X. But in it, none of that...

 

[00:07:11.340] - Speaker 2

I don't know.

 

[00:07:13.230] - Speaker 1

It wasn't at the forefront of my mind. But then, as I said, when I met this other creator on socials, I thought to myself, you know what? That's a good goal to go for. So let me see if I can get 100 people in. And so from there- In your funnel, not into your course, right?

 

[00:07:31.120] - Speaker 2

In your funnel.

 

[00:07:31.610] - Speaker 1

No, not into my course. Into my funnel, yes. Into my funnel, register for my launch process so that I could then have a look. I've never looked at numbers before. I knew that I didn't think that I had a big enough list to have 100 people register. Then I had to look and see what else I could do to get those 100 people through. I had thought about creating an affiliate program. I spoke to a couple of people. I had been speaking to a couple of people, and they were all keen. So that's what I did. That was the first step that I did. I created an affiliate program, and I had 10 amazing ladies join my affiliate program and agree to promote the master class for me. So that was a big bonus because was when I look at the numbers, the affiliates brought in... Let me just have a look. See, 67 of the 145 people we ended up with. That's big. I wouldn't have made the 100 people without the affiliates. As it turned out, unfortunately for the affiliates, none of the people who actually bought the program came from an affiliate.

 

[00:08:56.480] - Speaker 1

But it means that I added those people to my list as well, people who were interested. That was great. I made a very simple affiliate program. I kept them up to date in the emails, and I did create some swip copy because I wanted them to understand the value of what I was doing. I created some swip copy. I think I just did two emails that they could send out, and I made some graphics. Very, very basic for this first one because I didn't actually know how it would go. That's the first thing that worked really well. I really am very appreciative of my affiliates. The next thing I did as well is I wrote down all the Facebook groups that I know that I'm allowed to put links into. There were some Facebook groups that I was in that have a Saturday, you can put what you... They'll have specific threads. I went through those and I found out where I could put my registration link. That also worked pretty well because I think there were about six or seven or even eight Facebook groups that I was able to advertise the launch process in, which also, I think, helped a lot to get those 145 people.

 

[00:10:16.090] - Speaker 1

Then I did a promo series on my emails to everybody. One thing that I have found that I really think people should think about doing more is at the top of all of my emails, I had a little section where people could opt out of the promotional emails, but stay on your list. And I definitely think that helps in terms of people not just unsubscribing to your whole list.. I will be doing that with everything going forward. And I'm on your list, obviously.

 

[00:10:55.910] - Speaker 2

So I was seeing the emails, and I really liked that it was actually the first thing. It was actually the first thing that it wasn't right at the bottom of the email. Hey, if you want to stay on my list. I thought that was really clever because immediately... Well, let me say that the risk of putting something like that at the end of an email is people see it's something promotional. They don't even get to the end. They're just scrolling to find and subscribe. I really like the first thing that came up, and I like it. You had it in a little banner. I thought that was really, really clever. In fact, I was like, I'm going to also do that when I launch.

 

[00:11:38.000] - Speaker 1

I think to me, when I see somebody doing that, to me, it's a sign of consideration. To them so they can opt out before they have to read everything. Especially now with how the email providers have got, you can unsubscribe without even opening an email now. We We've got to be very conscious of our people. That worked really well. Then onto the actual launch. I did a webinar. Well, actually, I called it an AI Impact Training. It's quite funny because I'm going to talk about that as well. In my head, I had it that it was going to be a webinar, but actually, it ended up being almost like a master class. That's something that I learned only through doing that My initial webinar, well, AI training, actually wasn't the correct format as a launch process. But let me carry on and I'll tell you what happened further down. I had a 90-minute launch process, which was called How to Grow a Hell Yes Audience. In the end, we got 145 people registered, and everything was going well. The My master class was on Tuesday the 16th, and then my software platform got put onto a spam block list, one of the biggest spam block lists in the whole world, on On the Saturday, I think it happened.

 

[00:13:17.250] - Speaker 1

Then nobody received, well, I say nobody, 30% of my email list, they said 30%, I think it was higher, received nothing. But the problem is, I think many The emails that were getting through ended up in spam. From the Saturday, all the reminder emails telling them about the fast acting bonus, all of that, nobody got it. Anyway, I didn't realize this had happened until I started seeing it in the group. Anyway, you know what? You're just going to go ahead. I was very happy because 35 people joined live. So that in itself is a 25 % conversion rate. And when you consider that many people didn't get the reminders or whatever, I had put a Add to calendar button in all of the correspondence, in the thank you page, and I had put the Zoom link in pretty much all the emails coming up to the thing. I saw that. People say, Don't do it, but I'm glad that I did it because I think there were people who would have got maybe one email, had the Zoom link, maybe had added it to calendar, so got the reminder there. We got 25% in. Then from that first webinar, two people purchased.

 

[00:14:55.090] - Speaker 1

That was a 5.7% conversion rate. Which is not bad at all, considering I think that they say that industry standards are between 1 and 2% on webinar.

 

[00:15:11.270] - Speaker 2

Correct.

 

[00:15:11.690] - Speaker 1

But I also feel like we've got 35 people there, so we've got 35 chances. That's what happened there. When I'd finished that, it was quite a thing because Cans, you were on the call with me and you told me that 26 people stayed right through up until the pitch. I kept people on the webinar quite well. But I realized with your help and with a few other people's help that actually the webinar I had created was this huge training and gave lots and lots of value. I didn't really show properly how it It worked well with the paid program. I think that there was a big disconnect between what I taught people and what I pitched. I'd never done a pitch before, so I also felt like I was really out of my depth. Anyway, so that was the end of that. One person bought straight away, which I should have been really happy with, but I was really bummed because only one person bought, and I wanted 15. I How on earth am I going to get 15? Anyway, went to bed, hoping to wake up to some more notifications, and there weren't any.

 

[00:16:39.170] - Speaker 1

Then seeing all the issues with the email had happened whatever. And then I was just really bummed. But you know what? It's quite funny because I knew in my heart that the webinar didn't do the job it was supposed to do, but I could blame the emails. I could blame the tech glitches. I could be like, oh, nobody got my emails. Anyway, so, Cans, you and I always laugh when we talk about the five stages of grief. I think there are stages of launch. I want you to find that. Yeah, phases that we go through. So I went into quite a deep, like disconeurcy today. And I just thought, you know what? I'm just going to give myself grace. I didn't feel like working, so I didn't. I think I did do my... I had sent the replay email straight away. But because of the email issues, nobody was even getting the replays. So then what I did was I thought, You know what? I'm just actually going to go into all the groups where I had posted and people had been engaging with me and say, Guys, listen, there was a glitch. Nobody got their email reminders.

 

[00:17:58.510] - Speaker 1

Here is the link to the replay. Replay page. So I popped that into all of my groups, and then I got people asking, Oh, I didn't get the link. I didn't get the replay. So I went in and I engaged with people in there. And then I thought, You know what? I am going to redo this webinar. It did take me two days to come to that. I was like, I could actually just call into a ball and be like, It didn't work. I'm never doing that again. Our listeners may remember I remember if you've listened to the other podcast episodes, I did a launch four years ago, and I never did it again. I swore I was never doing it again. I was like, I could have just called into a ball. And then I was like, you know what? I'm not going to. I need to see this through. I had 145 people, and I think, Kanzit, it was actually you who said to me, Gail, 145 people registered because they were interested in what you said in your topic, in They feel like they need it. Actually, when you look at that, yes, we didn't convert on the webinar, but look, you've got these opportunities.

 

[00:19:10.420] - Speaker 1

I thought, you know what? I'm going to redo it. I literally just went in, just duplicated the event quickly and sent it out again, sent out to my whole list again, and basically just said, once... I actually think I waited a day while the email deliverability problem sorted itself out. Then I was like, Guys, this is what's happened, and I'm redoing it. I sent it to all the people who had registered as well as my whole list. We got another 10 people registered for the new one, but then I kept on sending the emails to everybody. Anyway, in between that time, I also met a fantastic lady, Janine, who was for her own business, was offering webinar audits to bring in leads to her own business. I thought to myself. At the time, I was still in my crest phase. I was like, Can't even bother. And I thought, No, you know what? I'm going to. So I sent her the link to my webinar on the Friday and on the Monday we met, and She spent an hour and a half with me and she said to me, When I watched this, when I watched this, I thought to myself, this is amazing training.

 

[00:20:24.890] - Speaker 1

She actually said to me, I'm going to write you a testimonial because I never knew any of this stuff. She's like, But I honestly expected that at the end of this training, you were going to pitch for a six-month program. She said, When it was three days, I was like, What? That was way too much stuff for three days. She pulled everything out and I took everything to heart, and redid the whole webinar for the one, and that was on Wednesday, the 24th. Six people showed up, and one person bought off the webinar, but she actually said to me, I understood straight away that there are five areas. We spoke about one area, and I knew I needed the other five areas. I had got that message across much better. That was a 16% conversion on the second webinar. I've ended up with three amazing ladies in my program. Yeah, I learned a whole lot. While I didn't get my 15, and I thought the tech issues were the end of the world, it's actually been a very successful launch for me. Because I think if the tech issues hadn't have happened, I would not ever be launching again.

 

[00:21:52.930] - Speaker 1

The fact that I could, and I was actually surprised once I had made that decision to do it again, I I wasn't even nervous to do it the second time. The pitch was so much easier. I did a fun pitch. I didn't do the pitches I'd seen. The whole webinar was more fun. I didn't hide behind the share screen. I was right in front of the share screen. I spoke to my people. We asked questions. We had engagement, and it really was just really much better. I think the biggest The first thing that I've taken away from all of this is that you need to know your numbers. I've gone and I've looked at replays at the number of people who watched right through the pitch. I couldn't see who they were, but I could see the area they were coming in from. I realized that there are a lot of Australian, New Zealand people, and the times that I did all of this didn't suit them. I've realized that my work up to the webinar is It's pretty on point, but I have no follow-up system. I have no... Obviously, I can send emails, but once I've done the webinar, I've got no follow-up system.

 

[00:23:11.410] - Speaker 1

The things that I'm going to add things in there. I just realized that this is the first part of validating this offer. I've sent out an exit survey, so why people didn't buy. I'm getting people who are going through that and telling me, and it's not actually reasons why. So I've already just because of some of that feedback for the next one, I'm going to make it the actual program slightly different. So, yeah, it's been a roller coaster, but I'm glad I did it. And you know what? I can't actually wait to do it again, which I didn't think I would ever be saying that. Now I'm motivated. Now I'm like, I'm going Can we get this right organically, and then I'm going to try Facebook ads or paid ads or something like that.

 

[00:24:06.890] - Speaker 2

Amazing. While you were telling us the whole story, I was jotting down some things that I thought would be interesting that we could just Can I take out a little more. Firstly, the tech stuff. What bear timing. I mean, you and our listeners know we're friends. We chat almost daily. We're very connected. I was with you through this whole process. It was really bad timing. It was just really bad timing. I think this is just something people have to know that you can plan a launch. You can have everything in place and shit happens, life happens. You might get, I don't know, something happens in your personal life, literally the morning of your master or tech goes down or life happens. Shit happens. It's unexpected. We don't plan for it. I really love that you were so honest about the default, our default when we're feeling defeated and we over this and like, Fuck this, I can't do, it's to blame. It's to look for something to blame it on. And that your default was... It was so easy. It was much easier to go to, Oh, well, if it wasn't for the emails, this would have worked.

 

[00:25:37.260] - Speaker 2

So okay, our default or you noticed it, and I think you caught that. That's a lot of self-awareness when you are able to actually catch yourself doing something. Because you caught it, you had a conversation with yourself, which was like, yeah, I mean, it definitely played a role. We're not saying it didn't, but maybe there's actually other stuff.

 

[00:26:01.000] - Speaker 1

Yeah, exactly. You know what, Cans? I think what it is as well is you're actually a bit embarrassed. You're embarrassed that it was, well, in your mind, you didn't do what you had hoped. You didn't perform as well as you expected. You know that people are going to be asking you because you've been telling people about it. It's very easy to blame something rather than have to face the thing. And I have another friend who basically was like, it's called declining suckage. She says, You suck the first time, and then the next time you do it, you suck a little bit less and then you suck a little bit less. So, yeah, I had to admit that I don't think I sucked in what I taught people, but I sucked in the whole the whole thing.

 

[00:26:59.100] - Speaker 2

You and I had a good, good laugh about this because when we were chatting about this, I was saying to you that I could so relate because in my previous life, I was a clinical therapist. I had a private practice, and my area of specialty was addictions and addictive disorders. I was invited to go on a radio show to talk about addictions. I mean, it is so cringe. Also, I'm a bit embarrassed to even admit it, but I basically sounded like I was reading from a textbook. People were calling in. Their listeners were calling in with questions. I was on answering. Like I was the DSM 4, which is like a diagnostic book. There was no like, Oh, yes, I hear you. And then giving an answer that would just be so natural and more like real life. It was stiff, it was academic. It was not relatable. We were having a really good laugh at that because you had had that experience when your webinar was very professional.

 

[00:28:12.720] - Speaker 1

You were speaking caribates of information.

 

[00:28:16.430] - Speaker 2

It was all very formal. I even noticed such a subtle, subtle thing. On your first webinar, you were wearing a white shirt, and I was like, Hell, I never see Gail like that. I always see Gail like how she looks now. She's in I'm going to switch it. And your second webinar, you actually showed up how I know you. Your clothes were even different. It was so much more natural. It was like a conversation you were having. But the point is, like your friend says, we are going to suck balls the first time we do it. Oh my God, it's because you've never done it before. So you do what you know. And then if you do it again, it becomes a little more natural. And if you do it again, it's going to become a little more natural, and again, and again, and again, and again. But so many of us, and that was my other point, is you and I laugh about the fact that we had launched PTSD. We did it the first time. It was a horrific It's a horrific experience, horrific. It's such a defeating, deflating... Even though everyone's talking about conversion rates, this is normal, you don't Can't hear that because you've randomly signed some goal without thinking, is that actually realistic, given when it is?

 

[00:29:39.030] - Speaker 2

No, we don't think about that. We just think, I'm going to set my The big goal, and that's what I'm going to find. Oh, my God, I only need 15 people. I only need 15 people. You always hear I say the words I only, and I'm just like, Just get those out of your vocabulary. They don't belong in this business, but it can be so traumatic that you don't want to do it again. So you don't practice. You don't practice and refine and tweak. You do it once, you don't get what you want. You have lots of feelings like many of us, those really hard ones to sit with. And because that doesn't feel good, and we think we failed and we embarrassed, we don't do it again. And so you can't get better. I love that you just dived back in. I wrote here something just to highlight for people, which is why Gail and I started this podcast. It is called The Grit Reapers. I said this to Gail on a Zoom call when we were just chatting and I said to her, Gail, you just blow my mind. You are the truest example of what an entrepreneur is.

 

[00:30:53.660] - Speaker 2

You had this experience. It wasn't great. You took your two days, you wallowed, invented, and felt sorry for yourself. And that's important. We have to do that. But then it's like your entrepreneurial brain just switched back into gear and you were like, Right, what am I going to do about this? How am I going to learn from it? What am I going to change? And I'm going again. That is great because that's hard. It's much easier to blame the tech, blame the people, but then I don't want what I have, and then not do it again. You always blow me away with that, Gayly. In terms of your conversion rate, Gail, I mean, so number one, you had chatted with that creative and then you thought, okay, 100 people. You blew that out the freaking water. You got 145 registrations. Did you say 145?

 

[00:31:47.510] - Speaker 1

Yeah, 145.

 

[00:31:48.080] - Speaker 2

You got 145 registration. So you blew that goal out the damn water. Then your conversion rate from registration to show up live was, again, I said to you after that, I was like, Gail, can you hear what I'm saying to you? Like the industry standard for a show, like live show up rates, I don't know. What do they say? Two to three % of how many people have registered? Or maybe I've got that industry standard wrong. I stand to be correct, but what I do know- I think about 10. 10 %. Okay. So what I do know is you had a 25 % conversion rate. That is unheard of. It's like people do not have that. So you blew that out the water. And then when you and I were chatting post that first webinar, what we were saying is actually, when you can just take a bit of the emotion out of it, which thankfully it was past those two days, so you were not so highly charged. When we looked back, we were like, Oh, my God. Chilly, you had tremendous traction. You had so many wins where we could start to see, Oh, Holy Moses, this is working.

 

[00:33:16.610] - Speaker 2

This is working. You're gaining traction. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But everything in the funnel worked, except when it came to the sales, which actually showed where the hole, where was the breakdown? So if everything's working and then you notice this is where it started going downhill, okay, that is point in. That's telling me something. Oh, maybe it was the format, maybe it was the content, maybe it was the pitch. It's got something to do with the webinar. And then you put your attention on the webinar. So knowing your numbers helped you identify where the breakdown was. Then the fact that you've got that grit, you've got that, I'm not giving up, I'm going again, allowed you then to start working on that like a little We keep it.

 

[00:34:15.360] - Speaker 1

Absolutely. Then after both the webinars, because after the second webinar, I stopped the promotional period because I I made another event, so I didn't do. After the second webinar, I did the post-event promotion, and I realized that we spent so much time. I was actually thinking about this is going to be some... I'm going to be creating some content around this. Everybody tells you it's in the doing, but you have to get through your to-do list in order to do the doing. We spend so much time getting up to the webinar, registration that we then run out of steam. And that's exactly what happened to me by then. So I wanted to... I had thought, I must go live in my Facebook groups and I must carry on. And people who click because inside of Kajabi, you can see people who clicking links. I must send them an email to say, I see you were interested. Would you like to book a 15 minutes talk with me? There's many follow-ups that I could have done, which I didn't. That was on the Wednesday. I sent an email the Thursday, the Friday. Didn't do anything Saturday and Sunday, sent the email again on Monday, and then two on Tuesday, and none of those converted.

 

[00:35:47.210] - Speaker 1

Everybody pretty much converted off of the webinars. But when I look at the replay views, people were interested. When I look at how many people clicked through to the sales pages, people were interested, which means that that is where things were falling off. Maybe I didn't explain enough in the webinar. Unfortunately, I can't see with the replays who was watching the replays. I can't see if there were people who came to the webinars because I actually need to work out how to find out who actually attended live. But it gives you so much information. For the next launch, I've got the whole pre-thing pretty much sorted out now. Now I'm going to focus on now I can spend my to-do list on the post thing, the follow-up, putting those kinds of things in place.

 

[00:36:44.150] - Speaker 2

Yeah, 100 I think. Again, I can share with you guys just some stories from when I was a therapist. It actually applies here, working with addictions. Often people would come to their sessions, sit down and say, I relapsed. I don't know how it happened. The truth is, a relapse... People used to think a relapse is that I've actually picked up the drink and I had the sip. That's the relapse. Or I used a drug again and it was in the using of the drug. They see the event, the thing they did as the relapse. The education and the work with them was to see like, no, the relapse starts long before you picked up. The picking up is the final bit of the process. It always makes me think launches are exactly the same. People think a launch is their challenge. Their challenge that then goes into the paid offer. They think the launch is doors open. Yeah, I'm launching. I've opened my doors. I'm in launch, right? And I'm like, No, the launch starts.

 

[00:38:12.140] - Speaker 1

That's not the launch.

 

[00:38:13.300] - Speaker 2

The launch starts so long before you ever do that stuff. Okay. And what you're saying is, and in fact, the doors open process where your car is open for however many days When the doors are closed, the launch is not over. When you start to see a launch process as, I'm going to stop thinking about a launch as the event and see it as this timeline that's broken into some phases and that actually after the event, there's a phase that comes after the event and factoring that in. It requires a lot of planning and being organized and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I really like that you said that because I think that, too. I think the event is not the launch. And that brings me to my final thing that I thought we could also share with people is we've chatted a lot about the event today, like Gail's launch. She did a master class. She did the region. We spoke about opt-ins and conversion rates and whatnot. But, Gaili, I mean, your launch started 90 days before your master class. Gail and I have been working together for four months.

 

[00:39:36.320] - Speaker 2

We've been working. Gail joined My 90 and 90, which is exactly about this. It's about all the groundwork that you've got to lay with your audience so that when you announced the thing that you're doing, you've actually got people who are interested in it. We look at that 90 days as part of your launch process. You had incredible wins from that. You launched a free Facebook group. Maybe you can tell us. Tell us about some of what did you accomplish, not thinking about the launches, the event, but a little bit of luck in that Builder.

 

[00:40:17.450] - Speaker 1

I mean, Cans, you've heard me saying it so many times. That 90-day build-up that you and I did was just so much more. I thought it was going to be like a 90 days of content creation and getting things ready, but it ended up being so much more. You and I decided that my goal for the 90 days was going to be to launch a new Facebook group so that I could start getting people together and warmer leads and working with people. We did that. But it was also to start the process of creating the content. As Karen It says, up to your launch, there's different phases. We started to work on messaging, and I can't actually begin to tell you the difference from when we started just in terms of messaging and how you got me thinking about the people's problems and speaking about them. It's amazing. We did that with the free Facebook group, and then this launch at the end of it was was what we had planned for our '90 and '90. It's literally been going through the phases, getting people into your world, seeing what works and what doesn't work, seeing what is resonating with people.

 

[00:41:45.340] - Speaker 1

Also, very importantly, seeing what actually suits you as a creator. I really loved my Facebook group, and I think that that's where I will now focus. I will focus on growing that, and I love the community side of it. I love it more, although we'll still be doing the socials, Instagram and stuff, but I love it more than Instagram. I thought that Instagram was where I needed to be, but actually It's like a hole. Every time you do it, it's never just done. Every time you do it, you're learning more and more. In fact, I was in a group, one of the groups that allowed me to promote mine, and the owner of this group recently did a debrief of her own launches. I was blown away by her follow-up. She didn't tell us what her follow-up is because I think it's part of her main program. But she was getting the same conversions. One person on her webinar or maybe two people on the webinar would buy, and she would end up with 16 or 17 from her follow-up process in her program. When I read that, then I was like, it made me think.

 

[00:43:02.200] - Speaker 1

I might not have thought in my debrief to look so closely at the follow-up. I would have been just like, Okay, well, I got my three from my webinar. But that just showed me the power of it. You've also got to be open to looking around. I do. I follow a lot of people. I see what people are doing. You've got to also be open to that. I think be careful because Because people are doing all sorts of different things. But those sorts of things, if you pick up those sorts of things and be like, Oh, you know what? Then I was like, Okay, I need to look at this post-process.

 

[00:43:45.450] - Speaker 2

It's called restrained curiosity. That's right.

 

[00:43:49.430] - Speaker 1

You have to practice restrained curiosity.

 

[00:43:53.500] - Speaker 2

In other words, Oh, that's interesting. Not, Oh, let me buy your program. Oh, maybe I should look into that, research it a bit, see what's... Restrain curiosity, if you can see what's part of it.

 

[00:44:09.830] - Speaker 1

So Cans, I actually went and bought a book, just a notepad book. Everything that I like the thought of, I'm writing in that book so that I don't forget it, but I'm staying focused on what I need to do. So I can always come back to that book. So I think we go down rabbit holes because we're like, oh, that's amazing. And you don't want to forget about it, but it takes away from your focus. I've bought myself a book and I'm just writing it. I've got my things that I'm interested in and writing it in my book, and I will always That is a great, great idea, Katie.

 

[00:44:47.600] - Speaker 2

Well,. Sorry. Did you want to say something?

 

[00:44:52.850] - Speaker 1

I'm just saying you have to. That's the other thing that I didn't mention. This is the first time as well that actually had a plan. I had a calendar. When I was going to do stuff by, I had the checklists that I ticked off. I had a VA helping me, so she had a checklist. We had spreadsheets with important links. I feel like I did, not perfectly, but I feel like I did this one a lot.

 

[00:45:24.990] - Speaker 2

It just leveled out. I really think overall, I think it's so important that, well, I know certainly for me, success doesn't hinge on sales. I think for a lot of people, they've linked success with, well, did I make my money. What we can look at here is, well, you did. Great. We know Kimmy Brown always says, Every launch, you either earn something, learn something, and if you're lucky, both. Well, you did earn. And oh my goodness, did you learn?

 

[00:46:02.470] - Speaker 1

I did.

 

[00:46:03.820] - Speaker 2

And that it was actually tremendously successful. Much more engagement on your social content. You launched a Facebook group from zero people to... I mean, I don't know what it is as of today, but when I checked, I don't know. Do you know, Katie, have you looked at your group?

 

[00:46:20.440] - Speaker 1

We're by the 168.

 

[00:46:22.450] - Speaker 2

I mean, 168 people who have requested to join this group, which means in some way they are warmer than us cold. We're doing tons of work to nurture people inside of this so that they really do become your warm and hot leads. 168 people in a group you started from scratch. People are asking questions in your group because obviously I'm in your group. I see it's not even prompted by you. There's engagement coming from your audience. I mean, this is the stuff. Gail and I are not going to sell you sexy if we know it doesn't happen like that. You got to be realistic. I think as the smaller business owners, we have to have a very honest conversation with ourselves. Like, what do you want? Do you want to be an influencer? Do you want to be one of these Oh, my God, all the post-it notes on the wall? And fantastic if you do, right? But then when you start off, you just have to know you're going to be disappointed a lot because it takes time to get there. It's fabulous if that's where you want to be, But don't discredit wins like, Oh, my God, for the first time, people are commenting on my reel, even if it was just two people, or someone DMed me asking me a question.

 

[00:47:42.840] - Speaker 2

People somehow discredit those because it's not big enough. It's not like, Well, it's not the poster. Guys, what we're saying is it's great to have a goal of where you want to go. If you want to be that person, brilliant. But it's not going to start off like that. But don't discredit credit those wins. Gail's pre-launch, I think Gail, you told me many times, that's why I can say it, is you got a lot of clarity around the words you were using, the messaging, positioning of the author. There was all that pre-work. Then you smashed it out the park with your conversion rates and learned where the breakdown in the funnel was, which is where you've now put your attention and made three sales through it.

 

[00:48:34.610] - Speaker 1

Yes, exactly.

 

[00:48:35.410] - Speaker 2

This is going to be a success, Kaylee. Yeah, exactly.

 

[00:48:39.430] - Speaker 1

Even in doing the two trainings, I even got more clarity about the positioning. Because you're working all the time in your program, as I was even doing those trainings, more and more thoughts were coming in my head. As I tested it with at GPT and stuff, the program itself is just getting better and better. From all of this, I've even got another offer that I'm busy creating because I've realized what people are asking and what. It's just clarity. It's just all around.

 

[00:49:23.030] - Speaker 2

Amazing, Gail. Well, you mentioned a couple of things I thought actually would be really useful if people wanted to see visually what you meant. Guys, a link should pop up now. If you're watching this, if you're listening to it, you can find it in the comments or show notes. The link will be somewhere. You can go and find a resources page, Gail and I put together, where, for example, there is a screenshot of what she means in the email where she showed people, right at the beginning, if you want to unsubscribe, what does that look like? We'll show you a picture. There was also the Add to calendar. We'll show you a picture. We'll just link anything that could be useful for you on that page. If you've got any questions about launching, about conversion rate, It's about warmers, I call them launch warmers. I think you call it a launch process, but it's basically the thing you're going to do before you tell people what your offer is. A launch warms people up. If you want to know anything about warmers or Really, guys, Gail and I, we say it all the time, but we really do like talking to people.

 

[00:50:36.420] - Speaker 2

We like helping people and not just for 10 minutes at a time. We really are available and we'd love to hear from you. If you've got a launch story or anything to relate to, let us know.

 

[00:50:49.120] - Speaker 1

I was going to say, if anybody has launched and is feeling despondent about it, you're also welcome to get in touch because I will cry on your shoulder with you, and then we will pick you up and look at the good parts of it and move forward.

 

[00:51:09.770] - Speaker 2

Amazing. Kaylee, I'm really thrilled for you. It might not have been your 15 that you were aiming for, but I think you actually got something better. I think everything you learned is only going to help you refine this. The fact that you just keep going, it's inevitable that eventually all the pieces will fall into place. Well done. Thanks for sharing with us. There you are, guys. Tune in next week to our next episode. In the meantime, you can mail us, DM us, get hold of us if you need us. But we'll catch you guys next time.

 

[00:51:49.410] - Speaker 1

Okay. Bye, everybody.