January 2020 Archives

Business Strategy Create Your Laptop Life Podcast Jan 16, 2020
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Ep. 66 The $90,000 Launch That Almost Wasn’t

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If you listened to my podcast episode, the one right before this where I was talking about the 3 types of launches, one of the things that I have been doing is building this content as a direct result of the one on one coaching that I’m providing inside of Digital Insiders.

So I’m doing this process over and over and over again in different markets, with different personalities and all that kind of stuff.

So Kristin has been in DI since day one, and I just want to tell you a little bit about her journey. I hope to be able to do an interview with her soon. She joined back in 2017, oh my gosh, 2 years ago, and the first year in the mastermind, she’s one of those classic entrepreneurs that has a million ideas, she’s a certified public accountant, so she’s got like tax professional, she’s a university professor, she’s got small biz, she’s got, just all the things. So this first year in the mastermind she was trying to make sense of all of her ideas, and I will admit that I was sometimes a little hard on her, because I was like, “You have too many ideas and you’re spending a lot of ideas that aren’t as fruitful as other ones might be.”

She makes the joke that she couldn’t get me excited about anything, everything that she brought up to me, because I was always finding holes in it. So we built a funnel for one of her websites that she has for accounting, that gets a lot of page views per month, and it didn’t really take off, and there was just a lot of struggle. And the reason I tell you that is because Kristin is an example of someone who did not give up when it wasn’t working right at first. And it’s so hard, I wish I could bottle up how to figure out when something is right. But she had to kind of grope around in the dark a little bit, for almost an entire year trying this funnel out, that funnel out, and nothing really converting it the way she wanted.

So last year sometime, 2018, no 2019 she had the idea for a bookkeeper training school, and I immediately got excited, and she was like, “Oh my God, that is the first time I’ve seen you excited in like a year.” And I was like, “I know.” So I was like, “Yes, Kristin, this is it. I know this is perfect.” So what she did was, she had all of these random audiences from all of these different areas. She had students, even her husband had an audience from a completely different market of like, fantasy world building. Anyway, she scraped together an audience of 100 people because she didn’t have, she didn’t want to do a big thing with ads. And she did a pressure launch for her first time opening bookkeeper training school.

And as suspected the market was right for it, it was dialed in, it was clear, she had the expertise, and she made $8000 in that first launch. And I think the program was at $297 at the time. So that was the market validation that we needed. So we did a pressure launch and she decided she wanted to do another pressure launch. So that latest pressure launch just finished.

This launch she did had a webinar, she ran traffic to get people signed up for the webinar, and wouldn’t you know it, she was floored when she started running ads, and one of my other Digital Insiders Aussie, actually was running her ads for her, and they were getting 79 cents, 80 cents a lead. She was using Funnel Bohemian, I believe, one of our drop designs. And we were working on her headline and her hook, it was actually a group chat with me and Aussie and Kristin just trying to dial it in. And she ended up getting 6000 people to register for her webinar on $5000 of ads spent, which for any of you guys running ads to webinars, know that that is ridiculous.

So that was super exciting, but the nerves and the pressure started to mount because all of my Digital Insiders are required to use all my spreadsheets in trying to anticipate how things are going to perform. And one of the latest spreadsheets I’ve made is actually for Launch Gorgeous, and it’s in anticipating how many humans will see your offer. So one of the things that I teach people is you can go on benchmark conversion rates, you can go on 3%, 4%, 5%, 2% you know, and you can anticipate what your funnel is going to convert at, but it all depends on this one key number, which is how many humans will you get to see your offer?

So I took her list size, her open rates, her click rates, her group numbers, her list numbers, and I plugged them all into a spreadsheet and what we noticed about these leads was that they were incredibly cold. These people were colder than ice. So they were asking questions in her group like, “Is this a job opportunity?” “Do I need to have a computer in order to become a bookkeeper?” I mean they were just crazy, cold questions.

So as we got closer and closer to the date of the webinar, Aussie and Kristin and I were going back and forth and I said, “You have to be prepared. I know you have 6000 leads, but man, I’m not quite sure how this is going to go. These people are cold.” In a way it was almost like her ad had gone viral.

So we decided to make a few changes right at the last minute. We introduced a much easier payment plan option, etc, so she was getting ready for this webinar. We decided to stream it live into the Facebook book, rather than do Zoom just because the people were on their phones, weren’t going to understand what’s Zoom, and all this kind of stuff.

So as we got closer the nerves started to mount because I said to her, I was like, “If you’re only going to get a 1 or 2% conversion rate, you need at least 3000 people to see this offer in 72 hours.” And that may not sound like a lot, but until you’ve actually done a launch, you don’t realize how hard it is to get 3000 people to actually see your offer. I don’t mean just register for an event, or be on your list, I mean see your offer. Either see the pitch on a webinar, or see the sales page. So nerves were high.

And here is the part that I love to tell because I think it just gives so much hope to people. She did her webinar and she had 7 sales, and the Voxer message I got at the end of that was so sad. She was, you know, she was feeling like it had just completely flopped. It was the first time ever doing a webinar, and she had about 600 people online, 500 maybe, which out of 6000 is not a very high show up rate, but again, that’s pretty typical for live webinars. The show up rate, unless you doing voicemail drops and texts and all this crazy stuff, it’s hard to get people to show up to a live webinar. So the show up rate didn’t surprise me, but obviously the 7 sales was very disheartening, because her stretch goal, like her goal that she was hitting for on a cold audience at like a 1 or 2% conversion rate, she was trying to get at least 60 sales. And 7 was not 60.

So I actually went into her Facebook group and started looking at the comments and we started to form a plan. So Aussie and Kristin and I were saying, okay, clearly objections haven’t been covered. There’s no question that the ad performed so well. Like it almost went viral. It was hitting the mark, but people weren’t making the sale. And as much as people complain that its about money, it’s never about money.

So I got a Voxer message from Kristin, I don’t know, it was like the next day or maybe later on in the day. And she’s like, “I think I want to change the offer. I think people can’t afford it. So what if I, instead of doing a $500 course with a payment plan..’ Because we had a 6 pay of $97, I think. She’s like, “What if I change into a membership and it’s only $47 a month, they get the job leads.” And she was, I immediately stopped her, again this is another reason, a pitch for why you need a coach, I was like, “Don’t you dare change the offer.”

And she was feeling the pressure of all these people in this group saying, “I can’t afford. I can’t afford it. I can’t afford it.” And she was trying to pivot to be able to serve them, and you know, it’s hard sometimes to know when to double down and stay the course, and when to pivot. But I knew in this moment, that this was not the moment to pivot. This was not going to go well if she pivoted. And Kristin is amazing and she’s a go-getter and I said, “Don’t you dare.” And she’s like, “You’re right. Okay, I won’t. Just, what do I do?”

And so we brainstormed about all the ways to crush objections. And I have never seen someone be so diligent at showing up in those 72 hours. Kristin went live sometimes twice a day in her group. Aussie was sending a ton of emails, and basically what was lacking in the webinar, because that webinar really needed to be dialed in more, was then systematically handled over the next 3 days in terms of lives and emails to help sell this program. And had she pivoted the offer, she would never have given her offer a chance to shine.

So that was just such a super important lesson to know, when something flops, when to pivot and when to like, hold steady and stay the course. And I told her, I said, “Listen, you can always, if you decide you want to, you can, it’s totally fine to do a downsell after you’re done. After the launch is over, if you don’t get as many sales, and you want to try to recoup your costs and stuff, you can absolutely do a downsell. But right now, in here, is not the right time.” So that is incredibly, incredibly important.

Anyway, she had an amazing launch. She ended up doing a $90,000 launch in this launch. She sold way more, she went way past her goal of 60 students. And that was largely in part due to her not giving up, her staying the course, her showing up and doubling down on crushing objections. It was fascinating to watch. So she was thrilled.

So that is a lesson, there’s lots of lessons in there, but it was incredible to watch because so many people have these kinds of things happen where they end up having a webinar that doesn’t perform as well, they pivot at the wrong time and they don’t follow through with their plan. And I‘ll say to people who are never sure whether they should pivot or double down, I think that in this kind of scenario, if you create a commitment, follow your commitment to the end. So if you say, “I’m going to launch in the next 90 days.” You follow that commitment.

It doesn’t mean you can’t offer like cool, little plot twists. Because all along the way you have to be able to respond to the market, but plot twists, and sort of reading your customer is very different than sort of pivoting in a new direction. Ask yourself, “Is this going to confuse my customer?” because if it is going to confuse your customer you need to wait until you’ve finished your commitment, and then you can move on. Then you can downsell, then you can pivot, you can change, you can look at the numbers and say, “Okay, what actually happened?”

And the reality is that as this launch was going on, Kristin’s numbers were looking pretty good. She was definitely in benchmark for conversion. So she wasn’t getting as many sales as she wanted, but her conversions were at the benchmark rate. So I said to her, I was like, “This is not a problem with the actual offer, the problem is there’s not enough humans seeing it. So we need to work on that.”

So it’s just knowing how to evaluate in the moment what’s not working or what is, because this had a really happy ending because she ended up, just so close, a stone’s throw away from a six figure launch on her program, and that was super exciting.

So I hope that was helpful for you guys. And like I said, I’m going to try and get her on an interview on my Facebook page, because I just think it’s really fun. And I just hope that whole back story and journey helps you stay the course as well. Talk to you soon guys, appreciate you.

Coaching Create Your Laptop Life Podcast Jan 13, 2020
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Ep. 65 Three Types of Launches

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So guys, I realize that I have not podcasted in over a month. What the heck? I wanted to come to you today to talk about something that I’m very excited about. One of the big programs that my partner Cathy and I are launching, it’s actually starting today, although, by the time you hear this podcast we will have already begun. It’s a program called Launch Gorgeous.

We sold it back during black Friday and in November, and now it finally gets to kick off. So one of the reasons why I have been so absent from podcasting, is I’ve been swallowed up not just by Christmas and New Years and the holidays, but also by content creation and building this program called Launch Gorgeous.
So I want to talk a little bit about it today because I thought it would be fun and Launch Gorgeous is going to be coming back in March, I believe, is when we’re going to launch it again. So if you are interested as I dive into this, you should definitely go to LaunchGorgeous.com and get on the wait list.

So today I want to talk about 3 different types of launches. So first of all, for those of you guys who don’t know, even what I mean when I say launch, essentially it is a way that you bring your product or service out to the market. It is a crafted campaign, it is a playbook, it is a story line of how you release something new into the world. And we talk a lot about sales funnels and marketing and online business, which are pathways to products. And some people think, do funnels and launches go together? And they absolutely do because the first time you release a program, even if it isn’t a funnel, you should launch it.

So many times I see people, they build a funnel, and they don’t actually take the time to launch that funnel, they just sort of throw it out there, and then when it doesn’t get the response that they want, then they think that something is wrong with the funnel and they get disillusioned and sometimes they even throw the whole offer and funnel out.

And I say to people when they do that, listen, if you’ve taken all this time to build this funnel and create this offer, it’s kind of like building a little bit of a rocket ship, and if you are going to try to get it off the ground, and you’re going to go to that rocket ship and light a little match underneath it, it’s not going to go anywhere, and then you’re going to be like, “Oh, this rocket sucks.” No, your fuel sucked. So that happens a lot, people build funnels and then they just throw it out there and it doesn’t get the response they want.

So launching is something that you do when you first release a funnel. The other time you launch is when you’re reintroducing an offer that maybe has been around for a while and needs a new burst of momentum, invigoration, so in that way, you could have a funnel that’s running and then you re-launch it, which is sort of a way to just give it some new energy.

So as I was building the content for Launch Gorgeous, I realized that depending on what it is that you’re bringing out to the market, there’s really three different types of launches. So the entire first phase is going through these three different launch model types, why you use them, when you use them, and sort of as you’re brainstorming your offer, you’re also braining storming the launch model that you want to use.

So Launch Gorgeous went from, “Hey, here’s one curriculum.” to “Hey, here’s three.” So I sort of fell down a rabbit hole because I realized, gosh, depending on, are you gonna launch a small intimate retreat? Are you going to launch a big signature program? Are you going to launch a low ticket funnel? What are you going to launch? That depends, it changes the type of funnel that you use. So the realization that I had, oh my gosh, I actually have to create three curriculums for this one program.

So what’s the first one? The first launch type I’m calling a power launch. A power launch is done most often with what I call an excite level funnel. So if you don’t have any of some of my other programs that I’ve built with Cathy, you should go get them. One of them is Funnel Rx, it is an awesome program. I am so proud of that course. It really teaches people how to figure out funnels based on your value ladder, based on whether you’re trying to get new customers, get your customers to spend more money, or to really serve your die-hards and really understand that customer journey.

So when I say, a power launch is done with an excite level funnel, what I mean is the excite level of your business is usually that front end. It’s that part of that business where you’re trying to get somebody to become a customer. So excite level funnels are front end funnels. They are low ticket funnels. They are typically offering you know, $15, $20, $30, $40 products, nothing too expensive. So the launch model that I teach for those types is called a power launch. This is probably the smallest type of launch because you don’t really need a lot of people. In fact, you can technically launch with a list of zero. But it’s because you need to focus heavily on paid advertising.

So in the power launch model, we teach you how to drum up a small list, but knowing that the majority of your time and energy is going to be spent on advertising, we focus and dial in on making sure that offer and that funnel is really ready for paid traffic. So a classic example of a power launch would be when Cathy and I launched Offer Cure. That came out in October, we knew we were going to do paid ads to it, but for the first week, we launched it internally to our list. But it was, there was no webinar, no big dramatic ra-ra. But we did build some, we built some pressure, we built some buzz, we launched it and then we turned ads onto it. So that’s one model type, one launch type. And that is covered in Launch Gorgeous.

The second is the pressure launch. And the pressure launch is the classic, established level, mid tier level launch, where you have a signature program, a flagship offer, and this is where you’re building buzz. Sometimes there is a webinar, sometimes there’s not. Sometimes there’s JVs, sometimes there’s not. There’s a lot of prelaunch, two to three weeks before hand. These launches can be huge, think like Marie Forleo level huge, or they can still be small. But the key is you’re building pressure. And there is a time when the cart closes, whereas in a power launch the cart doesn’t actually ever close.

So in a pressure launch it does, and I always say to people, you should do a pressure launch for anything that’s in the mid-level of your value ladder, or you should do a pressure launch anytime you have something new. So even if it’s, you’re not sure where it goes in your value ladder, but you’re just trying to validate it, and see if anybody’s interested in it, you should do a pressure launch. The funnel is way simpler than a power launch. A power launch funnel is far more complicated than a pressure launch funnel. But the pressure launch has more pre-build, whereas the power launch doesn’t.

So it was really interesting because as I was building these launch plans for the students, I realized they are all the same amount of work, it’s just the work is divided up differently. So in a power launch you’re spending more time on building the funnel and actually getting that content ready, whereas in a pressure launch you’re not building a super complicated funnel. You’re not building the actual course content, but you’re building the storyline to launch it. That’s what you’re actually spending a lot of your time on.

And then, so I was just going to say that the pressure launch model, we classic example is Webinar Gorgeous. We did a classic pressure launch for Webinar Gorgeous back in June, and now it’s evergreen, but that was a classic example of a pressure launch for a new product.

Now the third type of launch is called a premium launch. So this is done at the elevate level of the value ladder. This is the highest level, this is the level of the value ladder where really only 5% of your customers are probably ever going to go up to that point. It is done for high ticket, for one on one type programs, events, group programs, retreats, and the signature sort of piece of the premium launch is that often times this is done with a phone call or an exclusive invitation through an application.

And it is very, very exclusive, it does not used paid ads, it is leveraged by an existing list. So typically premium launches are done once you have a customer list, you have other things going on and you want to sell something super high ticket.

So these are the three launch models, and it was crazy because in our business, Cathy and I, Funnel Gorgeous, we actually have done all these launch models. So I was like, Offer Cure was a classic power launch, Webinar Gorgeous, and Launch Gorgeous were classic pressure launches, and our Funnel Gorgeous Retreat is a classic premium launch. So it’s been really fun to build these based on not just theory, but actual, practical, this is how we sold out our retreat, this is how we made $100 thousand in our Webinar Gorgeous launch, this is how we made our first $100 thousand in Offer Cure.

So that’s sort of what I’ve been doing for the last month, really dialing in these three different launch models, just the plan. So I am super excited to start actually teaching this, we have about 150 people ready to dive in and their first assignment of course is going to be to pick their offer based on their value ladder and to decide on a launch model. And for the rest of the program, they are going to stick with that plan, because every type has a full calendar. So they’re going to see exactly what the homework is, it has a trello board, it has tons of spreadsheets and stuff, and I’ve actually color coded them and created icons so people can identify, “This is for power, this is for pressure, this is premium.”

So I just am having so much fun, and I’m actually getting ready to brainstorm an entire program on how to do course design because, in fact, I have a book on my table right now I can’t wait to read, which is about the art and science of teaching, because I am just loving learning how to teach things because I think it’s a part of the industry that’s really lacking. Some of you might be asking, how did you come up with that? Because I certainly didn’t come up with this idea of these three launch types when I initially thought of Launch Gorgeous. I thought, I’ll teach people how to launch. But this is where having experience in the real world is so valuable, because you see these slight nuanced differences, that you can immediately tell when you take a course with somebody who hasn’t actually done it in the field because they don’t see these little nuances. But maybe I’ll do a podcast episode on that someday, about how to actually break down great course design.

So guys, I’m super excited to kick off 2020, it is going to be a great year. Thank you for, as always, for listening to my podcast, I really appreciate it, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Featured Funnel Building The Best Stuff Jan 9, 2020
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Inside Digital Insiders With Ashley Buffa’s $70k in 30 Days Funnel

If you missed our interview, you should definitely check it out over on Facebook!

Ashley joined Digital Insiders in May 2019, and there have been some exciting developments in her business over the last 9 months that I want to share with you!

We met at ClickFunnels, where she was working as an agency owner/contractor there, and she was in charge of the messenger bot. We got to talking and one day, she told me she was really hoping to launch an online brand about being a mom/parenting, etc. A few weeks later she joined Digital Insiders to help grow that brand.

And as you know how life goes, just a month or two later, she found out she was pregnant with… wait for it… her 10th child! ????

Now the pressure was on. She had nine months to really light this brand up, because agency work really isn’t conducive to a newborn.

So how did it all go down?

Step one: First she decided to launch her Freedom Moms Challenge internally to her small list of 1000 people. She didn’t have an OTO, so we did a small pressure launch with just one product…and her results were good. People bought it! The market had showed her that yes, they did want this product. But they also showed her that they wanted something else…

That valuable market feedback from her audience was the catalyst for what happened next. Turns out, moms think the solution to reducing the amount of housework they do is to get their kids on board with doing chores. And as is typical with people who have superhuman skills, Ashley hadn’t realized that her ability to get her kids to do chores was in fact a big deal! She had a skill to share!

Step two: We brainstormed the next funnel and out of that came Smart Kids Chores. This was a classic funnel, with an order bump and an OTO. She did a Power Launch (this is a term I’ve coined for launching a low ticket funnel with ads – and is explained IN DEPTH inside of the course Launch Gorgeous). Her funnel consisted of…

  • A $49 chores course
  • A $12 order bump with SOP’s for kids chores
  • A $29 OTO for the Freedom Moms Challenge

Ashley went against the grain in a couple of ways… first she charged more for her front end than is typical for a Power Launch Funnel. Next, she charged LESS for her OTO. Finally she pre-sold this offer (something I don’t usually recommend on a low ticket funnel). Just goes to show that taking chances does pay off (as long as you’re aware you’re taking those risks).

Step three: Design the funnel! She used the Funnel Ink design – and submitted her funnel and copy for an audit inside of DI. We tweaked and tweaked, until we were sure it was good to go for her $1000 Facebook Ad Test.

(By the way, if you’re interested in the types of tweaks I recommend plus the Facebook Ad test, you should check out Funnel Rx – the special offer after Offer Cure)

I wish people could see inside my daily Voxer routine. I have 75 Insiders so on any given day, I’m spending a solid 2-3 hours answering questions on all things marketing, funnels, mindset, etc.

Step four: Do the $1000 ads test. Ashley was nervous. You can hear it in her voice when she described fearing that this funnel thing wouldn’t work for her.

Turns out, her nerves were not needed. She was profitable from day one with her ads!

Step five: Optimize. She submitted the funnel two more times to me for review, and we continued to optimize the page using the checklists I made for DIers (inside Funnel Rx). Her conversion rate slowly climbed, as did her ad spend, and her profit.

  • Her sales page is currently converting at about 3.7%.
  • Her order bump is around 84%.
  • Her OTO is around 45%.

She used the spreadsheet in Module 4 of Funnel Rx to assess her numbers and got three green lights! That means that she proceeds to the stage of micro-optimizations rather than macro-optimizations.

The first thing I noticed when we sat down to look at her numbers was how unbelievably high her order bump was. The solution to that? Raise the price until the conversion is sitting at around 40-50%.

Ashley turned her ads on on December 5th.

At the 30 day mark, she’s spent $20,185 in ads and earned over $71,000 in revenue.

That’s a $50,000 month she just had – and if you had asked her if she was okay spending $20,000 in ads on that first day she would have been nervous. But that’s the thing people don’t realize.

Once you’re making profit, you can roll some of that money back into ads and continue to scale!

At the end of the interview, you’ll hear Ashley talking about how grateful she is for not just the coaches in DI, but the members as well.

I received a voxer message from her about two weeks into this funnel launch. She thanked me for creating Digital Insiders – because she knows it was the pivotal thing that helped her create, build, launch, and grow a product that will allow her to take her maternity leave, enjoy her 10th baby, and not have to grind 24/7 to make ends meet.

Ashley has some big plans for later in 2020, where she’ll be rolling out some new programs for her growing audience. She is one to watch!

If you’re interested in working with me, here are three ways you can…

  1. Start by picking up a copy of Offer Cure + Funnel Rx – where my partner Cathy and I team up to bring you the best in offer and funnel training.
  2. Next, if you’re ready to launch something new, get on the waitlist for Launch Gorgeous. That program is a curriculum created DIRECTLY as a result of working and launching with Insiders for the last two years (plus my experience at ClickFunnels), and is also with Cathy and Funnel Gorgeous!
  3. Finally, if you’re making $100,000 a more a year, and you’re ready to join a high end mastermind and worked directly with me 1:1, you can apply to Digital Insiders. Membership is limited to 100 and we’re more than 75% full.

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