How Kate sold 19 digital products in just 15 minutes

IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

:: 00:02

One of my clients just launched a digital products and sold 19 in the first 15 minutes of it going on sale. And she's wet on track to make her target of a hundred sales. It's a $25 products. I mean, it probably won't make a millionnaire yet, but she was able to say that she made $400 while she was having a coffee.

:: 00:22

And it's not every day. You can say that I am Janet Murray, I'm a content and online business strategist. And in this episode of the courageous content podcast, I'll share how Kate's managed to achieve those results. So, first off, I do want to do a full debrief episode with Kate. I think it will be really useful for you to hear about the process and also hear about the things that didn't work so well and what she would fix for next time.

:: 00:51

But as my 90 day course, launch sprint is open for environments at the moment. And only actually for a few more days, I'm recording this in March, 2022. I did want to share this with you as soon as I possibly could, because not only is it really inspiring, but it's also really realistic and it shows what can be achieved when you slow down a little bit and you follow a process.

:: 01:15

So here are the three things that I think Kate did that allowed us to have these really successful without number one, she started small. So many people when they wanted to launch an online course, they go straight into the big multi module, all singing, all dancing, tons of video tutorials, PDF downloads, and you don't need to do any of that.

:: 01:37

A online course can simply be one video tutorial, one ebook or PDF downloads. One resource care, one challenge. As in Kate's case, it's a 30 day challenge with very short tasks to do each day, very quick and easy for her to create. I do have a couple of episodes which go into this in more detail. So one of them is called you could be generating recurring revenue.

:: 02:00

Now, why aren't you? The other one is three online courses you can create in a morning. And I will put links to both of those in the show notes. I also find I have to talk people down from ideas that they've got. So, okay. I had originally wanted to run a 90 day challenge that she hadn't got as much take up for as she was hoping for.

:: 02:20

And I thought that was too long for what she was trying to achieve. So I really encouraged her to just make it all smaller. The other thing I encouraged her to do is stage was to get her topic, right? Because often new course creators. And why would people know a different, because they're new to it. They can be very general.

:: 02:37

And Kate had this idea for a 30 day journaling challenge. And I kept asking her, what would I get out of doing the challenge? And like, why would I show up for 30 days in general? And she just said, well, it'd be really good for you. It'd be really good for you. So she wouldn't mind me sharing this.

:: 02:51

So yeah, but what's the outcome. What's the tangible outcome. How will I be changed by the end of it? And that's really important when you're thinking about getting the topic for your online course, right? People have to see some kind of tangible results. And often that's about getting more specific. So I asked Kate to do a couple of things.

:: 03:08

I ask this again to a Facebook group and talk to those who already journaled and ask them why they journals and how it helped them. I always say, ask her to do a poll and say, what are you struggling with the most? And rather than leave it open, I got her to come up with five specific ideas that she'd thought of based on knowing her community and anxiety came back as the key thing people were struggling with now,

:: 03:30

K initially panicked. So I know I can't do anxiety. You know, I'm not an expert. I can't help people with clinical anxiety. It's like, no, you just need to be clear that this is a journaling challenge, which is about helping manage everyday anxiety. And in your sales copy, you just need to make it really clear. This is about the anxiety that we all feel day-to-day,

:: 03:48

that can get in the way of us going after that job, that relationship, that promotion, whatever it might be. So the moment we got clear on that this 30 day journaling journey to help with everyday anxiety, everything got a lot easier. It was easy to write the sales copy. It was easy to think about the strategy because suddenly everything was much more specific.

:: 04:09

There was a clear problem being solved with this particular course. So number one, starting small and also getting specific. Second thing was, she thought it was a planned. She followed my launch strategy that I use. So I have made podcast episodes about this as well are linked to one of them in the show notes, which is about how to create a launch plan.

:: 04:28

That's I get people to start at the end. So actually in Kate's case, the first thing we thought about was when could she actually deliver this challenge? So when did she have a clear 30 days, very minimal content creation on her part, just a very short journal prompt each day, but still, probably about half a days work to create upfront.

:: 04:47

And also she needed to make sure she was around during those 30 days so that she could achieve you people up, help them if they got stuck, all of that kind of stuff. So that was the first thing we did. Then we decided on her cart, close dates, and there's always a decision to be made there about how long do you leave it?

:: 05:02

If you leave it too long between your cart close day, when your sales end and your challenge starting, or your call starting or whatever, it might be. People can kind of lose their momentum, but if you go straight into it, it doesn't give people time to prepare. So we had to think about that. Then the next thing we needed to decide was cart open.

:: 05:20

So how long was the cart going to be open? Then we looked at building a wait list, and this is really the crucial part. This is what allowed Kate to get all of those sales in the first few minutes. It's really important when you're selling a digital product to create buzz and excitement. And you can do that. Even if you have a really small audience,

:: 05:39

we don't have a list. You just need to create that kind of buzz and excitement. So we settled on a full week weightless period. I'm not saying that's exactly the right time, but that felt the right time for Kate's audience. And I'll talk about how she did it in just a sec, but that was our next thing we had to decide on where are we going to do a weightless and how long it's going to be open for in her case,

:: 05:59

we decided about three or four weeks was about right. And the stage with all that is audience quality. So I got paid to sit down. People never liked doing this, but it's the most important thing and run the figures. We looked at who she had in a hot audience. So for Kate, she had sold some meetups and some small products to some people in this Facebook group that she's got.

:: 06:19

So we put them on our list and we counted them up. Then we had a look at her warm audience. Kate has a daily podcast. We looked at the numbers of listeners that she has. I wouldn't say they were hot leads, hot leads of people who've actually bought from you in the past that they're most likely to buy, but that was a group of people that we knew that we could reach cold audiences.

:: 06:39

People who don't know about you yet for this particular launch, we didn't think we needed to do any audience craves. We felt that Kate, because you had this Facebook group and this podcast, she did have a problem with that email list, which I'll tell you about more in a second, but we felt we didn't need to do any growth. So that was the first thing we did was we mapped it all out.

:: 06:56

We got the dates on the calendar and this is what most people don't do. They create a course. They spend months, weeks creating it. Usually a couple of years thinking about it beforehand. Now we haven't created anything at this time because I really wouldn't recommend that you do, because you never know if people are going to go for something until you actually put it on sale,

:: 07:14

but it's this kind of strategic thinking that makes all the difference and can make all the difference. Even if you're launching your very first products to a tiny audience. So during her weightless period, she had this problem with our email list. I won't bore you with the details, but basically her email list was held with the people who she does the podcast for when it was a little bit complicated.

:: 07:33

So we decided to focus on her podcast listeners. And she simply for most stays during that three, four week period, she talked about the challenge. She said there were only going to be a hundred places. It was going on, sat on a particular day. And that's important giving people a reason to get in early. So Kate had decided because it was the first time she'd done something like this.

:: 07:52

She wants to limit it to a hundred. They're not false scarcity, genuine scarcity outset school for your first challenge of this thought. But there's other ways that you can incentivize people to get in early limiting numbers. Isn't the only way. So that meant that when it came to her launch day, she had over 500 people on her wait list who were really excited.

:: 08:12

They were chomping at the bit. She sent a couple of emails just before the cart, open date to get people even more excited. And that's how she managed to make 19 fails in 15 minutes. And the last thing she did is she kept it low tech, a common misconception about launching digital products is that you need an online course platform or even marketing software got tons of episodes on this in particular.

:: 08:34

Do you need an email list to launch a course? The answer is no, but I explained why in that episode, I linked to that one in the show notes too. I've also got an episode on which online calls platform is the best one to use, and I'm not skipping a spoiler here, but Kate was in a position where she could get a simple sales page created and a waitlist page where she was able to collect emails,

:: 08:55

but you absolutely don't need to do that. As long as you are compliant with data protection or what, you could literally ask people to give you their name and put it on a spreadsheet. So as long as you tell people what you're doing with their data and you don't deviate from that, there's absolutely no reason why you can't just get people to post in a Facebook group or DMU their email address.

:: 09:14

And then you email them when your course goes live, say with emails, Kate was able to sort out automated emails in the end to send to her weightless people, but had she not been able to do that? There were always low tech ways around it. So for example, if she hadn't managed to figure that out, I would have got her to send her sales emails out in batches,

:: 09:35

blinds, carbon copying a bit more of a faff, but absolutely doable. So, like I say, I will follow up with you in a future episode with a much more detailed debrief from Cape. I just wanted to share this story with you now, because I know that you might be thinking about joining my 90 day course launch when, and you might be thinking things like,

:: 09:55

well, 90 days seems like a long time, or you might be worrying about things like needing an email list or eating fancy tech, none of which you need. And I just wanted to give you a real live example of what's important. And what's important is the strategy had Kate just created this challenge and then put it on sale, which is what most people do.

:: 10:18

She probably would've got handful of people, but by actually taking the time to map it all out and to put everything on her calendar and crucially that month, wait list building. Not everybody needs that, but for her, I think it was really right. Yeah. I just wanted to show you what can be achieved with a small audience, no email list of her own.

:: 10:41

And if you're thinking that 90 days seems like a long time to show you why it's worth taking the time to really learn how to do this stuff from someone who knows what they're doing, because they've launched dozens of times and can give you real skills that you can take forward. Having gone through this launch, Kate has learned a ton. She's learned what works,

:: 11:01

what doesn't work, what she did differently. Next time. One of the things that was quite hard for her was writing a sales page, was able to get guidance with that. And I was able to immediately hone in on things that she needed to change. I think a lot of people don't appreciate how much work is involved in how many moving parts there are,

:: 11:17

which is why I always suggest that you start small. And I wanted to finish up actually with a lovely message that I got from someone this morning. He signed up for the program and this is a lady called Susan. This is what she said. I've been following you for two years. I feel I trust you on a level. I don't trust other people.

:: 11:33

You're so honest and tell it like it is plus I know I'm not going to be made to feel bad about not becoming a six-figure earner in 90 days. I want to build and become trusted. And I don't think those people who rushed into high ticket courses have the right skills or experience. I would hate to get a bad reputation and I feel your approach is much more genuine and ethical.

:: 11:54

I can't wait to get started. She went on to say that what had been holding her back from launching her online course was all of that was feeling like she'd feel silly if she wasn't earning six figures by the end of it. And this is what she said. I feel that when I look at what some of the other course creator coaches offer, it's just also vague.

:: 12:14

And I can't tell from any of their content, if I'll even have the skills to launch anything after paying out, I really feel confident and know exactly what I'm going to achieve from yours. And that is everything when you're a small business starting out without any money. And I wanted to share that with you because I know my approach is different to other people's.

:: 12:31

If you've been following any of my recent podcasts and hearing me talk about some of the practice in the industry that I disagree with, I have to be honest and say, sometimes it's hard for me to watch other people seemingly have it a lot easier than ID because people do get taken in by you'll be making six or seven figures over nights. You'll be having the passive income lifestyle on the beach travel,

:: 12:52

travel. And I know that that isn't true. I know that behind every success story, there's usually a lot of years of hard work and a lot of expertise to run a launch or even a small launch to sell an ebook or a online course or membership. There's a lot involved. And the more times you do it, you get better and better when you learn more.

:: 13:10

But I feel that sometimes this messaging and the online space can make people feel so shameful and so scared. They're scared of joining my 90 day program and not being a six figure business owner overnight. And I want to just share this with you because I feel sometimes, and if you've been listening to any of my recent content on some of the practices in the online space for sometimes it can be quite hard for me to be the outlier.

:: 13:34

I felt like the party pooper of online business who's without their game. Well, you're not going to have a six figure business overnight, and it's not mainly passive income. And I feel like I'm this massive pain in the house who got a spoil, is it for everybody? But it's true. And it just kills me. Seeing people feel it's their fault.

:: 13:51

It's not your fault. If you do an online course, launch something and you fail six or 10, that's kind of quite normal. So what I'm trying to do here is to provide quality education, honest education, this particular lady, Susan, she sent me a voicemail after us. And she said, I know you won't rip me off. And I know you won't teach me to rip other people off.

:: 14:12

And to me that's so valuable. You know, I want to teach you real skills that will help you to sell digital products in your business, to the level that you want to, whether you just want to make a couple of hundred quid a month extra, or whether you ultimately would like to make that the core of your business. But I want to give you real skills that will help you to build a sustainable online business that will be making you money.

:: 14:34

And I just want to reassure you that working with me on this is not going to put you under any pressure to achieve flashy results. I'm not going to be cracking the work about numbers. I want you to learn how to do this properly, and I want to give you real skills. And of course, I want you to sell your calls, but I'm going to give you realistic targets based on where you are at the moment and the experience you have,

:: 14:57

because you can't compare yourself to other people. And I want you to feel good about yourself. I want you to feel confident. I want to make sure that your course idea, but actually self. What I'm saying is I actually really care. So if you've been checking out my 90 day course launch sprint, and you're listening to this around the time the episode goes out,

:: 15:16

the moments do close on March the 27th. But if you listen to this a bit late, you can add yourself on the wait list. And if I want it again, and you will be the first to hear, because you're on my wait list. But if you're on the fence or you've had your fingers burnt with online programs before I wanted to share this with you,

:: 15:35

it's not a spectacular billionaire overnight story, but it is a real success story from somebody that I've helped. And it is realistic because we were working within the resources that that person has available and the experience that they had available. So if you do have any questions about the program, just reach out to me. I'm on Janet and Janet. My vehicle code at UK,

:: 16:00

no question is too small or too silly. I won't tell you that the course is right for you. I don't think that is just yesterday. I categorically said no to somebody, because from what they told me about their business, I really didn't think it was right for them. And I think they had bigger priorities and they appreciated that. It's really not on my interest in having bums on seats.

:: 16:17

If I don't think you're going to succeed because it's not the right time for you or you should be focusing on something else, I will tell you because it's a pain for everyone involved, having people involved in the program, period, isn't a good fit for, I'll put a link for my 90 day course launch sprint in show notes and yeah, email me on Janet,

:: 16:34

@Janet Murray dot co dot uk. If you have any questions.