OK you may have forgotten but I promised you a transparent breakdown behind-the-scenes of my most recent launch this past Spring.
​
Because this is real and I think you should know this stuff and launching is not all “6-figure months” and laying on a beach while you get massive amount of cash pings on your phone as all the digital course creators tell you that their life is….so then you can buy their product….to “get their life”….to support their Instagram reel screenshots for them to sell you their product….but I’m here to tell you, THAT IS ALL BULLSHIT.
​
So settle on in again and get to your cozy chair.
We’re going dirty.

Did you miss part 1 email?
​Here is it here. (I can’t do anything at normal speed and that also means writing you “a quick” email recap hence why this is the second part.) ​
​
​But quick recap here
(no, really this will be quick so you can get up to speed.) ​
​
I’m rebuilding a lot of my business model because of my move to Lisbon & the humans in this pic

The cornerstone of my revenue for six years was video brand clients and this is the first full year where I need to replace a large chunk of money in my business because I am choosing to NOT focus on brand video clients while I pummel my face with pastel de natas.

• This means I now make 90% of of my total revenue from online (EEK) which is a huge shift for me as a founder and as a business model.
  ​
• This includes digital products, masterminds, memberships, workshops and some select private clients (I’m tired just writing all that but must experiment.)
  ​
• This past spring I decided to panic launch a DIY digital product that was mid-tier price for me at $997 (more on that below)

In order to kick that off I sold a lower-ticket personal branding workshop ($47) to teach and then use the end of that training to sell my mid-tier product that had two different levels: DIY ($997) and DIY + 8 weeks of live coaching and a community support system ($2000).
​
​WHERE DID WE LEAVE OFF FROM THE LAST EMAIL?​
​
​We were aiming for AT least $50,000 in revenue for the month of April from this launch.
We made $33,994 TOTAL (the workshop + the other product) ​
​
The $47 workshop did really great and from a launch strategy perspective:
​
The emails felt seamless.
Fun to write.
Had daily sales.
​
I literally cannot tell you how useful the AI audience and survey research was. (IYKYN and I do not know how you launch ANYTHING without the tools I teach for this…see below to see how I was able to launch this $47 workshop so well.

BUT THEN…..one week before the live class…a MAJOR roadblock presented itself and I had to blow the original plan up into smoke…….
​
WAIT, WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL PLAN?
​​
I was NOT supposed to launch a $997 product from the $47 personal branding workshop. Why?
​
That is a fairly big leap.
​
Rule of thumb will suggest the person who buys the $47 product from you will not buy a $997 product from you without a bit more nurturing.
​
The plan was for me to take a successful 4 hour workshop I ran 18 months ago on my storytelling frameworks and repurpose, slice and dice and update that curriculum with AI.
​
This meant I would not be starting from scratch (because remember I just did start from scratch for this personal branding training and it’s a lot of work to create anything fresh). ​
​
You need a new sales page.
A new email flow.
A new checkout page.
A new slide deck.
New messaging.
And you have to bring the vibe as it was LIVE
​
I already knew this storytelling workshop I ran was a success & and I had a lot of the marketing materials already written and would just need to tweak the old sales page slightly.
​
Work smarter not harder right!??
​
But Houston, Houston…. We had a problem. ​
​
I received a message from my hyper organized OBM, “Patrice… can you hop on a call today?” (I didn’t have a good feeling about her message… it was like PTSD back to my corporate dates of work!!)

She could not find this training on my google drive.
In my dropbox.
In my emails.
​IT DISAPPEARED.
​
The video we were looking at the whole month was actually an edited down PROMO that I used to market the workshop…not the actual training. But the name of the file was “training”.

Keep in mind I had created this lower ticket personal branding workshop (going live in a week) for it to LADDER into this product.
​
So when the attendees got to the end of this class the ONLY logical next step was for someone on this zoom to purchase this $497 storytelling framework DIY course.
​
The workshop I no longer had in my possession.
​
My team and I had to make some really quick decisions.
​
With the added constraints of not really having any extra bandwidth I knew I had to pivot.
​
​HERE WERE THE OPTIONS MY TEAM PRESENTED
​
1. We don’t sell anything from the workshop (a bit of a missed opportunity when you have 150 warm and eager leads coming to learn from you and you can’t funnel them ANYWHERE next. Did I mention I am making up for a lot of lost revenue this year and I’ve been the bread winner since we landed in Portugal while my husband ramps up his business??! No. 1 was not an option for me.)
​
​2. You rerecord the entire workshop that week as it had to be ready to sell by the end of the workshop I was running the following week (I’m a mom of 3 and was still working on putting together training and thought any rerecording of ANOTHER curriculum would take me out of the zone and I wanted to deliver the BEST of my focus for this $47 workshop. Passed on No. 2)
​
​3. We sell a lower ticket membership for a period of time to continue the learnings from the workshop (it felt too out of left field and while I love the memberships I currently have, I wasn’t ready to knee-jerk sell a membership because Plan A couldn’t work. Oh and the biggest fallacy is that “memberships are easy” even for a short period of time. Nope to No. 3)
​
​4. We take the successful one-off workshops you DO have on the drive and drip them out but make it more of a full-package storytelling roadmap and this gives you a longer runway to re-record the missing training (YES!! This felt like the perfect answer and actually BETTER than our original plan.)
​
​The value of this product was massive so all of a sudden $997 it was and I felt really great about it.
​
“This is IT! This happened for a reason!”

Since I figured this product would sell LIKE HOTCAKES, I’d eventually turn that into an evergreen product that people could always buy from me whenever. (Hello “passive” revenue)
​
​At the last minute I decided to add a “live” option with me to that storytelling package and I priced it at $2000.
​
Honestly, I figured I’d sell only a handful of that as it would serve as a PRICE anchor to the $997 and the other one would be FLYING OFF MY SHELF.
​
But plans are funny like that.
​
Only 5 people bought the $997 (remember I had almost 150 people come to this workshop…that is not a great conversion at all.)
​​
We forecasted at least 30 people would buy given the amount of people who were coming live to my class (cut in half and then cut in half again is about right.)

ARE YOU ALL SLEEPING RIGHT NOW!?!? IS THIS EVEN HELPFUL?!
​​
​In the end 12 people ended up buying the version that had the live coaching and community support.
​
​(which I didn’t see coming at all.) ​
​
I planned for MAYBE 8 because remember, I didn’t do a long nurturing email sequence prior to this because I was supposed to offer a product that was less expensive so I wasn’t able to do my full AI chart, messaging exercises that I would normally do for a launch.
​
Typically, you need a much longer “nurture sequence” of emails, social posts, DM conversations to sell something in that $1000 and above price range.
​
The nature of my quick pivot had me writing sales pages and emails the week leading up to the workshop but going mostly blind.
​
Since I didn’t have the time to validate my messaging to my audience with my tried-and-true AI charts to help I “guessed” on what I DID know about my audience. ​
​​
IS THIS DONE YET? WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH THIS?
​​
So few things.
​
I fell short of the goal and for all intensive purposes, the DIY $997 product was a bust (and it’s not because the content is a bust but the way it was presented and how I presented it was.)
​
***see launching is SO LAYERED!! It’s not ONLY about the actual product.
​
​The “evergreen money-making funnel” I had envisioned would be up and running by now is not happening and I’d be lying to you if this has not thrown me.
​
BECAUSE.. I’m not sure the majority of my current audience wants a “DIY” ONLY anything.
​(in fact they don’t)

• I’ve had to scrap a lot of our original product plans for this spring and let my team regroup and NOT live launch for the sake of cash flow ( I have a bad habit of live launching all the time and it’s stress that I apparently thrive on but it’s not great for my team and honestly it’s not a sustainable way to do business.)
  ​
• I’ve had to intentionally pause my cash flow to really get on board with the CORRECT path forward. (and those answers take time to reveal themselves as any strategy we choose we have to see it through so you want to make
  sure its one you feel confident on)
  
• It feels impossible on some days (I am still newish to this online business world) Exhilarating on others ( I REALLY do love what I do even on the impossible days.)
  ​​
  The past month has been a lot of ups and downs and I’m still the primary earner in the family right now so that has added to my stress load as well.
  ​
  ​But this launch taught me A LOT. (we wrapping up here I swear!!)​
  ​
  It taught me that people will not have price objections when they trust that you are their person to help them get to where they want to be.
  ​
  It taught me that people are tired of this industry. Tired of buying courses and programs that SIT in their inboxes never to be completed.
  ​
  Real progress and elevation in business requires support and the most successful people I know have a posse of people around them helping them along the way (myself included.)

So why would it be any different for my audience?
​
The live coaching element of this product is a hit.
​
We have a great group and they are GETTING $hit DONE in here.

They came to play and are serious about upleveling their business and especially their storytelling.

I am SO CONVICTED in my AI audience and messaging charts. More so than ever.
​
I used that chart to write every email, sales page copy and social post and I blew the $47 workshop out of the water.
​
When I had to then sell the higher ticket product, I wasn’t able to do any of that process because I was scrambling.
​
So really, I am not surprised the other product underperformed.

It wasn’t as aligned and it’s not enough to be like ‘Storytelling GOOD! No Storytelling BAD!” and expect people to part with their hard earned money.
​
The best part of this launch has been the elements that I did not plan for.
The parts I couldn’t have predicted.
The people I wasn’t supposed to see every week live.
​
And while it’s not been easy…
​
This is the launch I needed to take my business to another level. (it’s not at that level but I was going down a path that wasn’t right so this made me course correct.)
​​
Thank you for reading my Moby Dick novel.
​
Was this helpful?
​
What more do you want to know?
​
I have so many other thoughts about launching.
​
We will take a break from launch content but I’m in my “don’t give AF” era of what you know about my business so if there is a topic or something you’d like me to dive into deeper…. Please reply to this email and tell me !
​
And in the meantime….run, do not walk if you have not yet experienced what it’s like to create your own audience and messaging chart using my AI process.
​
NEVER AGAIN will I not do this before launching ANYTHING!!