Episode 30. The Behind the Scenes of My Paid Workshop
Cheryl Lau
Podcaster | Coaching entrepreneurs to build a substantial and compelling body of work
Note: This episode was released on April 27, 2021
I thought it would be super fun to walk you through the behind-the-scenes and thought processes that are running in the background as I prepare for the 5-Figures Soft Launches Live Workshop.
In This Episode:
P.S. You can tune into the full episode of the Side Hustle Club Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or online HERE
The two events that inspired the 5-Figures Soft Launches Live Workshop
1. Soft launch vs regular full launch?
First, I noticed that there were several instances where a new client would join my program and immediately tell me, “Cheryl, I want to do a launch for my one-on-one program. I’m going to plan out my pre launch, plan out all my content ahead of time, and then launch.”.?
Then I’d look at them and their business and say… “Why are you doing a full launch? What are your reasons for it?”.?
The client would usually tell me it’s because they see so many other coaches doing a launch for their programs and courses, and now they feel like they have to as well.?
Then I’d ask them, “Does doing a launch make sense for your business right now?”?
And usually they’d say, “I’m not sure.”?
I follow up by asking the client, “How many warm leads do you have in your audience right now?”.?
And for clients who are in the earlier stages of their journey, they will usually tell me they’re not sure, or give me a number that’s usually less than five.?
And I’ll respond back with, “Are you at a point in your business where you think doing a launch will fill out your 3-5 spots for one-on-one coaching within the time you set out for your launch? Will having those open and close cart dates guarantee that you fill up your spots?”?
Then this will usually lead us into a full blown discussion about why they want to pressure themselves into doing a “traditional hard launch”, which is basically having a date for opening enrolment and a date for closing enrolment, and the period in between is basically your launch.?
I share this scenario because I wanted to illustrate how common it is for new coaches or service-based entrepreneurs to feel pressured to do a launch just because they see everyone else doing it.
But here’s the thing.
The way I look at it, a launch only makes sense if you have these following things in place already:?
For example, recently launched a group program which kicked off in April. And I spent the entire month of March launching aka I had a cart open and cart close deadline.
And guess what?
I was able to sign more clients when I was soft launching my one-on-one compared to March when I was doing a hard launch for my group program.
This means I was able to make more money during a soft launch than a typical launch.?
Now, of course there may be several variables in place.?
For example, maybe people felt that my group program and one-on-one program were too similar in its structure, what’s included, the promise and deliverables, so they felt like, “Hmm maybe I’d rather just do Cheryl’s one-on-one program.”
The reason I shared this example is to show that soft launches for your one-on-one program works.?
They 100% work and you can definitely make 10k months simply from soft launching and booking out your one-on-one program.
But right now, I need you to really reassess what are your reasons for wanting to “launch”.
And critically assess whether it makes sense for your business right now or whether it’s just going to spin you out of your mind and end up being in a ton of mind drama for the entire duration of your launch.
2. You’re creating content consistently but not signing clients
The second event or, rather, a series of observations, which inspired this workshop was that I noticed a lot of new coaches and service based entrepreneurs creating content, and they’re creating content pretty consistently.?
I’ve actually gotten a few direct messages (DMs) from my audience where they’d ask me, “Cheryl, I’m creating content consistently and posting consistently on my Instagram. And I give so much value! Why is no one booking a sales call or applying to my program?”.
When I look at their page and check out their content, I noticed one striking thing: Yes, they are usually posting a lot of educational tips or step-by-step, how-to information.?
But I literally feel zero impact on myself as a reader or audience.?
I will say that their content does “give value”, but it’s not giving me any reason as to why I would want to work with them.
?Actually, if I were to compare their profiles and content with their direct competitor, I wouldn’t have any reason to choose them based on looking at their content alone.
Educational tips are great. But giving value through the form of tips is not enough.?
That’s just the bare minimum.
Also, giving value can come in many different forms.?
More importantly, what’s typically missing from these people’s content is thought leadership.?
I can’t tell what unique perspectives or insights or value you can add to me.?
Here’s the thing:?Even though your own thought leadership and perspectives and original or unique ideas will take time to develop, you can 100% start honing your thought leadership today and start standing out today, even if you feel like you lack authority or experience.
Here’s wikipedia definition of thought leadership:
A Thought Leader is an individual or firm ascribed the quality of ‘Thought leadership’. Thought leadership is influencing a narrative by understanding what needs to be done. A Thought Leader can be recognized as an authority in a specific field and whose expertise is sought and often rewarded,[1]?that can be an expert, a historical figure, or a ‘wise person’ with worldly impact.
Based on this definition, we can see that the keywords are: influence, authority,?impact.
Honestly speaking, my interpretation of the word thought leadership is that you need to lead with your thoughts.?
What unique thoughts and ideas and opinions and perspectives are you leading with??
Thought leadership isn’t something where you follow a checklist and then you’re automatically a thought leader.?
It takes time to be recognized for the quality of your thoughts and unique perspectives and honest opinions. It takes time.?
This also means that you’ll need to commit to showing up and sharing your thoughts time and time again, even when it’s complete silence on the other end.?
Even if no one likes your posts or sends you a direct message (DM) and says, “Wow, that was so insightful.”?
Even if no one literally pats you on the head and gives you a gold star.?
A thought leader does not wait to receive external validation.?
He or she will commit to showing up and leading with their thoughts irrespective of the external validation.
Now, it also goes without saying that a thought leader does not model after other successful coaches or entrepreneurs because they are literally being too busy thinking about their own ideas and content and creating their own thought leadership, rather than worrying about what others are doing.?
One of the reasons why I created this workshop is because I’m sensing a huge lack in thought leadership among a lot of people who are trying so damn hard to create consistent content.?
But it’s not working because they’re missing that thought leadership piece.
This is what I want to change.?
I want each person walking out of that workshop to know what they want to be known for, and start position themselves as a thought leader and start creating content that clearly demonstrates their thought leadership so that they can ultimately stand out from the rest of their colleagues in their niche and of course, start booking out their one-on-one spots using soft launches.
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How I’m marketing this workshop
So as of now, we have nine awesome people already inside and we still have about a week left before the early bird pricing ends.?
This launch for the workshop has been really stress free and fluid so far. What I mean is that I haven’t prepared any content in advance and I don’t even have a fully flushed out content calendar planned ahead of time.
And now you may be like WHOOOTTT. How do you not plan out your content??
Okay.?
Here’s my short, straightforward answer: when you are so clear in your brand messaging or position. When you are so comfortable with your own voice. When you have a vision behind the impact you want to create… That is what will guide your content strategy.?
For the first year, maybe a year and a half of my business, I was very strict with my content strategy and content planning.?
I would batch my content ahead of time and was very intentional about the types of content I was creating, the sequence in which I posted them, the messages included in each post, etc. long story short: I planned ahead.
Today, I don’t do that much anymore.?
This is because my thought leadership has literally compounded over time, to the point where I use my day to day experiences and interactions as content ideas.?
The value I’ve created in the past two years has snowballed into something so much bigger than I had started out with two years ago.?
To put this into more concrete terms:
First, people now are able to recognize what I do in my business.?So people are often coming to me with more questions that then becomes the inspiration for my content for both my Podcast and Instagram.?
Second, my own brain has gotten way more experienced at paying attention to what’s happening, what are people getting wrong or doing wrong, and developing my own unique stance on different topics within my niche.?
This means that I can simply pay attention to what’s happening around me online, and then use that as inspiration for my content.?
Third, signing clients today is a lot easier than it was during my first few months of business?because my library of content aka my library of value has literally compounded over the years.?
People are now making decisions about me a lot quicker because they have two years of content to do their research on and go through before deciding whether to work with me.?
And my content is getting better day by day, so it’s making it a lot easier for others to decide whether I’m the right person for them.
Why I‘m not planning ahead or creating content ahead of time.?
It’s because the quality of my thoughts and thinking is levelling up day by day, so I’m becoming a lot better at pinpointing what are my clients and audience currently struggling most with at this moment, and immediately think of content to create that addresses this.?
Even though your own thinking and thought leadership will continue to level up and evolve over time, you can 100% start building your thought leadership today and become known for your thoughts. TODAY.?
Honestly I’m taking it pretty easy this launch. I literally just spent the past two weeks preparing for my exams and I still currently have two major deadlines left, so I didn’t do anything fancy for this promotional period.?
All I’ve done is talked about the workshop once on?Episode 28: My 2021 Content Strategy, and I would talk about it maybe five times a week on Instagram stories. I’ve made several posts that reference this workshop.?
Pretty simple and low key, but hey, nine awesome people have joined already and I know we’re gonna have more join us before the early bird pricing ends!
Overall, I didn’t really have the time capacity to do anything super fancy for this launch. But hey, simple works! The basics still work.?
It’s really important to master the basics and make sure you can get the basics to work, before trying to do something cool or try fancy new strategies to market your program.
What you’ll learn in the workshop
Now let’s go behind-the-scenes of outlining the workshop and the detailed workbook that’ll be included.?
One thing I’ve been doing is market research.
This looks like asking both my current clients and audience what their thoughts and struggles are when it comes to launching, marketing and selling their one-on-one coaching or services, and so on.?
This helped me collate a bank of questions that I’ll be addressing either in my marketing or inside the workshop and workbook, depending on the nature of the question.?
As for what we’ll be discussing at the workshop and in the workbook, here’s a tentative outline:
Right now, I’m still fleshing out the details so I may be adding more topics.?
I’ll also have to play around and see which topics I must discuss at the workshop, and which topics are better suited to be discussed in the workbook.?
For both the workshop training and the workbook, I’ll be showing examples from my own business to demonstrate how I did it and explain why it worked for me.?
I think at this point in time, I’m still trying to figure out how to craft the workbook so that it supplements the workshop training.?
What exercises can I create? What examples can I provide? What step by step type of structures or information can I include? These are questions I’ll be hashing out over the next week.?
Overall, I want to make sure that the workshop training and workbook complement each other and that the workbook doesn’t repeat the same information that’s presented in the workshop.?
Instead, my goal is to create a workbook that is highly actionable and prompts the student to look at their content and business from different angles.?
I’m super excited to finish the slide deck and workbook! I’m seriously having so much fun preparing for the workshop!
The tech I’m using to run and host my workshop
I host all my video training and courses for my private clients on Thinkific.?
Which is why it was a no brainer to also host my workshop training replay and workbook and the follow up group call on Thinkific as well.?
All I did was create a new course on Thinkific, where I’ll be housing all of the relevant replays and videos and workbooks.?
For the sales page, I used the Thinkific, sales page builder to create the sales page.?
Even though the features and customization for Thinkific, sales pages are?very?limited, I didn’t feel the need to create a sales page separate on my website cheryltheory.com, where I would have had much more creative freedom and control.?
Maybe one thing I’ll do after the workshop is done is create an entirely new sales page on my website, since the workshop will become an evergreen course.?
I might consider creating a funnel of some sort for it as well. Just a thought at the moment, but not a priority.?
After the workshop, I’ll be focused on inviting new clients to join my?one-on-one program, and then in June, we’ll be enrolling for Round 2 of my group program.
I hope you were able to get a peek into what’s going on behind-the-scenes of my business as I am gearing up for the upcoming 5-Figures Soft Launches Live Workshop.?
And I also hope you were able to walk away with a new action item, idea, or perspective, and I can’t wait to see how you’ll implement that in your own business.
Sounds good? Awesome. Let's get to work.
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