Welcome to the Business Fondle, the Bold Business Podcast for entrepreneurs and business owners hosted by Peta Serras the Professional Babe. So why don't you pour yourself a drink and slip into something a little more comfortable and I'll get your business going. Well, hello, hotties. I have just closed the worst launch that we have ever had in the history of Professional Babe. The worst launch. Uh, I had contemplated recording this episode last night and it was just far too emotional.
So I'm like, let's just do it the next day while everything is still super fresh. Because I don't know about you, But something that bugs me in the online world is people are so happy to talk about the shit when it's used as marketing to affirm why you should work with them now that they are successful.
And I hate that because it's like, you know, if that was happening at the time and not that we want to continually highlight shit in our business, but ethically, it always feels a little bit funny to me when people are highlighting the good and bad in business. Everything that you see is good, but the bad only comes out when it's selling you a fucking promise. So, we had the worst launch ever. And by we, I mean me and my business. It's not me, it's not just my business.
It's of course both of us working together. And it It's so funny because I went into it thinking that this was going to be the best launch that we've ever had. So, you know, I've actually never cracked 100, 000 worth of sales for a launch, ever. And I've had a lot of courses and a lot of launches where I've obviously made money, stuff has done well, but we've never had 100k for GGE, ever.
And I really went into this launch feeling so hopeful that this was going to be our moment, that it was going to happen, and all because the prep work for this has been going on since May. And yes, we did have a launch in June, but I have been consistently talking about email this entire time. So there has been six months worth of work for a launch to fall flat on its face. And you know what, babes? That's it. Sometimes this is going to happen in business.
Sometimes you are going to go into something with the best effort, the best plan, and for whatever reason, it's just not going to work out how you wish that it could. So I want to take you back in time. Something that I have seen spoken about across socials probably this whole year is people that have felt like that they have purchased a program, Um, They have bought into the marketing that someone has delivered online.
And it's really felt like that what they have bought has not been up to scratch. There has been this collective experience. I've also heard from people that feel like that they have bought into the like, quote unquote, professionalism of the entrepreneur that had the sexy website, the beautiful shoot, the amazing copy. And then they feel like they work with a person and they are just not. Not up to scratch of the person that they thought that they would be working with.
And I kept hearing these two things and something that I think about is people tell me all the time, I just need to listen to you speak and you know exactly what you're talking about. You understand me and my business, you make it fun and you make it feel super achievable. And with that in mind. I thought, I think that I need to do something different. We actually have this beautiful room at work. It's very like this sexy cult, like boardroom.
And I was like, I think I'm going to run events here. I have this gorgeous workspace. Let's run events. People just come in. It makes like, it looks super schmick. Like you come in and you're like, the bitch is doing well. She's doing okay. She doing better than she was yesterday. Let me tell you that much, but people come in, it looks beautiful. And I really wanted to utilize this space to run events.
So I ran my first event in May and it's so funny at the time I look back and I didn't even really know, I think I called it a hot little email event and I was like, let's just get something in the calendar, let's start to invite some people and I was really marketing it that I wanted to focus on profit and customer retention and that's how I was selling it. I did some very simple branding.
I just put together a little invitation on Canva and I handed them out in person in my co working space and I invited some people along online. Now I've got the stats for you here. I was a bit organized. So to this event in May, 20 people were invited. And they had confirmed, uh, we had four no shows that canceled within 24 hours, three people that came or clients. And then over the next three months, I ended up getting six sales. Five were from give good email.
And I got one consulting client, which means that we had a 35 percent conversion rate. And it's interesting because you would assume that all of this traffic was super warm and some of them were not. They were brand new to me in my co working space. I did put a call out to people on my email list and I was like, if you want to come, like come, I've got three spots left. And a 35 percent conversion rate for me just felt like Probably the highest that we had ever converted.
So I was like, I feel like that there could be something in this. I then went to an event the next week and I spoke to someone that had scaled their company and sold their company. When we were talking about what we did, he asked me, he's like, how are you getting in front of people? What does your lead generation now look like? Are you doing ads? What is it? And I said to him, you know, it's really interesting. And it may be feel it, it may be feeling like that.
It's not the smartest move, but I'm actually going to host events. I said, we've hosted one recently. And I said, because all of the feedback that I'm getting from people is that they. I'm so used to working with people that don't really know what they're doing and they just haven't had a good experience. And I want to give people a good experience from the start. And he said to me, this is exactly how I scaled my business.
And I then re listened to a podcast episode with Daniel Priestly on diary of a CEO who said the same thing, but he was running events. And I felt like that I was getting all of these signs from the universe that I should do events. And I was looking at what people were doing online that not many people were doing events. And I was like, amazing, this is going to be your secret source. Give people an experience, invite them along. You've got the data.
So what I decided to do is committing to do one in person event a month. And then because of course I have a worldwide business, we would do one online event a month. So we were kind of alternating. I think that there were. A few months where I didn't have one for whatever reason, but from that May event till now, I ran 11. I also ran one for Sophia Amoruso and a few people in their community as well. So I had gone into this event being like, I am getting in front of so many people.
What I was doing with the events is we had a particular giveaway. So if you came along and you posted it about it on your stories. You know, and I also knew that I was going to tap out of my warm audience really quickly. So what I said is that if you come to the event, you talk about it, you post a screenshot, whatever it is, you can go in the drawer to win an audit of your welcome flow.
So that was a really amazing way for us to continually get in front of new people, get new traffic via the recommendation of people that they know, like, and trust. So this just was feeling really good. And even at the time I would run these events and we may not get any sales. I was still hopeful that we had the give good email promotion that was coming up. And I was like, this is going to push people to purchase. I had feedback from people that I look up to and respect.
And they're like, Oh my gosh, everyone who came to your events, they were so engaged. They were locked in. They're like, and the fact that you can get physical people in the room. They are a warm to hot lead. So there was part of me that potentially was, I don't want to say smug, but I really felt like that this was going to be a hundred K launch. I was like, I've done the groundwork.
There's been so, there has been so much effort that has gone on behind the scenes to of course, organize these events online and in person, you know, facilitate the education, do the, the, the wrap up. And I was so hopeful that everything would go smoothly. And it did not. It did not. So we sold three in the first week and then there was really nothing.
And then stuff picked up last minute, probably in like the last week, but it was nowhere near The outcome that I expected from the amount of work that went into it. And this is where I feel sometimes as entrepreneurs, you know, if we're not paying for physical ads, like if you're not doing Facebook ads for lead generation, you don't see the money. That you are spending, right?
Like if you're not spending say a hundred bucks a day on ads, you may think that it's nothing because you're looking at it as just your time and not that your time has a dollar value. So for me, I looked at all of the inviting, all of the event prep, everyone who comes gets a rose. I write something on it. I organize the catering. I pay for that myself. So I was looking at.
Every hour that had gone into this and how what I thought would be so good and that I had hacked this based on the first event really fell flat. I feel like that I do sometimes get, I like, I let, I allow stuff to get to me, but the feeling yesterday was just another level and, and awful. And I think it was part of me. Getting attached to the outcome that I thought would happen, but also at the same time, grieving things that just did not work well along the way.
So for my workshop that I ran for Sophia Amoruso, you know, I thought that we would have so many more people live on the call. That didn't happen. I ran one event live and not one person turned up and I looked at everything that my past self had gone through to get to this point. And I don't know about you, but it was very much, I've done everything. Like I've done the work, I have done the events. I have moved through this. I have managed my mindset.
I've done the followups and how Even though there were big bumps in the road, I was so fucking good at navigating this, that I thought this is all going to come together last minute because there is no other choice for it not to. And it didn't. It didn't come together. And that stung. It stung so much. And there was a moment Yesterday where I thought, are people ever going to want to work with me?
Because, you know, I look to people that really posture out their own huge launches and that they've just had a seven figure launch and that people get really attracted to that. And I'm like, shit, if I still can't crack this a hundred K. You know, what's going to happen for my business? And I really let myself get into like, I would say this half an hour, little pity slump of me feeling like that everything was fucked. Uh, I cried. It was, it was a moment. It was a moment and a half.
And then I just let myself feel everything. I let myself feel sad. I let myself feel angry. I was angry because so many people had left me on read. I was annoyed that people had reached out and then I had given them information. I I'd written back to these really long in depth emails. They didn't write back to me and I felt, I felt really annoyed and. One thing that I will say is, you know, I had a friend say, Oh, it's just because everyone's stressed about the election.
And I'm like, yeah, but we've had the whole launch leading up to this. It's not just about the day. And of course, I think that that may potentially have impacted, I would say like a last minute or two sale for the most part, I think if there is something really empowering to do, it is taking full responsibility for everything that happens within your business. Because when. You take full responsibility for everything that happens. You know that everything is in your control.
And there is nothing that I can't stand more than a victim where everything that happens is somehow not their fault and everything is outside of their control. And What I did is I took ownership for everything that happened to the point that we were now. And when that happened, my immediate response was I've let people down. I have not done a good enough job and I have let people down because if I had done something better or launch better, there would be more people in this course.
And the course that I've created is designed to help people. So there was this moment of guilt that I had. And then I thought to myself, Peter. Calm the fuck down. The course does not expire. It is evergreen. People can purchase it today. The bonus just isn't there. And I remembered to myself something, but I tell my clients all the time, your hard work does not just disappear. It doesn't disappear.
And what was happening is that I had an expectation where all of the work that I did would pay off at a certain time. And that is not to say that every single person that came to an event was like, I fucking hate email, this bitch has ruined my day. These people were so interested, but for all of the reasons which they told me, it was just not the right time for them to purchase.
And this just goes to show that sometimes you can have a tactic, or you can do something within your business and it is working, but potentially not within the speed or the timeframe in which you want it to work. I had people give me feedback on the launch content saying this is so fun. We even had someone who bought last minute say, you may, you've made this launch so fun and selling feels fun. So even though the result was not. Appealing. And I had a moment of drama.
The work that has done is going to form the foundation for the big launch to happen. And you know, what will probably happen now, we probably won't even hit a hundred K. We could go straight to 200 K. I am open to anything happening. And I feel that the day that we do have a huge launch, I know someone will say, I am so jealous. And I will remind them.
Of all of the events, all of the no-shows, all of the follow-ups and all of the things that happened to get to this point, and that formed the foundation in which the big launch will occur. So what does this look like now moving forward? For give good email. Am I going to throw the course in the bin? Absolutely not. I today had a wonderful workshop with Michelle and her beautiful clients from Aussie biz chick.
You can tell that someone has built an incredible community by the people that turn up to the call and how enthusiastic they were and. At the time last night, I couldn't think of anything worse to go on a call after a launch that did not do as well as I thought to talk about email.
But when I woke up this morning, after a terrible sleep, I put my face on, I put some lipstick on, and I told myself that I was going to be the highlight of everyone's day and that they were going to have an amazing fucking workshop.
I taught that workshop and I felt so good and the feedback from everyone was amazing and it confirmed to me that you still need to teach and you still need to get out there because you are really, really good at this and potentially we need to bring in a couple of other things to support the goal happening.
But the thing is with launching, there is no such thing as a terrible launch, because I do believe that even if the sales or whatever it is, has not been where you desire it to be, there is so much more to launching than making sales. And yes, money is important. We are in business to make money, but being visible. Brand building. I had a speaking event offered to me and that came from someone coming to my event. More people in the coworking space know who I am.
I am potentially going to be doing a collaboration with someone. So all of this happened from being visible and something that I know about business. And I really hope that you have an experience like this soon, where you do something and you feel like that nothing works out or you wasted money.
And then you find out two years later that this key opportunity that you had came from the thing that you thought was just such a waste of money, or it was a waste of time, or at the moment that it happened, it was a really, it felt really undesirable for whatever reason. So I know that. Everything that is happening now, there is going to be so much gold that comes from that for my future self. I want to applaud my future self because launching is an Olympic sport and I got through it.
I got through it. So some lessons for you here. Your feelings aren't real because your feelings are usually triggered by a thought, and your thought is what you are currently thinking about a circumstance, and that can be very different. People will look at a circumstance and they will devise something very different and think a completely different thought.
So if you are feeling negative about something that has happened, this is where you can look to the thought and ask yourself, is it going to be more productive? To think something different. So you feel better. And then from that, you will have a different action and get a different result in your business. This is obviously the work of Brooke Castillo. So instead of me being like, I fucked my launch, I'm a failure. I was like, you have everyone that is so fucking keen.
And this next launch is going to be major. Like you have done the work for a future launch. And did I feel a hundred percent on top of the world? No, but I felt a bit better. And I needed to kind of get through that because I knew that I had a busy, a busy week, a big day. So you can look at your feelings. and ask yourself, what are you thinking currently that is making you feel that way?
And can we change a thought to not be the complete opposite and super positive, but to just bring us back to this point of being neutral. So we can move forward. We can have a level head. We can make better business decisions. Another thing that you need to be conscious of is in business. You never want to reward or praise yourself from. The reward that you get or the outcome that you get, I am a firm believer that you need to look at the effort. All right.
This would be like, if someone is getting fit. Running 5k is amazing, but that only happens because you consistently train and we need to reward the training and realize that is what is amazing and not the outcome, because the outcome is going to be inevitable. If you are doing the right work, sometimes it's just going to take a little bit longer than you would like, because if you're anything like me, you're fucking impatient. So this is where you can look at.
Something that is happening in your business and change your success metric so that you're not relying on, you know, closing deals or having these huge launches. And yes, of course, we do want to have goals like that, but you're also looking at, you know, reaching out, following people up and stuff that when you consistently do that is going to lead to this amazing result.
I want you to reframe the drama thinking that everything is lost and that it's all doom and gloom and remember that hard work compounds everything compounds and you have no idea what is happening. Behind the scenes right now for your business, you have no idea the conversations that people are having. You have no idea what someone is doing. They could be selling stuff on the Facebook marketplace or having conversations or doing a strategic sale.
So they can work with you or moving things around for whatever reason. You have no idea what is happening behind the scenes. And even if you currently don't have the evidence of that now, that can still be in motion. And that is really, really helpful to think about. You know, I, when I was feeling a bit funny this morning, I had someone who messaged me and was like, Oh my God, I can't believe I missed it. Am I still able to buy? And it's really interesting.
I have my notifications turned off on my phone. So you think about it. I was still thinking about this terrible launch. And yet I had someone that was DMing, DMing me wanting a sale. And actually I had someone else who was like, can I buy the starter pack? Where's the link? So remember that. Even if you're thinking something, there actually could be stuff happening behind the scenes that is affirming the thought that you wish would happen.
Another thing is you can't dwell on my gosh, you can't dwell. I used to love staying in the drama and I used to get so much out of kind of catastrophizing and spiraling and feeling like that. Things weren't working out. And I, I feel that I loved it because it was a really familiar feeling. And even if what I was thinking was awful and not desirable, the sheer familiarity of this just felt so comforting because I knew what I was getting myself into. But what you want to make sure.
Is that if you have this really definite North star of where you're going and what your business looks like, you know, for me with give good email, it's that we have 10, 000 business owners that are in there that are impacted that I need to remember that. And that if I want to stay in the drama, that's fine, but staying there is not going to help me get to where I want to be. And I need to have strategies. I need to do things where I can get back to this point.
Of being neutral and moving forward, you know, it's almost four o'clock in the afternoon of the day after my launch. And I forget how upset that I was yesterday. I just am back on track thinking about, okay, what's this funnel going to look like? We've got to do the emails. We have to do this. And there was a point in my entrepreneurial timeline when I was in my early twenties, and I would let things drag out, not even for a fucking week, but for months at a time.
And I would carry all this negativity, get in the habit of just dumping it. And this has been a real process for me. To get through and not that I'm blaming my parents, but my modeling very much when I was younger was continually bringing stuff up. It was used as, as ammunition, nothing was ever forgotten. And it was something that I bought up in my business. And I've really, really had to work on, on processing and then dropping things and moving forward, process drop and move forward.
I want to say too, that if you have launched and it hasn't worked well, don't overlook again, the visibility and the brand building and the fact that people may buy other offers as this happened. And I feel like being really visible and me being in the sales energy, right? Because I was following people up about give good email. Do you know what else I was doing? I was following people up about other offers. I have locked in a well paying client for Q1, which I'm so excited about.
I've had conversations about business bang and I've been moving forward with that. So whatever energy you have is going to impact everything else in a good way and in a bad way. So if you are in a good sales energy, that is of course going to impact other things. If you're in a bad sales energy, that's going to impact other things as well. I'm going to say too that, um, when I went and listened to Stephen Bartlett, when was this? I think it was at the start of the year.
And he mentioned something about, And he said that the people that don't innovate because stuff are working usually stall later down the track. I can't remember the exact words that he used, but it was something with like a phone and he showed this clip and it was people from, I don't know if it was Blackberry and they were laughing about the iPhone because they're like, who would want that because it doesn't have like the keypad. I don't know.
And how everyone over time has switched to the iPhone. He was talking about, you know, how these people were continually having to innovate and try new things and how they became so much further evolved because they were having to work through failure and find something that worked.
I feel I've butchered that, but I think about this a lot in business that, you know, In a way, there's part of me that wishes that I, from our first launch, hacked something that I was like, this worked so well, let's just keep doing this moving forward. But, we have had to continually change our launches, change the strategy, change the messaging, and it's something that it hasn't really been set and forget. I've had to continually evolve.
And I know At the, like, I know it feels fucking annoying because you wish that you could just work something out. But I know that there is a future version of myself that is so grateful that I'm doing this now, because this is not going to be my last bad launch. It's just not, because when you commit to being an entrepreneur, when you have a business, you are dealing with continual uncertainty and things outside of your control.
And something that I know to be true is that if I can't handle this, or how I handle this is going to serve a future version of myself so well because I am doing the groundwork and I am doing the reps that future me is going to get the benefit from. So if you have had a bad launch, know that I am there with you and you got to keep going. Because good launches don't happen by you giving up, results don't happen by you just throwing the towel in and deciding that this is fucked.
You know what does happen? People go to your fucked competitor and you don't want that. You are too good for that. There is going to be someone that you are going to cross paths with that is so grateful for you moving through this challenge. And even if that person is just future you, that is going to go through something and you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm, I'm actually really glad that I went through this because I'm dealing with this now, but past me got through that.
So remember that your future self, everyone around you, especially if you are in a mentor capacity, um, a mentoring capacity is going to be so grateful for the experience that you are dealing with right now. Hot stuff. I love this. Um, I don't actually, I don't love that we've had a bad launch, but I've loved recording a podcast episode for you as always, I love you more than the incredible little, it was like a Mediterranean lunch that they put on at work today.
It was so delicious and I had Turkish delights. It was wonderful. I love you more than that. I love you more than the workshop that I ran this morning. I was on fire. It was good. The content was good. I added some more in, I was worried that we were going to go over time and that may be too complex, but it just landed perfectly for everyone. Love you more than that. Love you more than the. Post chat praise, sorry, the post workshop praise in the chat.
I do love some praise and that was just amazing. I love you more than the praise that we've also had for GGE launch and how everyone has loved it sensational. And I love you more than the McDonald's that I'm probably going to have for dinner. I love McDonald's. There was a part of me back in my early twenties where I would rather Go on a water fast, then eat McDonald's. If that was my only thing, I love it. I love some McDonald's quarter pound art.
They never put enough pickles though, and they never put enough sauce. That is my only criticism. McDonald's sponsor the podcast, but please, please, please, please. More, more sauce, more pickles at a standard, at a standard. Hot stuff. I'll see you on the next episode. Love you. If you're craving more, make sure to subscribe to my email list, which you can find at professionalbabe.com. And word on the street I give good email.
Now go and take everything you've learned, get your hands dirty with it, and go and make some serious money.