There's one particular love hate relationship that we need to talk about today. And that is launching. Yes, it's one of those necessary evils that we all have to go through. Whenever it just comes to launching and putting your stuff out there. If it's content creation, if it's your next digital course, if it's a book, if it's an event, if it's your business, launching
is something we all must do. So I'm so happy to bring onto the show today, a launch expert and someone who specializes in getting online programs out into the world because I know that this is something that so many of you have told me. Alright, I'm creating content. Now I want to monetize, how can I make that
happen. And if you've listened to the podcast before, you know, I am a big fan of online coaching programs, digital courses, and selling workshops and other types of programs that meet people where they're at and gives you the ability to help them along their journey. So Carrie Flynn is the owner of
virtual simplicity. And she specializes in helping clients get their programs up and running by helping them get them created, designed and ready to launch using their specialized seen method, which means simple, easy, efficient, and now so that they can launch and maximize their profits. And Carrie, it was so fun. I loved having her on the show like we instantly became close friends because I was like oh my god, I get you and you get me and I feel seen.
We talked about the down and dirty about launching some of my own experiences and what it's been like and she just it was such a fun person to chat with. She's also someone that loves yoga, her daily coffee, British TV shows and movies and college football. Go Gators. She's been married to her husband for 16 years. And together they have two daughters. And they all live just outside of Mount Dora, Florida. So enjoy today's conversation with Carrie.
Welcome to the Prophet podcast where we teach you how to start launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we?
Alright, Proffitt Podcast listeners. I'm so excited for today's guest. Welcome to the show. Carrie.
Hi, how are you?
I'm so good. I love that you are in Florida. We were just chatting before you know, we were we hit record and I'm just like, oh my gosh, whoa. So I guess we're kind of on the same length with me being in Houston. She's in Florida. And I love the idea that you're in a tropical space. Are you around the ocean? Are you more inland?
Um, well, I think we're probably an hour. Okay, maybe an hour and 15 from I think the closest one is Daytona. I'm like looking in my head like which way because I used to live in Jacksonville, which I was only like 45 minutes from the ocean there. But Central Florida where I live now and your Orlando is kind of split between Tampa and Daytona so probably about an hour and 20 minutes. That which is fine for me. Like I'd rather be in a pool honestly.
I well. I'm about an hour and a half from Galveston. So I totally hear you there. Like it's like, Oh, I like to say I'm a beach sitter.
I'll get in the ocean. Guys. I grew up here. I'm not I'm not into it. Yeah, family. Well, I'm not. I'm just gonna hang out on the sand.
Man. We could we could just sit and chat. Um, oh shit. I mean, let's be honest. I wish we were recording this on a beach because recording this and it's still a little chilly outside.
But it's getting better supposed to be 75 today here.
Oh my gosh, I think it was in the 70s today. That's I mean, everybody. That's I have a lot of friends that are in the Midwest right now. And they're like, Y'all can both Shut up.
When you guys hear me call her and about 100 Plus, in the summer. Yes, that's when we get ours. So
exactly. Well, Carrie, I'm so excited to have you today because you specialize in something that so many of us struggle with. And I'm cracking up because when we were talking earlier, you know, I was like okay, here's here's a few ideas that we can talk about. And then we both shared the emotional side of launching is just the thing that so many of us struggle with. But before we get there, how did you get into this? How did you start help? People with their lunches and with their businesses
well in I think was probably, I guess it's April 2017. Like I'm coming up on my five year anniversary, and I can never like I don't have the exact date. But around April 2017, my oldest daughter was a, my baby was six months or seven months old. And at the time, I was still teaching public school full time. And so I originally started my business just as a virtual assistant, because the just wanting to bring in more
income into the family. So that's where it started small, like if that's where it started. And then probably six to eight months in, I scaled into being what's known as an OBM, or online business manager. And when I started working with clients in that capacity, I just, it wasn't like purposeful, I sort of just happened into working with clients who had programs. And they were launching something else like it could be, they were launching their group coaching or their
course. And a lot of them also used Kajabi. And so I ended up learning all about launch the launch process, the good, bad and the ugly, just by working with those clients on an ongoing basis, I learned a lot about that process. And then I also learned about building out the different pieces of stuff you need for launches, because I was the one doing a lot of it and Kajabi. So it was like, really it was on the job training. So
for about two years. And then I think in 2020 was when we really leaned into actually offering things as a separate service. So not just helping our one to one clients. But people needed help with launch support strategy, like they needed help with setting up all the pages or the tech and automate, you know, there's so many things that go into launching...
I'm nodding so hard right now!
Like a lot of things. And so we started offering this as just project based versus just for, you know, our one to one clients. And in last year, I actually went and got certified as a certified master marketer, and then a certified Launch Manager. So I got a lot of professionally developed stuff in 2021 to sort of help us with that. So it's been a lot of fun, but I am a pretty calm person. Because I've been through a lot of varying I mean, every type of launch, big and small, successful failed,
like all in between. So I don't get as rep ruffled by a lot of it anymore. And so that I think that's why I enjoy seeing other people be able to actually put their ideas out there, and and find some success. That's a lot of fun. For me, just getting them to the finish line is a big one for me.
Oh my gosh. And I can't even tell you how many times like, I have sat back and thought I'm so grateful that I launched the very first time that I did. And we'll chalk that one up in the failed launch category. But I'm, I mean, just so grateful that and I tell people this all the time, when they ask about launching a product, launching a book, launching a program anything, it's like, once you do it the very first time, you no longer have this fear of like I have to do this launch, and I have no
idea what's going to happen. I don't know what to expect. And so there's a lot of people listening that are either in the process of launching their podcast or launching their online business, and they're just really in their own head.
So can we talk a little bit about like, is there any one specific advice that you give to your first time launchers like they're brand new, maybe to the industry of having something online or creating content, anything like that, that comes to mind for a brand new launcher?
Yeah, well, the first time you do anything, I always try to remind people it's really to validate an offer. That's that's just an even if you have I've had people have like six figure first launches, that just happened, not normal, but it does happen. And that's exciting when it does. But normally, it's to validate the offers to prove that whatever thing you're putting out, there is an actual solution to a problem that your people have. So that's important to keep in
mind. Number one is that and number two, I would say is you have to think about the goals that you're setting and they need to be realistic. That's another thing that I think
people get. That's what causes some mindset issues for people is they're not really basing their monetary or financial goals or whatever goals off of something that's really a good metric to that you can actually somewhat predict I guess, and that can be difficult for people and then they think they failed, when really that goal wasn't that wouldn't have been achievable from the beginning.
So if you have, for example, a very small email list or no email list, like you can expect to have the ideal that you're going to sell 3000 people into your course I mean, magic happens but it's it's pretty unlikely that's gonna happen the first time and that's okay. So I see a lot of first time people who are really beating themselves up because they only had six people join and I'm like, but you have like 100 people on your list that's like
freakin great six is really. So it's a starting that means it's a validated offer. And now you're going to, like use that information to take you to the next step. So that's a big one, I would say. No more unrealistic goals.
And and like, where do you think that comes from? Do you think it comes from because I know that I've seen I've been in the online space of about since 2017 2018. Like whenever I really was like, Okay, I'm actually I'm going to do this, I'm going to learn I'm going to invest in programs that are going to teach you how to do this really well. And oftentimes, I will see some testimonials come out that are just like, oh my gosh, like,
that's what I want. I want this good jillion dollar business because they did it on their first try. And you know, and I can do it, too. So do you think that, you know, some of this mindset of unrealistic expectations comes from unrealistic testimonials? Like or where do you think that that's, like, grounded in,
um, it could be unrealistic testimonials, it could be that they're looking at the wrong thing. So I think sometimes when people get into, it could be a program or something that they're gonna, and I'm not gonna call out any specific program, because it's marketing is important. And testimonials are very, you got it, you should use testimonials, everybody, like that's important
for marketing. But sometimes when you are newer, especially when you don't have an audience, anywhere with or even or if it's newer, you know, it's very common for people to look at someone else who's maybe been in the game a little longer, or who's launched this insert thing, four or five times, or I have had a client who they did have an audience, because they had spent many years building that audience up, and then launched a course. So they actually did a lot of legwork.
And that's why they had more success the first time around, which is not always the case. So I think that it's a lot of comparison that happens with people I hate to call imposter syndrome. But maybe it's just they're looking at other things. And you don't know what somebody else is, especially somebody like Amy Porterfield, for example, she's been in business a long time has been doing this launch many, many years and has a lot of people to help her and
support her. And she's constantly learning from all of her launches. And then, and then taking that information and implementing it and improving it. And so she's, she hasn't really changed a lot of what she's offering. She's simply taking the information and improving it and improving it and improving it. And that's probably what it is, is you're looking at somebody else who might be further along than you are, and thinking that you can get there the first time when
that's maybe not the case. And that's okay. It's a long game, it's a marathon, it's really not a sprint.
Well, you bring up a good point two, because, you know, we've both learned from Amy, and she's someone that comes up here a lot on the podcast, people are like, Oh, I would love to be on her podcast and like, talk to her and be part of her community and all these things. But I know something that she teaches. And that is, you know, sticking to minimal offers and not having 17 different products and programs and all the things so kind of what are your thoughts? If someone has one product, they
launch it, it fails? And then they come to you and say okay, Carrie, I want to do another launch. But I don't want to do that ever again. Like that was terrible. I don't I don't like they have this PTSD from a launch like Does that ever happen where someone's like, I just want to ditch this product, it's not working, I'm gonna do something else.
It may not be the product it could be. That's why you have to have a pretty good process in evaluating all the metrics of what happens in doing a I know James Wedmore teaches too, but debriefing your launches is really critical. So looking at the numbers, numbers don't lie. So paying attention
to the numbers. That's why when you set goals, you want to base it off of, you know, numbers that are realistic, and if you don't, then you're going to be disappointed so, but doing a really good debrief of everything. And if it doesn't go the way you wanted it to it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a failing offer, you need
to really examine the offer. And if you keep changing the offer out, you're just going to have the same experience over and over again, because it takes time to really build up the messaging and build up the audience and make sure that you're speaking to the true problems that they have and you're giving them a great easy solution. With your offer and takes time to build know, like and trust with people. And you owe people that to continue to
do that. So if you just keep throwing in different things, it's it's like putting lipstick on a pig, you know, it's a very southern thing to say, I just realized you're going to totally understand just because you're in Texas, but it doesn't matter. It's just masking the problem with something else. So and but yeah, people do that a lot where they'll throw it out because it wasn't a good idea. Now there are times to do that. Don't get me wrong. There are appropriate times where we had the wrong
offer. And we need to, we figure that out by debriefing, and we can change the offer a little bit and pivot but I'm not a fan of pivoting just because I'm bored or it doesn't work. No, like I'm more of a fan of like, really trying to stick with it the long haul.
Yeah, and I think that that's really good advice for anybody that's listening right now and you're about to launch something or you just launched something and it didn't go like that debrief. I mean, oh my gosh, okay. This is going to be TMI, but I'm just gonna go ahead and share it. Because I just came off of a launch, I realized that and this was like, at the very top of my debrief is i It was awful timing
for me personally. Because in like I said, this is TMI, but I'm gonna go ahead and share it. I was right in the middle of my cycle. Oh, no. Oh, four. Oh, I thought I was like, how did I like totally misjudged this? On top of that, like I had to deal with a sick child, there was nights where I had sleepless nights right in the middle of the launch. Of course, if y'all watched the videos, y'all attended my training. You couldn't tell because I there was putting lipstick on the pig
that day. Yeah, that was coffee, coffee, espresso, like a cop back and forth. But I mean, something that I learned, and now I know going into my next lunch, okay, this, don't do that ever again. I need to make sure all the calendars are aligned to me
Where you launching in December as well?
No. So I launched I took December off. I didn't launch anything in December, but I launched in January. But this is actually a great topic. Are there a year that like, Oh, I know, it's for recording this on February 1. And
it's like January still sorry.
I know it's February 1. And when we're recording this and I January's gone, it flew by I don't know where it went.
Yes, I will say there are some times of year like I tell people don't don't launch in December because a you're going to be overwhelmed and stressed with most of the holidays that are celebrated our halls are celebrated in that month. And it's just a busy time of year so and people are
distracted typically. So unless you're like in you know, you're selling like E commerce or you know, digital online, like if you have a store, or it would be appropriate for you to sell because that's a busy market time for you otherwise, like you're launching courses, courses and code, you know, online things like January's fine, but even February is fine. Like give yourself a month to like, deal with the overhang. But there are certain industries, you know, you have
to know your people. So if your people are buying then like, launch then but if it's if you can't, don't need to just don't just avoid or if they're like during the election years and like guys don't run outs during like the second week of November, just give it a two weeks. And it's just right. Just like in 2020. I was like y'all don't like just skip November. Like the second week, I was like, weeks, it's gonna be rough. My friends from Canada
were like, what's going on? I'm like, Just give it some time like it was. The ads were so expensive. So you just have to pay attention to what's happening. And pay attention to how you're feeling too. If you're feeling like not well. Done. You can pivot if you need to, if you're not good. Like, it's hard.
Yeah, yeah. And I think that that, I think that it had that been one of my very first launches, I don't know that I would commit to lunch. Again. This was at this point, probably my 10 or 12 launch. So yeah, like I said, I'm like I can just I can make it happen. I can muster the energy. And you know, I was like, I could do that I got through it. But I want to go back to what I see very often because I'm a part of a lot of
online communities. There's people in our community that will get really excited about a launch. Like it's all the build up all the lead up. They've been spending weeks, maybe months working on their launch, and it's like the 24 hour period right before card opens or they actually launch and all the feelings come up. Oh, yeah. But like, I don't know that I'm ready. Should I really do this? I feel like I should push it
back. Like all the things. So can you talk to us about maybe what maybe some advice that you could give to those people or what would you say to a client and They came to you and I'm like, carry on, I am not ready. I don't know that I can do this.
Well, the emotions, I think we call it launch emotions, they're very real. And I can typically predict like, almost to the day like how somebody is going to behave when I'm working with them. When we work with them one to one anyway, it's pretty pretty, because everybody does the same stuff, which is like total, like questioning every questioning life, like the day before, like just questioning everything are they gonna buy, and then it's like, super
exciting. And then it's like a million people on by on the first day by day to their panic, they're like, totally losing faith in humanity. So like that middle, like two to three day day two to four is like, just feels terrible. And then it's like excitement again, because people, human beings always buy on car open or closed. It's like something about, I don't know why, but we all do it. And then like the four days in between, it's like really quiet and kind
of slow and trickles in. And people freak out during that like three days, kind of dead zone period. But I always like, the biggest thing you can do to prepare yourself is to really, really, really, really put in self care practices. Number one, like that's number one, like it sounds so dumb and silly. But you have to really do that ahead of time. So like prep, like get a meal planning service, go schedule, if you can afford to
do it. If it's in your budget, schedule, massage, schedule a facial like get your nails done, if that's something you're into, though, get your hair done, like go out for walks every day, have fresh flowers delivered like don't do and then don't suck yourself into like staring at them, you know, thing, if it helps you to look at the numbers and refresh all the time, it's just going to stress you out. So don't do that. That's number one, I always tell people to
like really plan that ahead. And then that if you have a team of people with you, that helps them because if you're not panicking, you're not going to burn them out and panic them out. Because you your job as a leader is to take care of them. If you're like panic, you're gonna end up behaving badly with your team, I just can care. So that's number
one, self care. And number two, I really encourage my clients to celebrate every day, something small, because something good is going to happen every day during a launch, even if it's one person joined, or, Oh, this email did great or something, look for something small to celebrate. And then it really bring your team in if you have a team of people and encourage them to celebrate, because that's going to put out the positive energy into the space and really dissipate negativity.
And again, it sounds kind of woowoo. But it really does like help you feel better. And regardless of the number outcome, you're going to enjoy that process because the point of it is to enjoy it. You can enjoy the process, but you have to prep yourself for it. So that's what I kind of forced my people to do they get sick of me talking about it. But it does help a lot.
Yeah, and I'm thinking of, I feel like we're in launch therapy. Now. I'm like processing all of the mistakes that I made. It's all
it's all information. And every time you get to the end of a lunch, it's going to give you information and then you can give yourself a few days or a week to refresh then you can go and reflect back on. Oh man, like, I didn't do handle that Well up next time. This is what I'll do. Like it's all in the same with the numbers. It's all just giving you info goes my alarm. That's my alarm to tell me my daughter gets out of school at three o'clock. So delightful. I'm
sorry about that. So that's pretty like, this is just mom life, guys, just so you know, like, this is my whole life. So I would say it's okay, like don't beat yourself up. Because like you said, you've launched what 1012 times, and you're still learning. That's the point, like you're gonna keep learning and don't get better and better and better and better every time you do it. And if it's not getting better, you have to ask yourself why and really dig into that.
This is great to know. I mean, I'm curious, do you work with a lot of people that are first time launchers? Or do you work with people that come to you and say, carry up lunch? I've really messed things up, here's my mess. Please look at it, examine it and help me
go there. Both we've had people come to us who are newer who are probably successful in business, but maybe haven't launched online before or launching a new thing that they have never launched before. We've had that many times and then we've also had people who are successful and have launched a lot but it's
messy or it's not. It's not scaling the way they like it or there's, it's not systemized, right, there's something wrong with it and they want to make it better or they just don't want to deal anymore and they're doing a lot of it. They don't want to do the things anymore. They just want to show up and be the CEO or show up and be with their people. And so we get lots of those people too.
Yeah. And while you're talking about all the things that you that go into a lunch, this might be, this might be a controversial question to ask, I don't know. I'm thinking about it, you're gonna, I'm gonna put you on the spot here. But what would you consider is the most important thing to focus on in the pre launch? Like, do you tell people work on growing your audience work on your sales page? Is it your email list, getting things
together for social media? Or does it just depend on the person and the type of launch?
It depends, but typically, what we do in that first phase, which is the pre launch phase, is we do heavily emphasize having like what's called a launch runway, so meaning you have a plan for your, your strategy of how you're going to communicate with people, whether that's social media, emails, and that first, you know, 12 weeks or so before you're opening the doors, all the things that you're talking about lives, all the content, anything, should be kind of starting to direct them and
prepare people. So you're kind of like strip little nuggets here and there to prep them. And they may or may not notice, but it's just a little like, thing here and there. And the little things that you're sharing are going to naturally lay the groundwork to lead them into, of course, then you'll launch at 12
weeks later. But I do encourage people list Bill, you always want to do that, if you don't have an opt in, that's a perfect time to create one, if you don't have a, even if it's a low cost, offer something to just bring people into your space, or reengage people, you know, in some in some manner, I'm always a fan of bringing new people because I people will make the mistake of not doing that. And then they're relaunching the same thing, those same people, and then it gets kind of stale.
And so it's nice to have a fresh set of eyes. And that's the goal. So yes, we always encourage that. That's important. And then if you do have, you know, it's a new offer, that's a perfect time to
create a strategic plan. Even if it's an old offer a new strategic plan, set your goals, look at what your numbers are on your email list, don't base it off of your Instagram followers, like really look at something you can predict off of set the good, better, best goals, you know, create the plan for what you're going to do. And then you're starting to activate the people involved. So that first part of it is really just
getting people ready. And it takes I mean, not a lot of people give themselves enough time. It really is a 12 week process from the day you start the plan until you actually open the doors to the program.
Yeah, that's what I was about to say, when you said 12 weeks a second, I'm sure there's a lot of people are like what? Watch? Exactly. So can you go a little bit more into? Like, what, when you work with people, and you're trying to set them up for success? Whenever they're launching? Is there anything that you're like, Okay, first and foremost, we really lay this out, because we want this, this and this to happen, or what happens over a 12 week period that you think are just super important.
So the first three weeks already mentioned, that's really where you're kind of putting your plan together you're looking at, like, what if you're going to have an opt in, what is it, we're going to get it out there and start promoting it, or we're kind of getting our plan in place for the content, like we're gonna start strategically talking and
sharing and all that. And if you again, you use social media, but it could be emails could be on a podcast, if you have a podcast, use your podcast play me, that's an excellent way to sell like do that. Any way or your marketing, you're going to share and then probably about three, that you're also going to do any new copy any copywriting at the beginning, because that's the part that takes a long time, believe it or not, and it's kind of the thing that is needed in
many areas. So a lot of people think they can design in the new copy on like, well, they kind of work together. And so get your copy out of the way. That's the thing that a lot of people get stuck in that keeps them from launching on time, believe it or not. So if you don't have the means to hire help and copywriting, like start with that to during those first three or four weeks, and then you're going to move into the implementation phase. That's where you build everything,
pages. Products, if you need to all the tech, scheduling emails, scheduling social media, like scheduling everything digitally, that you're just putting everything together. And that's a three year that's probably a four or even sometimes five week process because it's just a lot of stuff. If you have things you're reusing, it's a lot faster if it's a new offer.
That's why we have four or five weeks because it takes time to put together a landing page, a sales page, thank you pages scheduling the emails like scheduling your social media content, creating them graphics, creating the all the things, I'm just listening. Like, that's not even everything. It's just like little things. And then really the last phase is when you actually do your sales events.
So if you're doing, I have clients that do private podcast as a sales event, webinars, workshops, challenges, whatever you're choosing to do, that third phase of it is really a few weeks long, maybe 10 days ish. And that's just really when you're opening the doors, like we're opening the doors to our program, we're doing ourselves event, we're doing all the things that we need to do while
the doors are open. And then at the end, we close the doors, and we do our debrief, I will say in the middle of phase two, you're starting to promote your sales event as well. So you got to keep that in mind. Give yourselves a couple of weeks to do that.
Well, y'all, I hope that you understand what Carrie just gave, you will like go back and listen to everything that she does. Because that was like I'm nodding. I'm nodding along so hard. If y'all can't see me like I, it sounds like a lot. It is. Yeah. But it also is very effective. If executed properly. Yep. But I know that there's a lot of people listening, you know, you've talked about you know, your team or having a team. But you've also done launches as a
solopreneur. Right? And is there any one thing that you're like, Okay, if you had to spend so much if it's just you, but maybe they could hire a VA to just help in a few areas here and there? Do you have any recommendations on where to start with that.
And you can really just know, you can really start small, I mean, I've had clients, it's going to sound very counterintuitive to what I just said, but I'm all for like imperfect action, and then you can make it better. So what I just explained to you is typically what I do with our one to one clients, and then we also teach people how to do on their own but, or I do it in intensives, with clients if they hire me to do it with them. But you don't have to have any of that, at the beginning to be
successful. If you have something you want to beta test, it's new, I've had clients literally kind of build a sales page on a Google document, it's very, very minimalist. And they maybe had, they put together emails for their email list. And they had maybe an often that they were list building. And then they were doing some sort of organic social media, it wasn't anything fancy. They didn't have 30 different emails, you know, it wasn't anything crazy. But they just started
talking about it. And sometimes I'll tell people to do that. I'm like, alright, you have this thing, a good call, I want you to just start like selling it tomorrow. And we'll just like, that's gonna validate it and give us some info. And then we can prepare for a bigger, bigger launch, you know, especially if it's a smaller product, you really want to know if it's validated or not just put it out there. Let's just go. Yeah, I mean, I have I literally have a client right now. And she's
amazing. And she just didn't have the time to finish the sales page. But she had it on a Google Doc, she just started, just started putting it out there. And it was it was successful, because her messaging and what she was saying was resonating with people. And it was a solution to a problem that they had, but she just didn't have the page, it should have some of the pieces. Don't let the implementation part stop you from, you know, putting your stuff out there.
You can really start messy. And then you can really grow and do it. You know, you can go from level 12345. Like you don't have to have all the fancy tools that Amy's probably using in her lunches, for example, that is not a requirement for success. She didn't have those when she started DCA, I can guarantee you, so just sort of ease in as you go and build like stairsteps
Yes, yes. And this is I mean, this is true. I'm again, I'm taking it back, because I just did it. But this was the first time I had ever really built in all of my, my automations. I use ConvertKit for my email service provider. And you know, ConvertKit does great where you can have a broadcast and you can schedule it out on a certain day. Well, I did the whole visual automations
which I love so much. And I was able to build out this super fancy, sophisticated thing and I was sharing it with some friends and they were like, Oh my gosh, like this is amazing. You have to show me how you did this. And I told them there's no way I'm showing you how to do this because this took me eight launches before
Oh, please don't do that the beginning Yeah. No, like
no, this is not my first launch. This is like four years in I'm finally able like in in like this is what my question is going to be is what type of confidence like the compounding confidence from someone that is just getting started. Like you said they're launching really scrappy versus someone who doesn't done it a few times. And I'm like, okay, like, I think that I can do something a little bit more challenging is that typically what you'll see happen with people that launch
Very, there'll be more...the confidence is when you know you have a validated offer, when you know that it impacts people. It makes you more comfortable taking not risks with the launch itself, that they're more comfortable trying maybe unique and different sales events or different ways of doing things or maybe playing around with something, just to see what happens or more learn to test. And that's great like, and also they're more willing to, like lean into and amplify what their
strengths are. A lot of people at the beginning aren't as comfortable doing that, because they want to do what works what
they think works. And as you get more confident and more successful and successful meaning like the offer is, you know, really helping people, that's when you can see people really get much more comfortable in what they're supposed to do, and they're more willing to let go of stuff that they don't need to do and they can get help and support and try tech new automations they might try different they might try new emails, you know, there's much more comfortability and then if
it totally bombs, you're like, Okay, well, let's go try that didn't work, get rid of it. And they're more willing to like, evaluate the info and they don't get personally offended by it either. Very often, they just go, Well, that sucked. And, okay, now we're going to do this, we're not going to do that again. So that's how you know you're doing okay, if you're willing to, no, it didn't go so well. But, you know, you still had people join. So that's, they were happy about that. But
yeah, I love that personally offended by something that like that you created yourself because I like that just hit.
Yeah, well, they're but they're not as apt to, like completely, like, just think they're a failure. If something if they if they set a goal for like 400 registrants and only 200 signed up. They're not necessarily going to get like just totally, you know, emotional, they're going to go okay, what was that a realistic number, like, oh, but yeah, I only had 200. But like, you know, 75% of them showed up
live. And so they're going to look for the thing to like, which that happened with someone recently where she had a goal of like, 400, she had like 150, signup, which wasn't her goal. But then she had, like, of the 150 100 of them were live, which is like a super high, show up live to a webinar rate, just so you're wondering, it's usually like 20%. And that's like 70% or 80%, which is very, very high. So that's something to celebrate. So she was like, Okay, well, that didn't work.
But this is a really positive. So she's you just automatically are looking for the winds. And they don't change and you just, we just immediately pivoted right out of that into Okay, well, let's see what we can do next time to improve. And that's what we did.
That's awesome. That's awesome. Oh my gosh, I'm just like, yeah, that would be incredible to have that many people alive. And they bought from you what
I mean, then it's a hire and hers is not a course we're talking a higher ticket, you know, eight week coaching program. So this is a big ask, but you know, having out of those people like 1010 or 15 Apply and then you know, six sign up. It's a big deal. It's a It's I was like happy about it. I was like, This is good.
Heck yeah, you're like this is a win.
I'm all for setting, you know, best goals like B hags, big, hairy, audacious goals. Nothing wrong with them. Just don't like tie your tie your whole life to them. Because we like to stay in the real world. Yeah, we can't predict.
Yes, that's so good. And especially because, you know, I imagine that you have different clients across multiple industries, too. So you would be able to see, okay, we know that this works really well in this industry. And this one, you know, like, let's try this. But is there anything that you've seen kind of over the last 12 months that that's a trend compared to whenever you first got started? Is there something that's working a lot better today,
when I started webinars were really big work. Don't get me wrong. I will say people are much more comfortable trying different sales events now, which I love because I feel
I love that. Oh my gosh, she just gave me so like you got to do what works for the people you're serving. And not everybody is going to benefit from or can show up to a webinar. So if you have if you're servicing mothers so I have a friend who it her businesses is servicing homeschool women, women who homeschool and are entrepreneurs. So showing up live is very challenging for
them. And so she's really done a nice job of thinking outside the box and I I have another client of mine who does private podcasting because that has been
very effective. And so instead of doing a webinar, she's doing what she would teach in a webinar in a private podcast over like five, six episodes and, and then you can combine that If you enjoy engaging with people, lots of people are combining doing like hybrids of something plus a Facebook group or a pop up group plus, texting, you know, there's so many things
you can play with. And I just always tell people like one what is resonating with you and to like, what's gonna serve the people you are best and just play around with it. And it's a lot of fun. But man, private podcasting, I've seen a lot lately, I don't know. It's been very popular lately. So it's really neat, because it's, it's kind of passive. And people can do it whenever. And then you can
still combine it. Like if you want to engage with people, like in a live setting, you could do it in your Facebook group, if you had one, or like a Slack channel or something, whatever. I mean, there's so many ways to have fun with it. So outside the box, like one of somebody did a webinar, instead of calling a Weber they call it a cocktail party. Like over the holidays, she did something and that was real cute. And so everybody came to the thing with cocktails, and
she still did our webinar. But it was fun. It's so like, there's ways to like jazz it up. And you know, I thought that was cool. It's a cocktail party idea. Yeah, I love coffee chat. If you don't drink coffee chat, you know, there's so many cute, fun, that's a place you can get creative, you can do something normal and just reinvented, which is fun. And again, it totally is like, then you just move on and try something else that you can play with is your sales event a little bit.
many like fun ideas. Because I wouldn't think
a million more out there that I'm sure I haven't heard of that. Those are my favorites recently. But this
is what's so fun. Because this is an ever changing, ever evolving industry. And so if somebody's listening, and you're just getting in, and you're like oh my gosh, like I have 1000 ideas, like Carrie just said pick one that really resonates with your personality, who you are and a way that you can actually deliver to your audience and feel confident about it. Because I will see people that come to me, like a deer in the headlights and they're just like, I don't want to be on
camera. I don't want to do this. And like you just said you could do a private podcast,
you can do an email series, you can do a video series, if you have YouTube, like there's lots of ways or just go live on your Facebook, if you are comfortable. Like you don't have to do it on Zoom. Like there's lots of ways to do it where you're not. Not uncomfortable. Always challenge and push yourself, of course, because that's important. But you don't have to start out doing a fancy webinar. That's like 90 minutes long. You know if you don't want to,
yeah. Oh, this is so good. We've mentioned so many awesome tools. And now I'm thinking of what's your like, favorite launch tool, like the thing that you're just like, I could not live without this one launch tool?
No, that is so hard for me. Okay, because we usually will combine multiple things. And so my favorite one that I work in for hosting things is Kajabi. That's my favorite. So if you have a course if you have a membership, that's my like go to my favorite still has a wonderful customer experience on the customer side. So that's my favorite for that. I do love trying to think what's the other thing we've done recently that I really liked. You know, video ask has been a
lot of fun for me lately. And you're probably like, what's that carry? It's this type form. unza, which is type form is like questionnaires and stuff. But you can put on your sales page, it looks like a little circle up
your face talking to them. And they can ask you questions, you can also embed these really cool like videos of you just like on a thank you page, you can send them an emails and it's just a way to kind of increase engagement with people and you can just video yourself doing like these short clips where you're, instead of just emailing them questions, you can ask the questions and then one of our clients has had a lot of success with more engagement and increase the show up rates for
webinars or for live events and you can put them in your funnels, like there's a lot of play with it. So I highly recommend it's really not super expensive monthly. It's not a huge investment. So if you're comfortable with the video I highly recommend very very effective. It's a lot of fun to I've been playing with it for my own business to
this is so good so I can I can tell you a quick story about video ads because I actually I got an affiliate I was doing an affiliate promotion last year and I did I tried it I wasn't Should the free trial video ask to see, you know, I had some, yeah, about like some buffer time in my, in my 12 week launch plan. I was like, Oh, I had like a day or two where I was like, what else could I do? And that's
what I did. I did a video and actually, I got a cell from it, even though Hey, what do you what I was doing?
Very effective. And I was like, I had heard of it and hadn't really done a ton. And then I just recently started working with a client when a month or two ago and she has a very robust video, ask, and I was like, this is the best thing I've ever seen. And but I just think it's cool. You can embed it on your pages. So if you want to have like, instead of having like the little mini chat thing, it's like, he looks like your face. And you're just like, it's
funny. It's like, it's it's interesting, it makes it makes people want to click on? I don't know, yeah, you can do that, which is a little more advanced, or you can literally just record a video of yourself and it can embed it in the email. It works in ConvertKit really well. And other things, too. Oh, that's
awesome. Well, we're gonna have a link to Carrie's favorite tools, and I'm gonna throw in some that I've tried as well.
But if they do, you should get everybody should be a video ask if they have.
Well, this is so awesome. I really appreciate you sharing all the amazing launch knowledge. I felt like this was a masterclass, and we're gonna come back before they launch and they started planning their strategy. But I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions fun. Yep. for that. Okay,
I can have good answer. I've had answers.
Okay. Well, the first one is, what piece of advice would you give to a brand new content creator, or someone that's just about to launch,
okay, if you're new, just make sure you have somebody in your circle that you can, that can be like a support person for you. And I mean, that's not very sexy, but you need somebody to kind of be able to go to invent to so if you're new content creator, somebody that and the somebody that you can trust to talk to. And then if you're new, you need to get investing in yourself. That's a,
that's just a given. Like, you can use all these awesome tools and get all the tech and all the things but at the end of the day, like nobody got here alone. If you're in any success, nobody got there by themselves. So if you haven't already invested in some coaching or a paid membership or something, please do that, like ASAP, because you'll have some additional support for your launch beyond just the strategy and stuff, which is important. But make sure you invest in yourself.
Make sure you have somebody to support you. That's appear. Very important.
Great. That's great. I know it's yeah, I totally agree. I think that that's fantastic advice. Okay, the next one is a two part question. And it is what is the dream podcast you would love to be on? And who is the dream podcast person that you could interview?
Oh, I don't know. That's hard. Okay. I do really love. This is not a business podcast. So you know, but I actually really like Glennon the Doyle. No, I don't know what her
I think it's gonna do. I don't think either.
Today Oh, we can do her thing. do her thing. That's one of my favorite podcasts. I love that one so much. And I would I would be, I would love to either be on it or interview them because I think they just cover super cool topics. Another podcast that I would love to just like vibe with is actually really like armchair expert. Again, not a business. I'm terrible. Like I all I listen to podcasts that
are always business related. But that or Brene Browns podcast, probably because I feel like I could just grab on for hours because they have such interesting topics. And that would be a lot of fun for me.
Well, you just listed three of my some of my favorites. So
do you like lazy genius as well? The lazy. I think it's called the lazy genius. It's hers is really good, too.
Oh, this is so good. Well, my last question is Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?
Yes. Which makes it very hard to, for me to launch myself. So when I tell you I understand I really do. And I'm a low click star on the Colby, which is also just delightful.
Oh, that's so funny. But I think that it's fantastic that you have this experience that you can bring to the table to tell people like look, I truly understand what you're going through what I'm really doing.
Right, it's I have to push myself forward every day, or I just won't go anywhere. So I really get it.
Oh my gosh. Oh, Carrie, thank you so much for coming on the show today. And I know that there are so many people in the audience like I don't think I want to do this alone. I would love to hire Carrie and her team to come help us out. So what does that look like and where can people learn more about where with you for their next launch,
we have kind of something at every level. So if you are somebody who is kind of starting out, we have some kind of DIY freebies and low cost offers, I'm getting ready to relaunch my course where I talk about kind of getting your first 30, or next 30 students in your course using Kajabi. It's called the K 30 roadmap that will be coming out probably the end of February, I'm just updating the content. Fixing the sales page, which I know you all know all about. So and we also have some
free and low cost options. I have a launch toolkit that's a
like $27. And then we have a free launch checklist and a Kajabi checklist, which helps you kind of check off and get all the things in order for your launch or get all the things ready to use Kajabi to do all of your implementation tools I have that on that's all on our website, virtual simplicity Co. But if you're ready for some more like one to one or done for you support, I do a series of different VIP days and intensives for people who just want to have like something
quick to help them get started. Or if you're really ready for the full on like, let's let Carrie and her people come in and handle it for you. We will we have those done for you services as well. And all of that is listed on our website under the work with us button on our site.
Perfect. Well, we're going to link to everything all the freebies that Carrie mentioned, and the different ways that you can work with her and her team. But I I'm so grateful for this conversation today. I felt like like I said, You're my launch therapist. I'm gonna
I'm gonna call myself sometimes that's great.
Well, I'm just sitting here like, Carrie, can I tell you all the ways that I messed up my last launch?
Launch therapist trademark?
Yes, yes. It's Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today, Carrie,
thank you for having me. I had the best time it was awesome.
So fun. Like I said, I like launching is the necessary evil. It's the thing that we all must do in order to show up in a big way and put our content out there and start our businesses but Carrie just really kind of put my mind at ease for my next lunch I talked about where I messed up on a previous lunch, but it just really helped me see things from a different perspective. And I hope that you felt the same way. Make sure you go get connected with Carrie and reach out to her and her team.
If she's someone that you'd love to work with. You can find all her information at Krystalproffitt.com/episode343 for today's show notes, but that's all I have for you. So if this is your first time tuning in, make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening and take a screenshot wherever you're listening to this podcast today. Tag me tag Carrie and let us know what your number one takeaway was from today's episode. But that's all I have
for you. So as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.