The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

41 ⎸ What it's Like Launching Courses

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 41

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Creating a course is no easy feat. Launching it can be even more challenging. In this solo episode I’m diving into the stats from our most recent launch of The Bookkeeping Business Accelerator™️, as well as talking about

  • what it’s like to launch a course
  • who I learned from
  • and other tips and insights many people have been asking for.

You can still join The Bookkeeping Business Accelerator Self-Paced Course here>>

Course Mentors Mentioned In the Episode:

Thanks for listening. For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

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Serena:

Someone recently posted in a group that I'm a part of specifically asking me and tagging me. To speak, to building a course and mentors or programs that I recommended for the process. So I thought it would be really helpful for so many more of you who have thought about building an online course. Even if it were accounting related, there is plenty of room for everyone. We all have our own style. That being said, I've taken lots of courses from different people, with different styles and methods for launching and delivering courses. And clearly. All the methods work. You just have to be clear on who you serve and your messaging along with your, why. Which sounds a little familiar, right? Okay. So this week's episode I'm getting into. All things online course related. The work that goes into launching mentors. I learned from, and I'm going to debrief on my most recent launch of the bookkeeping business accelerator. So i hope you stick around this is going to be a really fun episode Hey, and welcome to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. I am certain issue. I am a CPA and mom of three, and I'm running a virtual bookkeeping business. Mostly from my home. You're in the right place. If you're a bookkeeper accountant or an accounting student, and you know that your purpose is bigger than sitting in a cubicle. If you're ready to learn some actionable tips and strategies to help you start and grow a bookkeeping or accounting business, I hope you stick around. So picking up where I left off before the intro. You just have to be clear on who you serve and your messaging along with your, why your why is so important. You need to be clear on this? Just like I say about being clear on your why for building a business in general. If you're doing this online course creation thing. Out of avoidance of serving clients because you're burned out and exhausted. And resentful of the types of clients that you have, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. So if you've ever thought about building an online course to sell. And get passive income. I really want you to listen to the rest of this episode. I don't want to scare you off, but I want you to know the realities of it. So if you're doing it, or if you want to build a course and launch a course, because you truly want to serve and serve more people than you can in your one-on-one work, or you truly want to expand and help someone learn how to do what you do on a larger scale, it will work much better. I promise. Another thing to note in a one-on-one business like we have with our clients, our bookkeeping clients, you will spend about 80 or 90% of your time serving your clients and the other 10% building marketing. And. An outreach in your business. And an online course business. However, you become more of a personal brand. And have to spend more like 50 to 75% of your time marketing and selling. So, if you already struggle with selling inside of your bookkeeping business or marketing in your accounting business, You're going to have a difficult time starting out with, uh, with an online, personal brand course business. So another thing is. This, this comes up a lot and I see it with clients as well, because this is the niche that I serve. Your first launch may flop. You likely won't have a five or even six figure launch. I have yet to have a six-figure launch, but that isn't my emo. And we'll get into the numbers at the end of this episode for you, who clicked on the episode to hear those details. But I just want to be transparent about the numbers and what the industry actually looks like. Like I said, I work with lots, of course, creators. Some make it look really easy and some are truly on the struggle bus. And I'm waiting for the day when a few of my clients realize that it isn't what they want. And we're all entitled to do this, by the way, you're allowed to decide this. Isn't what I want, whether it's in your bookkeeping business, or if you decide to try out online courses or you decide to do something completely different, like you get to decide. So before we get into my most recent launch debrief, I want to walk you through my journey to becoming a course creator and building this brand, the ambitious bookkeeper. I'm I'm hoping in some of my previous episodes, I've kind of talked about why I started the ambitious bookkeeper brand and kind of how that started. So I'm not going to go into. The details of how I decided to serve other accountants. This is more about my. The rabbit hole that I went down into when I discovered online courses and, and started. Um, pursuing that in addition to my bookkeeping business. So I'm going to talk about who some of my course mentors are, uh, some are well known and some of the others aren't. Uh, but I hope this gives you some insight into, like, all it takes is finding one podcast. And then you find another one and another one and another one. And then all of a sudden you're following like 10. Online course gurus. And I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way to do that. Of course, like you might already be in that rabbit hole if you're listening to this episode and you've already kind of started to go down the path of doing an online course. And you're like, there's just so many resources out there. I don't know who to listen to, who to follow. So hopefully this helps with that because I'm going to give you. Not a synopsis of each course, I took, but kind of how it helped me. And if I recommend. The courses that I took. So the first person I actually came across. In the online space with Katie Fleming. Shout out to Katie. I was searching the term ambitious motherhood or ambitious mom, something along those lines in her podcast came up and at the time I think it was called ambitious motherhood. Now it's called ambitious mom. That's her brand. And I think. Clearly, I was looking for a community of moms or someone else that was a mom, but also really ambitious. Like I was really struggling with that identity of, okay. I'm wanting to be a stay at home mom, but I still have like all these goals and ambitions. So. I, I want to know that I'm not alone. So I found her podcast just by searching on apple podcasts, that term. Okay. And so I started listening to her podcast. She has like a super soothing voice. I just loved everything, everything she was talking about. And, um, fun fact is that was probably like, I think that was like 2017. Ish. And. All this time. I think I had. I jumped in a couple of her, like smaller. Courses and things she was doing, but it wasn't until recently that I actually like, I'm now working with her. Um, so that's how long it can take to make the decision that you're ready to work with someone. Uh, and it's been five years, so it's like, it's the long game. You guys, it's a long game. So through her podcast, I listened to an interview that she did. She had, um, Jill Stanton on her podcast interviewing. Who was half well. Is still half of the brand. It used to be called screw the nine to five. Now they are the wealthy course creator. It's Jill and Josh Sandton, husband and wife team. Um, so I heard her interview and I was like, oh, Jill sounds pretty cool. So then I started listening to Jill and Josh's podcast, which was, um, I think it was called screw the nine to five back then their podcasts. Now it's called multi course creator. Um, And. Then listening, starting to listen to their podcast every week, I heard them talking about Amy Porterfield and so I was like, Hmm, who's the senior board or field person. So. I found Amy Porterfield's podcast called online marketing made easy. And. I just started consuming all of her. Like she has some amazing, tangible podcast episodes on. Um, online marketing, obviously, because that's what it's about, but like email marketing. Courses, all sorts of stuff. And then she has other guests come on to guests experts in this, in this space. Um, so after following Amy for a while, I decided to enroll in her, um, smaller course list builders society. And this course helped me learn email marketing, figuring out my initial, like. ICA for the core side of things. So that's your ideal client avatar? Um, Figuring out like a freebie to set up or a lead magnet, whatever you want to call it. And start building an email list so that eventually I could launch a course. And. I, that course was a hundred percent worth it, if you like her style. So. With all of these, like that's the. Like take it with a grain of salt. If you like the person's style, then I fully recommend. These people that I'm going to talk about, but you have to decide if you like their style first there's other options too. I like their style. So I went ahead and bought, but it takes me a while to get used to, like, I listened to their podcasts. I figure out like, do I like the way they teach? And do I resonate with. What they're saying. And that's when I make the decision. If I'm going to enroll in their course or whatever they have going. Um, because if you can't stand their voice, if you don't feel connected or resonate with them, then it's going to be really hard to learn from them. Even if what they're teaching is. Good. You know, So. Um, in the process of learning how to build my email list and launch and becoming this personal brand and being visible online. I decided I needed a speaking coach, which if you want to hear more of that story, you can go check out. Um, Heather. The Hegra Heather Sager show. Uh, that's her podcast and she, so I enrolled in her program. It's called speak up to level up. But I didn't do that until I had been listening to her podcast for months. And I actually continue on working up my, working on leveling up my speaking and messaging skills and still a part of her group and her community. Uh, if you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen recently, like I said, I was a guest on her podcast and I'll link that in the show notes. Um, and I talk more about like how I started this online course business and where I found her in the journey. Uh, but basically I had been feeling like. You know, kind of nervous about putting myself out there online, being on video. Teaching and all that kind of stuff. Just major imposter syndrome about it. And, um, someone in a group had tagged her as a speaking coach. And I was like, what's this speaking coach thing. Maybe that's what I need. So that's when I started listening to her podcast. So here we are, I'm listening to 1, 2, 3, 4, now five podcasts religiously every week from these people that I've spoken about so far. We're not even done yet. And, um, her program by the way is also enrolling right now. If you're listening to this episode in real time. It's application only go to Heather saker.com or, you know, I'll probably have it linked in the show notes, but, um, then through Amy Porterfield's podcast, I found James Wedmore because he was a guest on. Amy's podcast. So as you see, like guessing on podcasts is actually a really good strategy to expand your audience. Um, because just by listening to Katie's podcasts, the first one that I talked about, Katie Fleming. I then heard about Jill and then on. Chilling. Josh has podcasts and then heard about Amy. And then on Amy's podcast, I didn't hear about Heather, but I heard about Heather in Amy's community. From being in her course. So it's like, it's, it just keeps on. It just keeps on stacking. It's kind of, um, anyway, So I found James Wedmore. He's super woo woo. And. I like that. Others do not, but I took his business by design program, which it is an all encompassing program. On building an online course business, building a team. Uh, Literally anything and everything that you need to know about building an online course is in that program. It is super concert comprehensive. Um, so it launches every June and this year I actually am one of his affiliates and I will be providing. Um, a bonus with me, what that looks like. I'm not sure yet. I have not decided what my bonus will be, but I will offer a special bonus for anyone who enrolls in that through me. This June. But, um, His programs, like I said, are very, very helpful on all the online course stuff, but even more so. On the mindset of everything, delivering amazing content and being a really good instructor. Um, and everything in between his, his program is truly all encompassing. And I like his style. Like I said, I fully recommend this because I resonate with the style of his teaching. No, he's not for everyone. That's okay. But his podcast so that you can get used to this style or check it out is called mind your business. And, um, there's a lot of stuff on mindset on, um, some manifestation stuff. Some. Money stuff, business, just all sorts of things and, um, definitely check it out. So when I joined BBD is, but it's, you know, business by design Vela, BVD for short. I joined through Jill and Josh Stanton. And remember, I. Talked about them. A few minutes ago. To get their bonus. And their bonus was teaching their paid launch formula, which is like a bootcamp method for launching. And so if you follow me, you know, that when I launched an open mic, worse, I open it up through the bookkeeping biz workshops. So. I call them workshops. Other people may call their things. Bootcamps. I felt like workshops just works better for my audience. And that method of launching has felt the most in alignment with what I want to do, how I want to teach. Um, And I also did. Private coaching with Jill. Uh, a few years into my business on mindset and strategy, and she's like a total powerhouse bad-ass. Uh, so anyway, From all of these programs I've taken. I have. Modeled things that I like logistically about how they deliver their courses and melded things. That worked for me and my content. So I've taken bits and pieces from all of these mentors that I have and made. Made it my own. Like. Sometimes you'll take a course and be like, wow, the delivery of this course was on point. And I want to do a course like this or. Complete opposite. You will take a course and be like, wow, the delivery of this course was complete shit. I definitely don't want to do that to my students. So like I've had that clarity too, from going through other courses, which I'm not even talking about on this podcast, because. I'm not going to like sit out here and bad mouth. Any other courses I've taken? I just won't actively promote them. You, you all know that since I've mentioned all these courses on this episode. I stand behind all of them. A hundred percent. With the caveat that I like their style. So you get to make that choice for yourself. Um, and. Yeah. So since this question has been coming up a lot, like I've actually gotten several DMS lately about, you know, where I learned to launch courses, how I, you know, how I do it, what all goes in it's like, it's, it's even way too much to talk about in a single podcast. So I'm actually going to be. Kind of talking about this over the next couple months here and there. So just stay tuned. Um, And then the other question that comes up a lot is, um, so I'll go ahead and cover it is the tech piece. Honestly, this is the least important part. The platform that I host courses in, um, is Kajabi. I also host my website and my email marketing on Kajabi for both my businesses. So for ambitious bookkeeper and for my bookkeeping firm. It is nice to have one system for all of these things, because everything works seamlessly. Um, And I will link my affiliate code in the show notes as well. In case you do want to try out a free trial. Uh, when you're starting to build your email list, so you can do your email marketing and all that kind of stuff. So, as you can see by the list of courses I've taken and the amount of time and resources I've invested in my course business. One it's not passive income and it's not something that happens overnight. It's also not something I can teach somebody in the DMS. Which is part of why I decided to become an affiliate for, uh, James Wedmore's business by. By design program so that I would have a place to refer people to when. Or if they become ready to launch a course business, because you, you will have everything you need in that program. So it's been years of consistently showing up. Starting small. And continuing to do what seems to be working just at a larger scale each time. So I just amp it up a little. When I find something that's working, I just amp it up and just throw a little fuel on the fire. Let me see if there's any other appreciates I can. I can throw out there. So now let's get into the nitty-gritty of what actually goes into a launch, because I feel like. A lot of this stuff just is not. Really, especially if you're new to the online course space, you're just seeing the. The result of everyone's hard work. You're seeing the result of months and months. If not years of work that people have put into just creating the course, let alone learning the content to be able and being experienced enough in the content to be able to even teach it. So there's just so much that. That goes into this, but like I said, I do a paid bootcamp method launch. Uh, but that's not where everything starts. I started with testing my offer. So go listen to that episode. I did with Heather in. Linking it in the show notes for more details about how it like how I really started it. But essentially here's the cliff notes version. I started by creating a $27 PDF. And I offered it to a handful of people that I was connected with through Facebook groups. That I, that were my ideal. Student right. That I felt could benefit from it. And then I beefed up that PDF into a course outline. I went more in depth and I launched the idea of the course with just the outline. I'm going to repeat that in case you weren't listening. I launched the idea of the course. I did not create the course. Have it perfect. And then sell it. I created an idea. An outline for the course and I launched the app and then I drew, I recorded as we went. I dripped out the content. This is where I think a lot of people get really hung up. You feel like you have to have everything created and it needs to be perfect before you launch it. But in reality, that's so that's so risky. If you don't have an audience, if you don't know that that's what your audience needs or once. Then. That's when people get really discouraged because they're launching to crickets. Like you, it's not a build it and they will come type of situation. So I highly encourage, if you're thinking about launching a course to just actually. Put together an outline of what you think. I should be in the course. And start working on your messaging for that course, like who it's for what, what their pain points are. What problem are you solving with that course? And then. When somebody buys it, then you create it and then you just tell them upfront, like, I'm going to create this as we go. You just have to be honest about that. So anyway, Five people bought. My founding cohort of BBA. And at that point I had about a hundred people on my email list, which I. Not going to teach, building an email list right now I do kind of go over it in BBA, but if you really want. To go in depth on that. There's lots of great resources. Like I said, list builders society by Amy Porterfield, and you can also go back a few episodes search up. Um, the episode I had, uh, Liz. Well, clock's on, she has an email marketing membership and does it's very, very affordable and you can join that and get lots of tips on how to build your email list. So. Um, Five people bought my founding cohort of BBA. Out of a hundred people on my email list. So that can kind of give you an idea of conversion rates, which by the way, as a very high conversion rate from a whole email list of a hundred people, Typically online courses, if you're launched to your whole entire email list, you're likely to get a one to 3% conversion, which means. I should've only had. One. Two, three people. That bot. Um, but that's what, that's the kind of magic that happens when you create a tight knit community and you nurture the community. So like I'm probably throwing a lot of stuff at you that you're like, oh my gosh, I need to create community. I need to nurture people. There's so much that needs to be done. Yeah. Yeah, there is. There's a lot that needs that. There's just a lot that goes into it. So anyway, I founded that first. Um, BBA cohort and some of those ladies you've actually heard here on the podcast. And then I learned. After I won, I launched my email list. I, I did just like a three video series and it's super cringy. I hope it's not even like, I hope it's just erased from the interwebs, honestly. But. I did like a three-part video series, but it was not live. It was prerecorded. I was very awkward on camera at that point. Um, But I learned. Later after that launch, the second time I was going to launch it, that's when I had gone through. BBD and, um, Joel and Josh is paid bootcamp method. And the bootcamp launch method. At first, I was really skeptical about it. I was like, no, one's going to pay for this. Like, it's not the right kind of launch for my audience, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes. Sometimes you just kind of have to trust the process. To figure out what works for you. And I actually ended up. Falling in love with the method. And now I look back and I'm like, this is so much more in alignment with my style. It allows me to feel good about teaching actual, tangible stuff before enrolling people in my course. So they get an idea of how I really. Teach. Instead of like a fluffy one hour free masterclass or webinar. And then having that, like, Pressure of just selling on a webinar or when someone's only known you for 20 minutes. So. We spend months, months preparing for launches, even though at this point, it's rinse and repeat, like it's all the same emails, pretty much. We just kind of tweak a few. A few things for dates. And sometimes I change a little bit about the messaging. Like when we revamped BBA, I had to change some of the messaging because we added some content to BBA. Um, so we're kind of targeting a different level of people. Um, but anyway, Writing emails. We create content. We schedule things out even now, like I said, even though it's rinse and repeat, I only make small tweaks, small tweaks to my workshop, content and slides. The emails we send out and the landing pages and Facebook ads, we pretty much reuse most of that. We just make little tiny changes. Um, I have a full-time person supporting me at this point and a part-time community assistant. Helping out helping us stay on top of the support, email inbox and the Facebook groups. Um, And I'm not saying this is what it has to look like. But that's just. I need a full-time person so that I don't have to work full time. If that makes sense. If I did not have a full-time person, I would be working 40 plus hours a week, just on my course business to maintain where it's at right now. Yes. I could be bringing home more of the profit that way, but. The name of the game for me has always been like making big impact and also being here for my family. And not working full time, so I'm okay. Sharing the profits. Um, But, like I said, like, I didn't start there. I started out completely on my own. I would outsource a few things, get contractors for certain things. Um, But on the flip side. People expect to have huge six figure launches and hundreds of students in their first launch, but the universe will not give you more than you can handle. And for me, my first launch, five people. Is what I could handle. And that's what the universe gave me. And I was ecstatic by the way. And I'm still ecstatic. Every time I do a launch, if I had. 20 people in my workshops or. 3,000. I would be ecstatic. Um, my workshops do have a lot of people in them at this point. And that is due to face, mostly Facebook ads. And I do a lot of collaborations and things, but. We convert about seven to 15% at the end into BBA. So. It's an investment. So we don't expect hundreds to enroll. Part of the launch strategy is to also help people get clarity on their next steps. And often working with me is not the right next step for a lot of people, for lots of reasons. So. Now I want to get into. The launch debrief. And here's what a launch debrief is. It's a term that we use in the online course space to do. To debrief after a launch to reflect on what went well, what didn't. What you do differently, et cetera. And it's a chance to actually analyze the numbers and measure performance from a non emotion standpoint, because launches are very emotional for a lot of people. Uh, because it. It feels like things are landing with people. It feels like people aren't buying, but then when you actually look at your numbers, it's like, oh, dang. I actually had really good conversion rate. It's just that I didn't get as much people into the launch. Into that bootcamp or onto my email list. However, we're on the webinar. However, your launch strategy is like, whatever you're doing. It's it's about how many people you get into the launch. Depends on how many you might convert. So when you start to look at it, like. Uh, some people are like, oh, I only got five people. Like if I had looked at my first BBA launch and been discouraged because only five people joined. But then when you compare that to. I only had a hundred people on my email list. That's a five. Percent conversion rate, which is amazing. In the online course space. It's amazing. So that's where looking at the actual numbers gives you. Um, It gives you information and allows you to step away from being emotional about it and looking at it from an objective standpoint of, wow. I actually like actually did better than I thought when you look. Uh, you know, the benchmarks. So. This is also because most of my clients are course creators. This is why I call my monthly finance meetings with clients. The monthly debrief. Um, so let's get into. The actual numbers. So I actually have my. I have a spreadsheet and I track launch metrics. Every launch side-by-side after the launch is over, I pull it into a, like a master spreadsheet to compare it side by side to the previous launch to see. Like, are we improving? Are we. Not doing as well on certain things from a number standpoint. Um, So this time we had. Close to 2000 people hit our sales page, which is one thing that we track and that's the most we've ever had. Um, and we, we got 300 and almost 340 new people on our email list. And that happens from running ads. So launching side note is also a really great way to grow your email list. If you're using ads. Um, Like I said, it's a paid launch, so we. Are our ads are running to a. Um, An offer. So we're asking people to pay money. To be in our launch, basically. Um, the ticket price is $37. We have an order bump, which is like another offer that they can get some templates for $27. And then there's an upsell. Which is another opportunity to basically upgrade their experience to VIP and get to do the group. VIP calls with me after the workshops. So. Uh, we had 189 people buy the tickets at full price. And then we had 14 people buy tickets at a 20% discount. So what we do. I'm not going to give away the secrets on that. You're just going to have to, you're just going to have to join my BVD bonus or something. To know all the secrets, but anyways, we had a discounted ticket price and then we had another different ticket price of a dollar. So typically this, this secret I'll give away. Typically, if you're on the, if you're already in our world, if you've already done the workshops or if you're on the wait list for the workshops, we offer you to join at $1. Instead of paying the $37. So. Um, All in all we had. Um, let me, let me total this up. We. Um, Over 200 people. I don't think some of these numbers are right. Actually. I think that was a total, I think we had 203 people join the workshops. Um, So, yes. Sometimes I mess up on numbers. I probably pulled in the wrong number. Um, And then. Let's see we had, we spent $7 per click. On ads. And. Um, Our sales page conversion rate was 8%. I'm doing kind of some nitty-gritty numbers. Probably nobody cares about these, but what I'm getting at is like we have. The cost per click. And then we have like a cart value and the. The, the cost to acquire a customer. And the goal with doing a paid launch is really to cover the cost of ads. In with the bootcamp sales that way. You're not out anything on the front end. Um, and so we did, we. Um, our average cart value was about$50 and the cost to acquire a new customer from Facebook ads was about. 35. Ish dollars. So we were a little profitable on the front end. Um, the intention is not ever to be profitable on the front end, but it's nice when it happens. Um, we spent a total of. Um, S close to $8,000 in ads and that's across Facebook. Um, that's running ads to a freebie that we started running ads to before we started the bootcamp or the workshops launch. And we put out ads on a cloud accounting podcast. Um, So that's what goes into getting that many people into. Uh, launch requires you to throw down some money and that's where people get like freaked out. Um, okay. So. The total. Our profit on the front end was about $1,200. Like I said, that's never the intention to be really profitable on the front end, but it's nice because then it's like ads are completely covered and a little bit of my time is covered for. Running the workshops. All right. Um, And then we get into. The sales of the BBA on the backend. So at the end of the workshops is when I open up the VIP. Version of VBA side now. BBA is almost always open for enrollment, self paced. Um, that link is also in the show notes, but. What we do with this launch, as we close down enrollment on self paced a week or two, before we head into the workshops. And that's so that I can just focus a hundred percent of my energy on the workshops. Opening up the new cohort and getting ready for that. Instead of having, having new new students enroll in the middle of that, it's just kind of confusing. So. You can always join BBA on self-paced. Whenever you want. The link is always ambitious. bookkeeper.com/bba. And if we're in a launch for a cohort, that link will redirect to the VIP option. And then after the VIP options closed, then the self pace will open back up again. Uh, so. We ended up with. Um, A total of 15 new students. In VIP. So some of you guys might be like, what you just said, you had 200 people in your workshops. Yeah. Yeah, you're not going to convert everybody. Like I said, and it's a, it's a high ticket program. Like the point is to get the right people in that are ready to invest their time and their money and their. Their time and their resources, and they're committed to. To growing their business. And so we don't expect to have. Hundreds of new people in BBA and in the VIP cohorts. So. Yeah, 15 new students. There's various levels that join. We had some people that joined in the elite. Some people did a payment plan. Some people did a full pay. I'm not going to. Break that down. Um, some people upgraded from self paced. So that's always an option too. Uh, and then we have some expenses that happen. So we hire some contractors to do a couple things and we did some more advertising type stuff. Um, so our expenses for. BBA not including our team. Like full-time team members and stuff like that was about $4,000. Um, and the total revenue, and this is not cash in hand at the beginning, at the beginning. This is like the total projected revenue. Um, after payment plans is. 37, almost $38,000. Um, from the program. And the various payment plans and the various options we have for VIP. Uh, initial revenue because there's a payment plan is more like $20,000. And then I have. You know, lots of expenses that go into that. Like I said, Um, so just to give you an idea, All in all this launch actually. Financially performed lower than our last one. And. Even though it did like it didn't like everything felt better. Not better, but like it, it was perfect. It was the way it was supposed to go. Um, We got the right people in BBA, people that are excited to learn and they're involved in the group. Um, We spent the right. Amount of energy on the launch. It just, it was all it all lined up perfectly. So sometimes you can look at the numbers and be like, oh, it performed lower than last time. What a bummer. But. You also have to take into account all the other things that went about. Like there's lots of things that went really well with this launch. It was for me, energetically, it was very easy because I have a full-time team and we hired another support person for her to just. Make things seamless, like, yes, mistakes still happen. Like things still happen in the backend, but. The goal is to like, Get to the point where I just have to kind of show up for the launches and teach. So that's where my energy goes. Instead of my energy being spent on scheduling emails and. Scheduling Facebook posts and all this sort of stuff. So, um, but you better believe I was doing all of that at the beginning, myself. It has taken. A couple of years to get to this point. Uh, and another thing that we did differently, this launch, which was, um, probably the biggest change we made over last time, but I honestly think it, it, um, Made the launch better for people was that we spread out the workshop days. We used to do them back to back. So we would start the pre party on Sunday. The first workshop would be Monday. The second one would be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This time we did the pre party on like a Wednesday, and then we did the first workshop on Thursday, and then we didn't do the next workshop until Monday. Um, and when we did the VIP calls in between, so if you were on VIP, you were showing up every day, but if you weren't, you didn't have to show up every day and you got to just work on the content. So we got feedback from a lot of the participants that they loved that. Um, and I mainly made that change for two reasons. One was. It was, it's a lot of energy for me too. Do a workshop for an hour and then immediately hop into a VIP call for another hour and a half, and then make sure everything downloads afterwards. And it's like, I didn't get to tuck my kids in those nights. And that's just not like what I really wanted out of the watch. So I was like, let's make this easier for everybody. And then the other reason. Was that. Um, People at the end of the workshops, generally, we would get feedback from several people that. Oh, I didn't join BBA because I still am implementing this stuff from the workshops. It was just a lot of content. So that was a signal to us. To adjust some things like we're either going to scale back the content or we need to give them more time to implement it. So we decided to just give more time to implement it because I didn't feel that scaling back the content was a good option. Um, Because I want people to get massive value, even from just a $37 workshop. But anyway, so that's, that's the breakdown of my launch. That's my debrief. Um, My team and I go more in depth on the debrief and talk more about like, what really worked, what really didn't. We dig more into the numbers. We, we question every, like we just, yeah, we had a whole meeting about it. But you guys are getting the cliff notes. That's what goes into a launch pretty much. I mean, there's so much that goes into it. But as you can see, like it's not, it's not passive it's anything but passive it's. I actually, honestly, I spend more time on ambitious bookkeeper stuff than I do on my bookkeeping firm. Granted, I also have a team on that side, but. Just to give you a little perspective of like where the time is spent. Um, And if you're. Wanting to take that journey of doing an online course business. Go back and listen to the beginning of this episode, you have to be very clear on your why. Like, why are you actually doing it? Are you wanting to do it because you want to avoid doing one-on-one work? You don't. Like working directly with clients anymore. It doesn't let you up. Like you have to get clear on what's the real reason behind it. If the real reason is that you want it. Impact more people you want to have more reach. And it's not necessarily about working less or doing less or anything like that. Then Ben, I think you should go for it. But if, if you're trying to get rich quick or be an overnight success or not work as much to not going to get that out of an online course business. To be honest. Okay. So I have gone way over way further than I thought I was going to tonight. Um, there's going to be mistakes and things in this episode, bear with me because I'm. Not editing. Uh, dang thing out of this one tonight because it airs in the morning. Uh, so thank you so much for listening. I'm going to do my best to link all of the resources in the show notes for this episode. Everything that I talked about. And, uh, That is all. Thank you so much for letting me. Ramble on in your ear every week. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love to connect on Instagram. Make sure you're following me at ambitious bookkeeper. You can take a picture of the episode. Tag me. Rate it, do whatever, do whatever. But if you want to just shoot me a DM, if you found this episode valuable, I would really appreciate it. It'll help me. Create more content. Like this, if it's helpful for you and, uh, I will talk to you next week. Thank you to everyone who helps make this podcast possible. Content and interviews are produced by me. Cirina Shoop our intro and outro music is written and performed by my brother. Ian Gilliam editing is also by Ian using his awesome sound engineering skills along with the script software hosting and publishing is by Buzzsprout and you can. The show notes for links to all of these amazing resources and resources mentioned in the episode.

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