Ep 181: [Workshop Replay] Sell The Promise First So Your Program Funds Itself | Guest Expert: Melissa Camilleri

This is the replay of the LIVE workshop Melissa Camilleri facilitated with Tiny Marketing last week.

We show you how to pre-sell a group program so you get paid before you build, using a simple MVP instead of months of recording and guessing. We also dig into why human feedback and community matter more than ever as AI makes information cheap. 

• pre-selling as paid proof of concept to reduce risk 
• shifting from 1:1 time limits to one-to-many scalability 
• starting with what already works in your client process 
• identifying the “hump” that becomes a focused mini-offer 
• designing a minimum viable product that delivers outcomes 
• choosing a format learners will actually use 
• keeping launches simple with connect collect deliver 
• what you do not need like pre-recorded modules or fancy pages 
• handling low enrollment and still delivering value 
• positioning expertise beyond AI with support and community 

Melissa Camilleri

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Transcript

Booked Out Blueprint Offer

SPEAKER_00 0:33

If you're tired of guessing how to get booked out, I've got something for you. My booked out blueprint starts with a private 45-minute interview where I learn your business, your goals, and what's actually holding you back. From that, I create a custom roadmap showing your best route to booked out. No fluff, just clarity. It's only$397, and if you move forward into Booked Out in Six, my uh six mission program, that 397 is fully credited. Check the show notes to get started. Welcome to the Tiny Marketing Podcast. I'm Serena Block. This show is made for solo consultants who want to get booked out without burning out. If you've ever thought, I just want this to feel easier, you're not alone. Around here, we focus on simple, sustainable growth that actually fits into your life. So growth feels doable instead of overwhelming. Hello. Hi, what a great car. I know I want to love that song. So thank you everyone who's joining today. This is Melissa, and she is the co-founder of the Impact Incubator. She helps booked-out soul openers and microbusinesses add one-to-many group learning experiences to their offer. And I'm super excited because we really align on the fact that you should always pre-sell your offers before you build them. Don't waste your time. Don't waste your time. No. Today we are going to get into how to get paid to create your group program. And I know a lot of you, at least the people in Booked Out and Six, you're experiencing that where you're starting to get to that point where you need a group offer in order to scale higher than your booked out point, and you don't know what the next step is. And this is it. So I'm going to remove myself and give Melissa the stage, and I'll add your presentation right now.

Quick Audience Poll On Scaling

Melissa’s Background And Credibility

Outcomes First Instructional Design

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I'm super excited to chat with all of you about there are very few hills that I'm willing to die on. But this one is that if I could, I just wrote this on LinkedIn. If I could shake every creator or slowpreneur, um, small business owner, consultant who gets this idea, you know what? I should create a group program. I should create a course. I should create, I should host a retreat, I should blah, blah, blah, whatever. Um, I wish I could shake people by the shoulders and say, first get paid and then go and create it. Um, and so this is one of those hells that I'm willing to die at because if I had a dime for everybody who came to me at some point and said, well, this would have been great, but you know, I've already spent tens of thousands of dollars and a whole year of my life trying to put something together. Oh my gosh, like it just breaks my heart. So this is get paid to create your program. This is um a training that my co-founder, Angela Greaser, and I um get most requested because it is such a um a prevalent topic. So I'm curious to know a little bit about why you are here, what made you sign up for this training? So if you could type in the chat the number which is most reflective of you. So, number one, you're a consultant or a coach or an author, agency owner, speaker, strategist, designer, et cetera, et cetera, looking for a new way to monetize or expand your work beyond just more one-to-one. Because if you're working with Sarah already, you're booked or nearly booked, and you only have so many hours in a day, right? So you don't want to hire more staff necessarily. You're just not sure how you can like create maybe more blank space on your calendar and or more financial flexibility. Um, or is it number two, you have a successful business and have thought about creating a group offer, but haven't really been able to divert resources to actually make it happen, meaning you're so in the weeds with your clients that to think about like, okay, now how am I going to siphon off some time in order to create this thing? Like, you just haven't really wrapped your head around that yet. Or is it number three? You're an expert in your field and you've tried launching some sort of group learning experience in the past, but you haven't gotten the results or the clients you needed, and it left you feeling a little bit deflated. Or number four, something else. And if it's something else, I would love to know what that thing is. So um, Sarah, I oh wait, oh, there we go. Now I can see the comments. Okay. Um hey, so lots of ones. This is great. So when Sarah and I came up with that, you know, that we were gonna do this training um together, we thought that that might be the case, that you're already to a point where you're getting booked out. And it's like, all right, now what is the next step? And we we definitely believe that this is the next right step. So a little bit about how I got here. This is also a picture of me, obviously, but also with my co-founder Angela. And we're actually teachers first. Both of us, uh, our educational background is as educators. We're both credential teachers. And we ended up leaving the classroom in at different points in our career to focus more on um building our own business, but we never left the teaching part behind. So, together, we have 28 years in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. I started a business as a fundraiser for college scholarships to my students back in 2011. So we like to call ourselves the internet dinosaur grandmas of the world because we were when we first started online, having businesses online, we were doing our marketing through blogging. I mean, but this is pre-Instagram, pre-TikTok, pre-I mean, maybe LinkedIn was around, but certainly not really for the greater economy. It was very corporate, if it was even around at the time. So we really focused on blogging. So you can tell, like we've we've seen a thing or two in digital marketing. And together, we have generated or helped our clients generate over$60 million in revenue. Um, some of those clients have been really big name internet celebrities that you probably have heard of, that maybe you've taken some of their courses. Um, and lots and lots of one-to-one clients who are maybe like the unknown rock star, the undercover rock stars, you know, in their industry, where they're sort of flying but below the radar, and more people need to know about their good work. We continue to meet more and more people who fell into that category. Like, have you met so-and-so? Oh my gosh, she's so smart. She published a bit about such and such, whatever, and she's still working with people only one-on-one. It's time to expand. And so that is our sweet spot of the people who we work with have a really great idea. They worked plenty in one-on-one scenario. So they've already tested their IP plenty of times. They know their process works. And now it's like, how do we get this to reach more people in a way that allows us to work together as you know, work to have your clients work together through something as a group? There's lots and lots of different models. You've probably experienced some of them as a learner yourself. So we do this through what we call our impact framework. And this is just um setting the stage for how you get paid. But what Angela and I focus on in our impact incubator, which is our signature program, is we start with intentional instructional design. That does not mean we're building out modules, we're hiring a video crew to record ourselves reading a script. It's actually we're thinking um from the very beginning, what are the intended outcomes of even doing this at all? And that is where we have all of our clients start. What do you want your learners to actually walk away with from this experience? What is the promise that you're making? So we're going to get a little bit more into the nitty-gritty of that, how you can use that concept of intentional instructional design as a way to get paid. Um, and then we work through the messaging and positioning and marketing of that offer, how we have a really people center centered sales strategy without the like fake urgency and weird countdown timers. Because when a lot of experts come to us, they are worried that when they start moving more into, let's say, a B2C space where they're selling to the general consumer that what they've seen in the past is like this really pushy sales thing. And they they just want to do good work and they're not really feeling that. And that is not actually what we teach at all. So it's it's kind of perfect in that way. Um, we work a lot on assessment and feedback. How do we know that our clients are successful? What do they have to demonstrate? How do you know if you've been successful beyond just the financial resources just by getting people behind a pay uh behind the paywall? What needs to happen in your business so that you can.

Why One To Many Scales

SPEAKER_00 9:39

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Fear Of Failure And Pre-Sales

Step One Start With Your Process

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Um also consider this, you know, your launch as a success. Um, we work on your facilitation and we work on all the tech and systems that scale. So this is what we do in our impact incubator, where we actually have a three times return on investment guarantee when you work with us, or we work with, we continue to work with you for free if um until you get that guarantee. So, in this particular training, we're taking just a little teeny slice off of that big tie, and we're gonna be talking about um getting paid before you ever create a single module. Um, so we're gonna learn today why a pre-sale strategy is the best kept secret of most successful course and program creators, how you can get paid, um, proof of concept that funds the creation of your program, course, or other group offer, and the simple steps that you need to best track your offer for revenue and client results for long-term success without any guesswork. So, according to um the poll at the beginning, many of you have um have already booked out or are close to booking out with your one-to-ones. And that's like this top half of the screen is your resource-limited offers. You can deliver incredible results, but there is a finite number of who you can serve because there is a finite amount of time in which you can serve those people. We have 24 hours in a day, and you probably don't want to be working all 24 hours. Like, we also are, I think we find our way into entrepreneurship because we are really interested in more time flexibility. But what you can find is that, like, okay, you're super busy. This is great, you're making money, and yet why are you working so hard? Like, you may even be working more hours than you did in corporate, and that is not the business. So we're looking at one-to-many offers, not getting rid of your one-to-ones, but figuring out how to incorporate one-to-many offers so that you can multiply your resources. We call these force multiplying offers, where you can serve many people at one time, you save your time, and you can generate potentially more income. Um, you may already know this piece of it, but this I really like showing this slide to help us start thinking through the different kinds of offers we can host in our offer suite in order to maximize our time flexibility and our financial flexibility. So, you know about DIY products, right? It's the lowest touch point, the lowest price point. It's like a done for you course where you just like click and somebody checks out, right? And then you don't, you're not worried about the live delivery of it. Um, somebody could just download it. They can download a workbook, they do it on their own. You're never really interfacing with them beyond like maybe some automated emails, but it's really like hands-off as far as you are concerned. That's really different than the other side of the scale or the other side of the spectrum, which is DFY done for you, which is where most of you probably are in the process, right? Because you're doing this like really um hands-on client one-to-one work where um you're serving one client at a time. So can you type in the chat? I'm curious, those of you who are joining us live, if you can type your signature offer, the thing that you are are offering right now, which category does that fall into? Like your main thing that you're marketing. Is it DIY done with you where the client does the work, but you are guiding? Maybe there's some live interaction. It's usually a mid-price point. Um, or is it done for you where you're doing all the work? Okay. Okay, so I see decorze dev, you're doing mostly DIY. That's awesome. Okay. Um, the prepare and leader, hi. We're doing done for you, Jenny Magic, um, better change, done with you, done with you, done for you. Okay, cool. So many of us are falling into these two categories. And I would say my scalable group offer in my own business is a done with you offer. It is the highest price point because our clients are getting strategic consulting and support, but a lot of it is also client driven. Um, and it's usually these two areas right here, done with you and done for you, that you can charge the highest amount for. Um, and and still find some scalable, some scalability. I think that's what I should say. The scalability in this done with you area. But group programs often um show up under DIY or done with you. Okay, so here's just some examples that you can you can take a picture of this if you want to, just sort of wrap your head around it, right? DIY pre-recorded, downloads, easily mass-produced products. Um, books fall into a DIY category, like you're doing all the work up front, and then it goes for sale. You're not going to make a ton of money with books, but it is a good way to get your yearning out there done with you. You can see it's a little bit more intensive where your client is doing some of the like a lot of the of the load, but you're also there guiding. And then done for you is like the services you're used to. Okay. So why aren't more entrepreneurs launching group offers? I mean, I could have told you this, this is, but this is an actual stat from Teachable, a learning management software that you have probably participated on or seen or have heard of from 2025. It's um a fear of failure. And I would actually go so far anecdotally, like I don't have any staff on this, but just from my own experience in working with clients, it's a fear of what if I put so much time and energy into this and potentially financial investment and nobody buys it. And that's the big fear of failure. Or what if I I blast this out everywhere and only one person signs up? I mean, if you can relate, can you type a me in the chat? I'm curious if like you've ever felt like, yeah, I haven't done this yet because I don't, I don't want to invest all that time and money if I don't know it's actually gonna work. I mean, that's that should be all of us, right? Like, I don't want to invest time and money on something that I'm not certain is gonna work. So that is where the pre-sales strategy comes in, right? Because it's minimizing our risk of failure because you're getting paid proof of concept before you invest resources and fully creating your program. So if you have ever participated in like quote, a beta round of something for free, can you type a one in the chat? If you've ever been a participant for free in a beta test, quote unquote. Um, if you have ever offered a beta test, like if you've already if you've ever put together a product and you're like, I'm gonna just offer this for free. I need some people to go through it to give me some feedback. Can you type a two in the chat? You've offered a free beta test. Okay. Yeah. Sarah, thank you. You're trying everything. I mean, same. I've done it both ways as well. Um, been a participant in a free one, and um a I'm gonna actually go back to this slide for a second, and um have hosted a free one. And the thing is, beta tests are great for you in theory. It's keeping you busy. You feel like, oh, great, I'm getting some feedback in exchange for people going through this for free. But what we sometimes, when when we're feeling really vulnerable for doing something new, like launching a group program if you've never done one before um and been successful at it, it can feel like any feedback is good feedback. But here's the thing: if you are not getting feedback in the form of somebody willing to pay for this idea, it's actually too expensive a feedback. Like you, it's not worth it. The best feedback you can get is somebody saying, I will part with my cash in order to experience the thing that it is that you're providing. So offers that are pre-sold have a five times higher conversion rate than offers that were not pre-sold, meaning that if you're just out the gate saying, This thing is going to, you know, join now and and we start Monday or whatever. You're cricket and nobody is ready to start on Monday. However, if you have planned a way to really um get paid first, then the the pre-sale actually does its job to help you to have a more successful launch. So here are the three steps to design and execute a profitable pre-sale offer. The first thing is don't reinvent the wheel, which is really um reassuring, I think. Step one is to start with what you're already doing, it lowers the risk and increases your probability of success because you know that with your one-to-one clients, they are already getting success because you're using what you already know or have and do, and you're not starting anything from scratch. So, what that looks like is something that you already have practiced with your clients executing, something that you've already helped your clients get results with. Um, your people already know you for doing this. So maybe you have, you know, you're posting on LinkedIn, you have an email list, you're doing your marketing somewhere, maybe you have a podcast, and your audience that has gathered, no matter their side, no matter the size of your audience, sort of have a feeling that this is, yeah, this is like kind of along the same lines of what you're doing. And you're already getting paid to do it, it's just in a different format. So, some questions that you can ask yourself to decide, okay, well, there's no way I can teach my entire process start to finish that I'm doing with my clients. It's it would take way too long, it's way too hard. And I'm the one who has the like, they're not interested in coming to me to learn how to design all this stuff themselves, for example. So, what can you teach from what you already do or a little sliver of your process to quickly and profitably get maximum results for your client? So why do people come to you, but really? Like, I would love for you to answer this in the chat. Like, people come to you probably to do the thing on the surface, but really they're choosing you because of the way you're doing something. So take a second and think about that. Why do people come to you? I would say people come to me for instructional design support and marketing and messaging for their group program. But why do they really come to me? Why do they choose me over another person offering something similar? Because none of us are like, I mean, I've I would be shocked if any of us are doing something that nobody in the world is doing, right? Um, I think people come to me really because I have a teaching background. I think people come to me really because I understand how vulnerable it is to be an expert at one thing and being brand new at another thing. I think people come to me really because I am an excellent coach and they they know that they're gonna. To be seen and not just a number. And I put a lot of energy into helping my clients. I just dumped a huge water bottle. Uh okay. So Sarah says, I have found that people come to me because their leads are down, but they really come to me because I've been there and experimented until I rebound, exactly rebounded. And so they often I think this is true of most people. And this might be a question you have to like kind of ponder today as you're driving around or you're on your walk. Ponder this. Why do people come to you? But really, why do they come to you? Um yeah, because you've been in their shoes. I think that's most people. They want to feel like, am I uh nobody wants to be made to feel like they're an idiot when they're down, right? It's like I'm a smart person, but I'm experiencing a dip in this area. And so I think learning from somebody who has been there before is really, really, really powerful for most people. And I think that that's reflected here in the chat. Like Shannon is saying, because I have been in their shoes and they trust me. The prepare leader is saying because I have experience in supply chain. So the training comes from a place of empathy of what they're going through. Um, yes, all of this. Um, Sarah says, people come to me because leads are coming in, but they aren't letting enough meeting, they aren't getting enough meetings with people to convert them. Okay, so you guys get it. Here's um another question to ask yourself. When these people do come to you, how are you helping them? What are the steps in your process from the moment that your client pays? What happens? And map that out. Now, I'm is that something that you all do, Sarah, Sarah Buck, I'm asking you this. Is that something that you like where you're mapping out a process in booked in six? Sorry to put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

I just realized I'm muted. Um, what we do inside booked out in six, the first thing is a booked out blueprint. And we map, yeah, we map out what our offer suite looks like. What does that staircase look like? Yeah. From the lead magnet all the way to the upgrade offer.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yep. Okay. And then once somebody actually is working with you within that offer, do you cover that, like, does do you help your clients map out what that process looks like, or is that on the client to like already know that?

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Like their framework.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Their framework, but like the second somebody checks out, what's the next thing that happens? They get an email. What's the next thing that happens? They have like an intake call or or something, like, and then how do they have a delivery system?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yeah, they're with the working on that.

Step Two Build A Simple MVP

Step Three Connect Collect Deliver

Case Study Workshops To Membership

What You Don’t Need To Launch

Free Offer Suite Mini Course

If Only One Person Buys

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Okay. So what I have found in working with um many solopreneurs, experts in their field, is that they have not yet documented the process. And maybe, maybe they have like, in so much as that they've automated some of the pieces, but like their own process of sitting and listening with to a client, figuring out what the problem is, and then under diagnosing and understanding what the solution is, and then executing on that solution. If you have not mapped out that process for yourself after the client pays, this is a piece of homework for tonight or for whenever you have a second. Okay. Um, because your group program is somewhere in that process, most likely, if you're not already sure what it is that you could be teaching. Um, so those are the questions. Why did it come to you really? How are you helping people? And what results do they get after they work with you? Okay, here's a couple other questions that you want to ask yourself. And you can totally take pictures of these slides if that's helpful for you. But what's the most challenging part of your process for your client? I when I first started um in my first group program, I was teaching, this is back in 2013. So internet grandma dinosaur, like I said, I was teaching people how to develop relationships on Instagram, not dating relationships, like for their product-based businesses. And um it, I actually thought, what a stupid idea. Why would anybody pay for that? And it was actually the encouragement of a friend that said, you've grown your brand on Instagram, and so many of us are out here struggling, have no idea what to do. How are you getting all of these collaborations? Blah, blah, blah. And I said, I don't know. So I wrote out what I was doing on Instagram. And I gave her an email that had like 20 steps in it. And she goes, This is a gold mine. You need to package this up, make it pretty, and sell it as a course. And I'm like, what a dumb idea. Who cares about Instagram? Like, this is so stupid, right? Don't ask me to predict the future. I know nothing. Uh and so I did this, and that course was delivered so simply, may I tell you? It was one email a day, automated on MailChimp for 21 days. The original price was$47 in its life cycle, it peaked at I think$127. And that one email delivered one a day for 21 days, the 21-day Insta course netted a quarter of a million dollars for myself. I mean, it wasn't all at once, and I have three kids, so it didn't get very far. But still, that that's like not that's not a little bit amount of money. And it ran for three years. Okay. It was very cheap. I had thousands of people who went through it. And the reason that I'm bringing this up is because I tested first, would anybody want it before I ever made a lesson? I said, here's about what you're gonna learn. And there were enough people in the market who said, I want that, that as the emails were going the first time around, I was like, okay, well, I know what day one is. I better go write that email so I can send it out on day one. Like that's literally how I did it. I was just like a couple days ahead of everybody else and got and got great feedback and then reiterated. Okay, so what I found during that process is that I had assumed that anybody who was coming into my Instagram course would have an understanding of who they were selling to. They would have an understanding of their ideal client because they had a business. And that was on day two. That tripped up like 95% of participants. I had no idea that that was going to be a stumbling point. I bet there's something in your process that is super like it's the hump to get over for your clients. And if you can't think of that, like, does anybody have a uh something in their head where you're like, this is definitely the hump for my clients? Like, this is the one hard part. Like, I can already identify. If you can identify it, I want to know. Like, just say yes, I can identify what that hump is. I know what the most challenging piece of my whole process is. That might be a mini course in there. It's the thing that you wished would make the process so much easier when they're working with you at a higher level. If they would have done that thing or completed that thing or known that thing before they came to you, it could be like a prerequisite course that people are taking so that when they do um accelerate to your highest offer, uh the highest rung on your offer ladder, they will already have that understanding and that knowledge because they have practiced that one component or they've gathered those components to be able to hit the ground running when they get to that highest paid offer. That's a great solution for a course for you, or a course, or a training program, or something like a group learning experience, where it's just one little sliver of the entire process. So that's something to think on. Okay, so that's all step one is what is the thing gonna be, right? Is to really understand what it is that you're you're gonna do. Step two is designing a minimum viable product. This is just basic like business speak and MVP, but your MVP is the shortest, smallest, most compact thing that will is quick and easy to launch, that you can actually generate active market data, meaning like you already know where those ideal clients for that particular product or that particular um um group offer are gathered. Like you actually have a market. Um, it you know you can be profitable from doing it, like because it's not going to be this really big, overblown 12 module. I need to get a whole production crew and rent a studio so I look so good and get hair and makeup, like that's way too much overhead for a minimum viable product that can come down the line if you if you so choose. And then you're able to actually generate real results for your clients in a short amount of time for one tiny little thing. You're solving one tiny little problem for people. So, in the the example of that Instagram course that I was talking about, it was quick and easy to launch because it was delivered via MailChimp over 21 days. It was all the way automated. It was, I was able to generate active market data because I was around a lot of other product-based business owners. I had already networked in their communities and they weren't buying my jewelry, but I had something I could teach them. So a ton of my friends, ton of the people in the Facebook groups I was in, telling people that I was networked with locally in my hometown, were product-based businesses and they were all very interested in also growing their brand on social media. And then can I can it be profitable? Yes, it was just I was already paying for MailChimps. So it was just my time and it wasn't that much time to begin with. And then was I able to generate real results? Well, absolutely. Like if they did these things, they would find success. So that that was all okay, check, check, check. There's my MVP. It minimizes your risk by starting with a small but stable foundation to build upon. So a paid workshop is a group learning experience. Let's say you have a hundred people paying you a hundred dollars for a workshop that you deliver in one hour. That is multiplying your time and really multiplying your money. And it's only taking an hour for the delivery of it. You see, so a paid workshop is a really good, like juicy group offer. A short email course, like I said about that, the 21-day Insta course was great because it's not requiring a ton of overhead. You can do the work once and test, like it are is anybody even gonna sign up for this? And if once they do, then you can go ahead and build that thing. Okay. So your MVP is actually your bridge of success. And you probably already know this because you've designed offers before, but I think the visual is really good. So where the client for your minimum viable product is right now is their point A. And your job with this group learning experience is to get them to point B, which is where they want to go, their future status, what they've already accomplished, what they've been able to do. And that bridge of success is where your offer lies. And so, Sarah, this is great. MVP examples would be boot camps, challenges, workshops, email course, anything that like, even if it's a small, like like in like an audio training, like it can be really, really tiny. Um, it can be, it can even be like a robust workbook or something with like an audio. I've done that before where I've had like a little audio link inside of a PDF that sort of walks people through what a process is in a PDF. Like there's so many ways to deliver to many people at once in a very small and contained way. So these are questions along the bridge of success that you're gonna want to ask yourself. The first one is what steps does do your participants need to take to arrive at point B? And you're going to backward map from there. That's how you map out your MVP. In what format can they best learn those steps? We have a client who coaches um middle-of-the-pack marathon runners who want to get better. And at first, he was like, Here's my MVP. I can do it in four modules, but um each of my modules is gonna be about an hour recording. And I need a uh learning management software. So I gotta pay for that and load all my modules in. And we're like, no, runners don't want to be sitting in front of a computer to learn from a coach and then go run. So instead, we are going to make this into an audio series so the runners can have this in their ears as they're running and you are in their ears. So you gotta really be thinking about who you're building this for and what format is best for them. We we work with people who say, Oh, my ideal client are busy moms. And so I am going to create this like very robust training series. And it's like if they're busy, they they don't have like there's gonna be kids hanging on and they can't sit there and learn in this way. So really be thinking about what is happening in your MVP's life in order for them to be able to consume this content and actually get results. Because I'm certain you have all bought a course that sat on your hard drive and you never touched it. I have, I certainly have many thousands of dollars worth because I think, you know what, this time is gonna be different. And you know what the result is? I end up feeling bad about myself and I don't ever spend with that person again because I feel guilty or ashamed that I wasn't able to um manage all of the things I needed to manage. And it's because it wasn't designed really for me to be able to manage it. All that that, like I don't think that course creators are nefarious by nature, but we do really leave something out when we're not considering who's the end user and how are they best going to learn, right? So think about how long of a timeline do I actually need to get people from point A to point B. For my email Instagram course, I said 21 days. It's like a little bit of a habit. We're gonna do one tiny little thing each day for 21 days. And um, it was the perfect amount of time because people weren't so like, I only have six more weeks of this thing to go through. And then I'm done. It was like quick, easy, we could do it on the fly. You don't have to like carve out a bunch of time to do it. Um, let price point is a win for everyone. So you definitely want to price it at a at a price point that is good for you for sure. But thinking about like the format contributes to the positioning of it, the um the simplicity contributes to the positioning. So pricing is such a huge, gnarly conversation for each individual, but this is something to really consider. Like, how do you price it low enough that it is a really juicy, great offer and really delivers on a promise? Because this is probably a lower price point than working with you at the very top rung of your offer ladder, which is your one-to-one, because it's there, because your clients will be getting the most access to you in a one-to-one situation. So if your um group program is a done with you or a DIY, it needs to be positioned in a way that makes sense with your entire offer suite. So your one-to-one is the highest. So sometimes our clients are like, well, my one-to-ones are$500 an hour and I want to sell this program for$1,500. And it's like, okay, well, then you're gonna need to bump up your one-to-one situation because it doesn't make, you know, like you don't want your offers cannibalizing each other. So these are all conversations that that you know come down the line. And then how can I use this asset? I'm sorry, how can I use this as an asset for other offers? We always want to think about in our client journey what's gonna come next for our people. Is it an upsell? Is it a down sell? Is it okay now you've gotten this? If you want to join the community where we're having these ongoing conversations, there's lots of different ways to do that. So this is one of our um clients, Dr. Christine Coleman, and she is a psychotherapist, a nonprofit founder, an executive coach for um women of color leaders. And um, when she joined her incubator or incubator, she was um seeing clients just one-to-one. And the most she could charge for an hour of her services was$150 an hour because that's what like the market could bear. That's like therapy in her um where she was living. And she's like, I I can't have like she had two little kids at the time. She couldn't have enough$150 an hour clients in a week in order to have this like very sustainable business without completely depleting her. So she decided to create this leadership program for women of color leaders. And then she priced it at$2,000 for her first round. She got 10 people to sign up. She made$20,000 and she delivered it one hour a week for six weeks in the evening when her when her husband was home taking care of the kids, you know, after he had gotten home from work. So it was flexible for her time. It worked with her life, it worked with the clients. It was only six weeks. It was$2,000 with a really wonderful um promise. Like her point B was something that these women really wanted. And she made$20,000 in her first lunch. Now, I don't know about you, but$20,000 is a lot of money. And you might be making that already with your one-to-one clients. And you're like, okay, so I just need to book another one-to-one. But I want you to be thinking about how much time it took her to earn that$20,000. Because even if you have really high-ticket offers in your offer suite, um, now she's delivering one hour for six weeks, and that becomes six hours total. And then she was making$20,000 because she's delivering it to many people at once. So this is where that time and um financial flexibility come into play. All right, the third step in getting paid is um to make sure your pre-side your, I'm sorry, your pre-sale is simple, quick, and agile. Um, and so what that means is that you only actually need three things to quickly and effectively take your MVP to market. You need a way to connect, you need a way to collect, and you need a way to deliver. So connecting would be where are you going to talk about this? I was talking to Sarah before we got on live, and um, she was saying that she was um sharing this on this workshop on Meetup. What a great! Like, I I don't know why I never even thought to put our free workshops up on Meetup. It's just like a whole new market of people who are looking for something that they don't know about you yet. So that's a great place. Oh, maybe you're connecting with people on LinkedIn or on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook or in your local networking groups or wherever it is that you're gathering people, you need a way to connect because you need people for a business, right? You need a way to collect, you need your a payment processor, some sort of checkout page or a checkout link. It could be as simple as like a PayPal link or a Venmo business link. I mean, I don't love Venmo for business, but that's that's a whole different conversation. But like I'm sure you already have a payment processor in place. And then you need an a way to deliver your thing. So is that via audio clip that you hook up to your Google Drive and you send a link out? Is it via email? Is it on a live workshop? How are you gonna deliver this thing to people? Is it like some sort of digital download that gets emailed out to people? Those are the three things you need. That's it. It's so simple. It's like simpler than simple. Connect, collect, deliver. Remember those three. Um, this is our client, Missy, and Missy has um, she is a crafting influencer. If you didn't know that that was a thing, man, it is a thing. She came to us and she's a longtime client. She actually, I first met her in my Instagram course in 2013. And then she joined our impact incubator in 2023, 10 years later. And she was, she didn't tap in. She was making, she was hand making birds and gnomes and like home decor stuff, um, and shipping it out. And she was doing well, like, you know, 10, 15 grand a month in handmade goods. Well, she came to us and she's like, I love you guys, but I uh I can't I can't make the time to offer some sort of course. I am so busy making and shipping all of these things. Well, we're like, give us an hour for three weeks and we're gonna set up like some testing offers. We're gonna help you get paid to create your membership. So she came. So she's like, okay, what do I have to do? We're like, you have to get a Zoom account because you're going to present on Zoom. She's like, oh, okay. She didn't have a Zoom account of her own, right? So she paid for a Zoom account. And then we said, we're going to run this workshop. How much do you think your people will pay for this workshop? It's so long where you're selling and they're selling with you. She goes, I don't know. Why don't we do less than 20? We're like, great, 17 bucks. She sold out all 100 seats that she had on Zoom, sold out within like an hour, and she made$1,700 for a paid workshop. She's like, um, and I don't have to ship any product. Okay. So she did the sew along. She's like, let's try that again next week. She did it again. She charged like$22, I think. Um, a hundred people sold out. She bumped up her Zoom room to like$300 and she made a few thousand dollars. She's like, you guys, what is going on? I've never made money this easily before. We're like, yeah, because you're serving many people at once instead of like this person orders a bird that they paid$40 for, and you have to go and stitch it, and then you have to go and shift it. Like, oh my gosh, it was so crazy. So we took these workshops and used those as the basis. She got paid up front to create this membership by testing out paid products, little tiny paid products. So these sew alongs went into a membership and it became the foundation of a$39 a month membership where people will get online and sew with her. In her first launch, she sold 445 seats to this membership and she made$52,000 in recurring revenue with like all the different price packages that she had in her first launch because she had gotten paid first. She didn't go and pre-record a whole bunch of things and load them up onto some membership platform. She didn't even have, she wasn't even paying for Zoom until it was necessary, right? So this is the result of having an MVP first and getting paid before you create your program. So here's three things you absolutely do not need to get paid. Pre-recorded content, that's number one. Don't do it. Please, please don't do it. I actually just turned away a client yesterday who was considering working with us. And then she was started like for what she wanted. She was really, I'll just say like nickel and diming and seeing how much we could, how much work we could do for free. And I don't even entertain that at this point anymore. Right. And I was like, no, she's like, except I've already invested so much on my studio. I've already re you know, pre-recorded all the stuff. I'm like, ah, like I wish you would talk to us first. Like we would have told you, don't do that. Go sell it first. And then you can get all fancy, as fancy as you want. You do not need a fancy sales page. I have seen multiple people sell from a social media post, from a Google Doc, from just linking a checkout page to a simple workshop. Like you don't need a full-blown sales system at this point. And you definitely don't need a large audience. You do need an audience, and you do need to have in your mind that you have um created this for a very particular person and have real life people in your network that you know of who would need this. That I think is the biggest predictor to whether or not you're going to get paid, and then whether or not it's worth it for you to have a group offer. So here's a recap: you're gonna start with doing what you are already doing, really examining what is your process and what can I excavate out of that process in order to create this little sliver of an MVP. You're gonna design your MVP offer with your ideal client in mind. Always, always, what is the end result for your learner and what's in it for them? That's number two. And number three, you're gonna execute a really agile launch. You're gonna keep it super simple, really compact, really small, and you don't need to invest in any fancy stuff at the beginning. Um, okay. So here's your to-do list to get paid. Know what you're selling and know that what problem it solves. That's business 101, right? Know who you're gathering. I mean, who you're selling to and where they gather. Sarah was talking about this in my community um last week. It's the same idea. Like, where do these people gather? Do you want to go and speak in other communities? You want to do a podcast tour? Who are you selling to? Where do they gather? Talk about what people will get. What's in it for them? That needs to be number one. What is in it for them? I mean, not number one, but like really top of mind. And then put a start date on the calendar ahead of time. So what you can say is um uh doors are open for this workshop. It will happen on April 17th, a month from now, and you start talking about it and seeing how many people start paying. If nobody on April 17th has paid you, that's really good feedback. Nobody wants it. Or your messaging is off, or the offer isn't right, or the community that you're selling it to isn't right, but then there's no skin off your back because you haven't even done the workshop yet, right? You haven't invested your time or your energy or your money really. It's only that you put a date on the calendar and you start talking about it. So that is something I really want you to cultivate that like mindset of you're just always running experiments in your business. If that if something doesn't work, it doesn't mean you suck or you have failed. It just means, okay, well, this idea didn't land. So what needs to be tinkered with as a scientist? If an experience, like if your hypothesis does not give you that result, you go back to the drawing board or you make a new hypothesis and then you run a new experiment. And that is what we're always doing here in Disney. So that brings us to the next piece of the puzzle. And so I have actually a free mini course that you're welcome to download. It's at standfortheand.com slash sold out. That QR code should point you to it. It's totally free. There's a really robust workbook in there. Um, it'll help, you know, answer some of the questions that we talked about in this training. But sold out offer system is really looking at your entire offer suite, so inclusive of those one-to-ones that you already have booked out. And then how do you make sure that your offers are talking to one another and that you feel confident in selling those offers, in particular your group programs? So it's for people who are ready to scale beyond where they already are and to diversify their income streams with, you know, multiple streams of income. And this is another piece of the puzzle that Angela, my co-founder, and I really work with our clients on because we want there's been so many weird shifts in quote, you know, capital, all caps, the market, right? 2020, when everything shut down, man, online learning. Like that's when many of you may have gone into this crazy world of digital marketing and leaving, you know, like your corporate positions or your more traditional roles and jumping into this online space that like we saw saw a lot of people doing. And so the market was like popping. It was hot for B2C. And then people started going back to work, people started getting a little zoomed out, and the market kind of shifted, and people were getting more savvy, and they're like, oh my gosh, I've spent so much money on all these other things and didn't get what I was promised. And so what used to work wasn't working anymore, right? And so we're always like, okay, if but if you have diverse streams of income in your business and you have a full offer ladder, when one bit of your market shifts, you have more stability because you're like a table, you know, essentially that has four legs instead of one main whale of a client. If they cancel their contract, you're not you're not out to see, you know, like you can still survive. So we really want to encourage um different income streams within your business, and the sold-out offer system helps you do that. So it's totally free. Check it out if that sounds interesting. That's sort of like the next step after this. And yeah, that's all I've got. So I'd so happy to answer any questions or um any comments, any feedback.

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Thank you so much. So everybody, drop your questions as they come. I have a couple of questions for you that I'll start off with. Okay. Um, so one question I get all the time is what if I only sell one or two spots in my MVP? Do you go on? Do you set a limit like I need to sell five in order for it to it to go on? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Okay, so the great news is that you're your own boss and you get to decide whatever you want. And the hard news is that you're your own boss, and sometimes you don't know what the heck you want. So um, there have been times where I put something out there and one or two people have purchased, and I go on as if there were one or two hundred people who have purchased because I want that video asset. Like if it's a workshop, for example. Yeah. I want to record myself. I want to be on and presenting without, like, and at least, like, let's say it's$100. I'm making$200 now to record a video that I can go and use somewhere else. Like I could use it in my marketing. It could be the basis of like I can go and live in a community somewhere else, and then I would go and try again. So I'm of the mindset if you got paid, you got paid. Like, go for it, go do it. It might be not as many people as you want, but it's still you're creating content for yourself. And you still got paid$200 to do it. When what's the alternative? Getting paid nothing. So I don't know. That's sort of my mindset. It's better to get paid by one or two and definitely don't cancel. If people want to give you money, give them what they paid for. Yeah. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Maybe I had it where one person bought and it was more of a hot seat situation. So I ended up converting them over to a consulting call. And they ended up upgrading into my main offer. So it worked out. But I've had that too where like something has sold out and then another thing where one person bought, and I'm like, well, what do I do now? Yeah.

Selling Expertise In The AI Era

SPEAKER_01 56:09

That's such a great question. I just I love um the it to me, I always want to offer the person who goes, listen, I trust you enough that I forked over$100 for this or$5,000 or however much the offer is. I want to deliver so hard for that person. And then I love the idea then of you know, developing a relationship. So maybe they do end up in like maybe it's a trial. They're trying to figure out do I even like how this person works? And by turning them away, you may turn away a potential one-to-one high highest ticket.

SPEAKER_00 56:48

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's exactly what would have happened with that person who bought like the one hot seat and then she ended up working with me for like a year.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love that. Oh, and okay, the prepared leader. I'm sorry I don't know your your real name, but I don't think that's Dre Given A. Um, your birth certificate. Yeah. The prepared leader, um, which I love that. Um, so since knowledge is at everyone's fingertips these days, have you seen a shift in the success of selling knowledge and expertise? The answer is totally, I have. And that's a good question. Yes, it's a great question. Tanya. Oh, hi Tanya. Hi, Tanya. And then how do you express to clients how offers like these add value beyond anything AI can provide? Okay, so I feel like these are connected questions. And I love, love, love this. So in the past, I would say pre-AI, um, the course slash learning industry, there was a lot of B2C stuff that um AI can turn out now in 25 seconds for free. Like a free version of Chat GPT could give you all the steps that you needed. And you don't have to pay an influencer$2,500 for 12 weeks of your time, right? So you may have noticed that that industry has shifted dramatically, like even in the last six months, where these big main course creators are like, well, and now we're not gonna do courses anymore. And you're like, wait, what? Like lots of famous people have internet famous people have pulled their courses. And I can tell you why. And I I have not seen this anywhere, but I guarantee, like, I would be willing to put money on this is that their sales have tanked because people got savvy and said, Well, ChatGPT, could you just create this into a course for me? And so, how do we still develop programs that people understand are not just um an AI experience? And that actually happens to be um as like how you are willing to show up. And it doesn't necessarily have to be lie, but the the thing that's happening with AI is that more than ever people want the human touch. And I'm sure you've seen that too. It's like, okay, I can very well tell when this is written by AI and when this is um generated by a real human being. And so I personally want to learn from somebody who has been in my shoes, from somebody who has had this experience so that I can ask questions. So as a learner, I'm actually pretty savvy now, where I'll say, like, I won't buy anything that I don't have at least the ability to ask the creator questions. They don't have to be there live, but I need to know, like, can I can I email you something? And I'm willing to pay more actually for that experience. Because remember at the beginning, I said, why do people come to you? And so many of you said, because I've been there and I know how to navigate that and I know how to be resilient and find my way out of that. That is what people are paying you for. It's not as much the steps, it's the like people don't want to be alone. They don't want to do things on their own. And it's really, really vulnerable to learn anything new. And so when you can show up as an expert in your field and mix that empathy of like, hey, I know what I'm talking about. You don't yet know about this thing that I know, and I'm here to bridge that gap human to human, people are absolutely still willing to pay for that. And I would say that probably the DIY market has suffered the most. Um, but the Dunwicking market, I think it's popping. So any any and which is great news because you can charge more for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Yeah, I will second this because I've been buying more courses lately, but only if they're paired with like async coaching. Can I DM with with them? Can I email with them? Will they send me a Loom feedback? I'm looking for those pieces. And I also like when they have custom trained AI assistance to help me create things faster within that course. So I'm always looking for like those three things together when I'm purchasing.

Community Learning And Final Wrap

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

Yeah, I concur a hundred percent. I love um the point that you bring up about feedback because a lot of the DIY courses and white people have such a sour taste in their mouth after like a decade or so of these being like the really hot items that all of the internet celebrities have told us that we need to have in our offer suites and that many of us have taken and spent money on, is that you're creating like you're you're taking their slides and or their information, and then you're creating an isolation or you're you're implementing in isolation. And that is the worst way that we like we as humans don't learn best like that. We learn best in community where we have like if you think about like your own life as a student, you had somebody telling you, hey, a little bit to you know, or like coaching basketball, a little bit that's wrong. Yeah, that's wrong. Or here, let me show you how to do it right. And so we we that market is still absolutely popping. So I wouldn't I wouldn't worry about that. I know we're at time, so I'm I don't want to go over too much. Um, but I would love any other questions if you have a second.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Yes, we are at time. We'll stand for a couple of minutes. And I just want to add to that point, if your course also has a Slack channel with it as a companion, that's another way that you can bring that community in and you can interact with each other. Because, like as you were saying, people don't want to learn in isolation, but also like this world that we're in, most of us here are solo consultants, it's lonely. So anytime you can find a community where you guys are going after that same goal and you can interact, it's going to add an extra element to that group offer.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

Agreed. Um a lot of times people will make the argument like, I can't provide the same level of um support in a group that I can one-to-one with people. And somehow a group learning experience is diluted from your one-to-one. And I could not disagree with that more. I have found that we, as humans, we are social beings and to learn in community with other people is a really, really powerful experience. And you probably have experienced it before where you've been in a program and you've made a friend for life. Right? Like think about your exactly, or college or you know, in your master's programs. Or I said one time I told my girlfriend the best part about paying$40,000 for a master's. Yes, I thought it was a great degree, but I got you as a friend because we got to go through it together and we wouldn't have met otherwise. And so there's there's so much benefit that comes of learning as as a group, you know, and just working that out together.

Closing Offers And Meetup Invite

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

Yeah, yeah. I'm 100% with you on that. Sometimes I have joined communities that I don't actually need because the people in that community, I wanted access to them. I wanted to get to know them.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

I love that you bring that up. That's a really strategic way of putting yourself in the rooms that you want to be in. And that is a huge part of business as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

Yeah. Well, it looks like we answered all the questions. Thank you so much for joining me today. You were amazing. This was incredibly helpful.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. And if anybody has any questions, uh, find me on LinkedIn. I'm at Melissa Camillary. Um, and there's not that many of us in the world. So C A Miller I. Here's just a note about the course. Thank you. So join yes, lowercase, type lowercase. I didn't realize that that was case sensitive, but it's standfortheand.com slash sold out.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

Awesome. All right, I'm ending the stream. Thanks, guys. Thank you. If this episode made things feel a little more doable, I'd love to help you take the next step with the booked out blueprint. It's a practical, low pressure session to clarify your offers, your marketing, and what actually moves the needle. You can book yours through the link in the show notes. You don't have to figure it out alone. Hey there, fellow founders. Are you looking to unlock the secrets behind rapid business growth? Join my vibrant meetup group where we dive into masterclasses on game-changing strategies every single month. We've tackled topics like building a lean marketing engine, crafting killer lead magnets, and leveraging gateway offers to sell high-ticket offers. And trust me, you don't want to miss out on the next one. Come share your experiences, learn from the best, and let's grow together. Sign up and be part of the next masterclass by going to events.saranoelblock.com. That's E V E N T S dot S A R A H N O E L B L O C K dot com.