Every Launch Is an Experiment: What I Learned From a Zero-Signup Workshop

This episode is a full, honest debrief of a launch that didn’t convert — and what I learned anyway.

I promoted a brand-new workshop more than any other offer I’ve ever put out into the world. I showed up consistently. I talked about it everywhere. And it got zero signups.

Instead of spiraling or scrapping the idea entirely, I treated the launch like an experiment. In this episode, I walk you through what I tested, what actually happened, the data I’m paying attention to, and the questions I’m carrying into the next iteration so I can learn something real from the experience.

If you’ve ever had a launch that felt disappointing or confusing, this episode is an invitation to step out of shame and into curiosity.

In This Episode, I Talk About

• Why I treat launches as experiments instead of personal verdicts
• The workshop I launched and the problem it was designed to solve
• What “going all-in on visibility” looked like for me this time
• The actual results (including traffic, emails, and conversions)
• The questions I’m asking instead of immediately changing everything
• The one variable I’m changing when I rerun this offer — and why that matters

What I’m Testing Next

I’m not throwing this offer away. I’m rerunning it and changing one thing so I can compare results and actually learn what made a difference. I share what I’m keeping, what I’m adjusting, and how I’m thinking about timing, format, and messaging moving forward.

If This Episode Resonated

I’d love to hear from you. What’s one experiment you’re running in your business right now — or one launch that taught you more than you expected?

What next?

• Follow Here's What I Learned on your favorite podcast player
• Leave a review so the podcast is seen by more people like you
• Share this episode with a friend
• Find the complete show notes and transcripts at jackihayes.co

Say hi!

• Follow me on Instagram at @jackihayes_obm

Credits:

Intro and Outro Music: Atomic by Alex-Productions |https://onsound.eu/

Music promoted byhttps://www.free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Transcript

Welcome to season 10 of Here's What I Learned. I'm Jacki Hayes, a systems and ops strategist, romanticist, reader, and D&D nerd who's endlessly curious about what makes a business actually work. This season is about experiments.

Big, small, accidental, and transformative. Because every business is built on trial and error, noticing, and iteration. If you're growing a business that changes with you and you're tired of one-size-fits-all advice, you'll feel right at home.

So let's get into it. Welcome to episode 1 of season 10 of Here's What I Learned. If you listened to the intro, you know that season 10 is all about experiments.

Specifically, the experiments that we're running in our business. There's so much to learn in those experiments, and I really hate looking at them as failed experiments because you're always gathering data. I have a science background.

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in animal ecology, hence why systems and ecosystems are my thing. But that means that I tend to approach everything as a hypothesis and data collection and review all of that, create another hypothesis, etc. And that's really what this whole season is going to be about.

Different experiments that I or my guests are running inside their business and what they're learning from that. And I really thought a great way to kick off this season was to talk about a launch that I had recently that didn't go the way that I would have liked it to. In fact, it's the launch I've talked about the most, so promoted the most, of all of my offers.

And it's also the one where I got zero signups. Here is a little debrief of what that entire launch was and what I learned from it because every launch is actually just an experiment. This workshop was about lead tracking using Airtable.

And the reason I decided to do this particular workshop is because I had heard from so many people that they struggle with managing their leads. All those relationships, all those people they meet, all those potential clients, all those potential collaborators that they're meeting in DMs and they're meeting in networking events, live in person and virtually. The people that they're talking to in coffee chats, the folks that they are commenting on LinkedIn, how they're going to track that, and also remember to follow up with people.

So I heard this over and over again and I thought, okay, let's help people create a custom system for tracking their leads. My entire premise of the workshop was that I was going to help you create a custom management system for you. We're going to start small and then you could have the skills then to build bigger, to make it more customized, to add automations, etc.

I also decided that I would use Airtable as the tool. Now I'm usually pretty tool agnostic, but Airtable is really flexible and I felt like this would be a way to start. Kind of a baseline, a foundation for people to work from.

But what they were going to be learning in the workshop, they could take to anything, ClickUp, etc. Google Sheets if they wanted to. Early December felt extremely doable.

It was going to be a short workshop format. I priced it at $97 because they would be receiving a workbook that helped them thinking through their lead management process as well as an Airtable base to start with. So why did I decide to host this workshop in early December? Well, I'm a managing so I got the idea and ran with it.

But also I had had so many back-to-back conversations about this lead management struggle that people were having that I just wanted to jump on it now. I also felt like it was a short workshop format so it's going to be easy for people to participate in and get on their schedule. I also priced it at $97.

It was the first time I was going to be hosting this workshop. They were going to be getting a lot of value out of it. So I priced it in what I felt was an affordable price range while also still reflecting its value.

And what I was hoping to learn was what happens when I go all-in on visibility. Here's a few things that I did. A quick rundown.

So I added a pre-roll ad to my podcast for three weeks and that ad was downloaded 99 times with those podcast episodes. There were 14 Instagram stories over those three weeks, three carousel posts, and two static posts. I mentioned the workshop nine times in threads.

I posted three times on LinkedIn. I had three dedicated emails that went out to my list. So one per week.

I also had two PS mentions and those emails had an average of 49 to 55 percent open rates. And I personally reached out to 31 direct contacts with invites. I put more effort across more platforms than I ever had.

Could I have done more? Of course. Okay, so what were the results? Well, I didn't have any signups as I said earlier. I also didn't have any clicks from the emails.

I did have people traveling over to the sales page so there was at least enough interest for people to check it out, but there were no conversions. This isn't a pity party. That's just the data for you.

As somebody who's looking at this as an experiment, I've got some questions. Was it the timing? It was early December when everybody's just coming back from the holidays. It was literally right after the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. Was it the format? Basically, I was going to give you some guidelines and then folks were going to implement it on the spot while I was there to answer questions.

Did people not want that kind of format? Was the messaging off? Did I focus too much on the tool? Not enough on the transformation? Was I not speaking to the right audience? Did my actual people see it or did they just scroll by? Did I need more time, more lead-up, or more lead nurture beforehand? I still believe in this offer and I'm going to be running it again in Q1 of 2026, but as a good scientist, I know you're only changing one variable at a time because if you change too many, you don't know exactly what it is that created the results that you got next. So this time, it's timing. It's not right in between holidays.

It's at the start of the new year. I'm going to keep everything exactly as I did. Same number of emails sent out.

I'm going to repeat the messaging. Same number of invites, etc. And I will see what happens.

The effort that I put into this launch wasn't wasted. It taught me how much visibility I can create. I have struggled in past launches to talk about my offer enough.

It helped me understand where people are engaging and it helped me normalize zero results without spiraling. It's not about me personally. It's about the data.

What do I need to change to make this work? So I'd love to know, have you had a launch that quote-unquote failed for you and what did you learn about it? Or if you're getting ready to go into a launch, how did this episode help you? Please head over to Instagram and find me there. Send me a DM and we can have a conversation about your upcoming experiment. Thanks again for spending time with me on Here's What I Learned.

If this episode gave you something useful to try, rethink, or explore, the best way to support the show is to follow and leave a review. That helps more curious business owners find their way here. And if you want more real talk about the experiments that shape our businesses, plus practical doable system ideas, join my email list.

I send one to two emails each week with stories, insights, and strategies that help you build a business that supports your life, not the other way around. You'll also get updates on workshops, new offerings, and the things I'm learning as I experiment alongside you. Until next time, keep experimenting, keep paying attention to what those experiments tell you, and keep building a business that fits you.