Not-So Kind Regards

From Ideas to Income: Launching with Kelsey McCormick

• Maddy Birdcage & Caroline Moss • Season 5 • Episode 8

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Today, we’re joined by Kelsey McCormick, founder of Coming Up Roses, to explore how “squiggly” creative entrepreneurs can turn their unique energy into successful launches. Drawing from her experience marketing for iconic brands like Coachella and Katy Perry, Kelsey shares her signature Warm-up Method—a three-step process to transform ideas into income. From identifying your audience’s readiness to buy to building trust and converting sales, this conversation is packed with practical insights for creative service providers and entrepreneurs looking to launch with confidence. 

Episode Highlights: 

  • What it means to be squiggly 
  • Identifying your audience’s heat level 
  • Turning creativity into launch success 
  • Building trust that drives sales 
  • Asking for the sale with confidence 

Next Steps:  

Experience a new era of business coaching with Birdcage School’s Coaching Unlimited™ program. Unlock unlimited one-on-one coaching sessions over six months, designed to give you the clarity, confidence, and strategies to scale your brand and achieve your biggest goals. 

Explore the details and see how Coaching Unlimited™ can transform your business at: 

Connect with Kelsey: 

Connect with us:  

To work with us, book your discovery call at https://www.birdcagemarketing.com.au/start-here

To discover the school, visit https://birdcagemarketing.com.au/

Speaker 1:

She told me how much they're spending on regional billboards, tv and all of that, and I've pitched a package which is half the price of that, and she's basically pushing back, saying it's too much. You can delete all of your traditional marketing in favor of something that's measurable, scalable and, essentially, apart from paying agency fees for us to get you started and to teach you, it's then free. Welcome to the Not so Kind Regards podcast. I'm Maddie Birdcage and I'm Caroline Moss. We are done with the digital fluff and pleasantries and we're here to talk straight about brand building, digital marketing and personal growth.

Speaker 1:

At Birdcage School, we have a little known secret, which is our coaching unlimited program. This is a one-on-one coaching program that completely breaks the mold of what traditional marketing and business coaching looks like. As a coaching unlimited student, you can book coaching calls when you want them, as often as you want them, for up to 20 hours over a six-month period, where you'll be connected with your choice of senior birdcage coach who will support you as you scale your brand, who will support you, just like we've supported hundreds of our other coaching clients to achieve all of their goals within just six months of working with us. If you want to know more about how we are going unlimited with coaching, make sure you visit the website or check out the show notes.

Speaker 2:

Well, welcome to another episode of the Not so Kind Regards podcast. Today, I am, of course, joined by Maddie Birdcage, but we also have a special guest today, kelsey McCormick. Let me tell you a little bit about Kelsey. So Kelsey is the founder of Coming Up Roses, a platform supporting creative entrepreneurs. She has a background in marketing for the music industry. She's worked with brands like Coachella and Katy Perry, and she launched Coming Up Roses during the pandemic to help creatives grow their brand. Today, she's going to talk to us about launching with her warm-up method for creative entrepreneurs. Welcome, kelsey. Yay, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here Me too. This is going to be a really fun conversation for all three marketing nerds that are sitting here today. Yay, I know I was excited to chat with you guys as well about marketing. Let's first dive into telling us a little bit about yourself, your expertise and your brand.

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah, I started my foray into career in the marketing industry in music. So I worked for a music promotion company, a big one in Los Angeles, and it was like right on the cusp of when social media was becoming a thing, like all of my bosses were still buying billboards and radio spots for tours and the festivals coming up, and I was like we got to get on this social media thing, like I think this is going to be the way that we market from now on, and everyone was like, oh yeah, you can do that as well, in addition to all the other stuff that you have to do. It was like kind of not seen as this way to market, but fast forward a couple years and it was like I was running the whole social media kind of department because that's how big it got. So I think I came up on a really interesting time of like kind of leaving behind traditional media and going into like social media as this like the main way that you market and sell tickets, in my case to concerts and festivals. And yeah, I just kind of moved up the ranks there.

Speaker 2:

And then, when I was 28, I decided to move to Sydney for a little bit. I worked in marketing and social media at various companies and then I really got the bug to start my own thing. During the pandemic I had a baby and I was like I don't think I want to go back into the hustly, bustly music industry or the entertainment industry, which is what I was working on in Sydney. So, yeah, that's kind of the cliff notes, but basically started my own thing, started Coming Up Roses in 2020. And it's been kind of off to the races since then. I feel like we're all about the same age, hey. Yeah, maddie and I have a similar trajectory of like being new to social media, being new to marketing and all of a sudden being the expert in digital marketing when we're like all entry level.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, it was kind of like ignored for a really long time in the music industry, I think you know, only recently it's become like the entire department at my old company it's still like that across so many industries that we've started working with some really progressive real estate companies to get them on social media, because even in these very sales-based businesses, like music selling tickets, like real estate selling houses, they're still doing things the old way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know I mean it must work in some industries. Still, I think my brother's a lawyer and I know he still does a lot of traditional marketing and word of mouth and he does get a lot from there. But even he the other day was like asking me what he should be putting on social media and if he should start posting on like TikTok and Instagram, and I was like go for it, why not? But I think the learning curve is going to be pretty steep at this stage.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy how much businesses spend on traditional marketing, though I think that's. Something that always shocks me is just how expensive billboards are. Tv radio is, and it's like social media. Yeah, there's a big learning curve and it takes some energy, but it's free.

Speaker 1:

We're speaking to a local Makai business at the moment. They're in recruitment for mines and I'm speaking to the marketing person there and she told me how they're in recruitment for mines. And I'm speaking to the marketing person there and she told me how much they're spending on regional billboards, TV and all of that, and I've pitched a package which is half the price of that and she's basically pushing back, saying it's too much, and I just feel like saying you can delete all of your traditional marketing in favor of something that's measurable, scalable and, essentially, apart from paying agency fees for us to get you started and to teach you, it's then free.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally, you're basically like training her on a whole new skill set. Yeah, yeah, I wonder what the reservation is. I think also, you know, working in the music industry got me so good at like finding niche audiences and really understanding how to talk to different niche audiences. And there's just so many layers to social media and especially if you do have a lot of different audiences you're talking to, it can be really hard to figure out where to show up and when and what the cadence is, and I think that can be quite overwhelming and actually a lot more work than just like buying a couple of billboard spots every quarter.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree. I feel like with traditional marketing they're just ticking boxes. They just want to tick boxes. It's easy for them to speak to a media rep who's like, okay, we'll just put this on a billboard, we'll show this ad to X amount of people in our viewership. Job done, tick.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and that's it. But they're definitely missing out on a massive sector if they're not doing social media. That, like, is marketing now, in my opinion, I agree, they're going to get left behind eventually. So, speaking of audiences, tell us a bit about your squiggly entrepreneur audience. I love that. That's your brand. It's so cute. Tell us a bit about them and how you came up with that. Yeah, I call them squiggly entrepreneurs it's kind of my euphemism for people who are on the ADHD spectrum Just a lot of creative people who kind of feel all over the place.

Speaker 2:

You're probably the type of person who, like talk too much in school or like left your homework crumbled in your backpack, like those kinds of people aka me and just my way of like creating this inclusive space and being like it's okay to be that way. Actually, that's kind of a superpower when leveraged in the right direction. So, yeah, it's just my like nice word, nice inclusive community of people who are really creative, starting their own businesses and, yeah, trying to give them permission to do it in their own way and find a way to grow that works for their squiggliness and not against it. I guess I love that. That's like you've really tapped into something we talk about all the time here on the podcast and in everything we do at Birdcage. We don't put people in two buckets, but we feel like our audience is two buckets, right I?

Speaker 1:

heard this.

Speaker 2:

Patty's kind of more of the. We call her multi-passionate, which is like ADHD, squiggly people, and then the rest of our team is, like me, perfectionist. So it's like there's positives and negatives. Perfectionist is sometimes we freeze and procrastinate because we're just standing in our own way, whereas multi-passionate is like you guys have so many ideas and you're so creative and it's awesome, but sometimes it's hard for you to follow through with things. So that's cool, because I was going to ask you do you feel like you're more of a multi-passionate or a perfectionist? Definitely multi-passionate. Yeah, my husband works with me in the business and he is more meticulous, and I feel like you do need the foil to your squiggliness as you scale, because systems are not my strong suit. I'm a hot mess behind the scenes. I need someone kind of running that, or else it just goes off the rails. So you definitely need both and that's nice that you guys have found that in your business as well.

Speaker 1:

I agree. I'd love to just dive in on that a little bit more, because we work with our agency. We work with bigger brands that generally have teams right and we find that dynamic of multi-passionate and perfectionist together that's the winning combination. But we also work with a lot of solopreneurs and people who are maybe just starting or only want to keep their business as one person, and what I've found with the multi-passionates or the squiggly entrepreneurs if you don't have that, I don't want to call I think we need to rename the perfectionist thing. If you don't have the Carolines of the world helping you roll things out, you need systems and frameworks to keep you on track, and that's what I created for myself and that's what we then teach, but it also sounds like that's exactly what you've done for your squiggly entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I sometimes call my husband the handbrake because before he came on board I was just like messy action, like figure it out, you know, figure it out along the way. But in my wake was just like a trail of just like random links everywhere and unfinished projects. And he came on board and he kind of did slow down the train but in a way that's been like really good for the long term trajectory of the business. So it is really good to have that person. But if you don't, yeah, it really is finding what works for you organizationally. So before I had Sean, I mean, like I said, it wasn't the smoothest, most well-oiled machine, but before he came on I did have like certain things and checks and balances to kind of keep things running. I mean it worked right, but it wasn't the smoothest.

Speaker 1:

My sister has actually been a huge inspiration for me in this space because she was diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia at a really young age and she's probably the epitome of someone with ADHD, I feel like, and I feel bad for her because I feel like this ADHD thing gets thrown around a lot. It's just if someone feels like, oh, they're a bit distracted, they have ADHD. But I've seen my sister how she's grown up, how much she actually suffered with the condition. But what I saw from her is she created systems and processes for herself and that's how she was able to overcome it. So I took a lot of inspo from her saying, okay, if someone that really would otherwise struggle, if she is able to finish high school and then do a bachelor's degree and now she's our content specialist and she's amazing, if she can do it, then the rest of us can certainly do it. We just we need the frameworks around us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's so true. I definitely have like certain checks and balances, even now, like I always kind of plan my week ahead on a Sunday night, because if I wait till Monday morning it's just like chaos. I'm already getting emails. So if I have like just an hour every Sunday night to organize my week ahead, I'm like good for the week. I know exactly what I'm working on. So just little things like that kind of keep me. But you do have to figure out like your own thing, and I think that's why I found working in a nine to five really challenging, because you did kind of have to fit into other people's ways and systems and organizations and I often found that really stifling for my creativity and things like that.

Speaker 1:

I feel you girl yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it's nice to be on the other side of that and be able to make your own rules a bit. So your audience is the squiggly entrepreneur. Do you have like an anti-audience or people you're trying to kind of repel or not attract in your marketing and in your branding? That's an interesting question. Yeah, I think I really don't love the like. I don't want to like speak out of school, but I don't love like the coachy coach people. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

The people who are like promising, like MLME, like seven figure entrepreneur, like those kinds of people. I find it really like that whole world really strange and I really try to like not attract people who are basically looking for a quick fix right, because that's what a lot of those people are promising Like get your energetics right and then you're going to make a million dollars or like whatever that means Like I just I think it's just kind of silly. So I try to kind of like stay away from a lot of that verbiage and I think, as a result, I don't get a lot of people in that world.

Speaker 1:

I find it really deceptive. Yeah, I find that it preys on people in vulnerable positions, like new mothers, for example. Exactly, and I find that you know there is no get rich quick scheme. There are none. Or if there are, it's short-lived. But one thing I'd love to ask you is what level of woo-woo are you? Are you on the scale at all? Do you believe in energetics? Do you believe in any of that aspect?

Speaker 2:

I mean I do in a sense of self-belief is everything in business right? You just have to believe that you have what it takes and just know that it's going to work out. There's been so many leaps of faith I've had to take and it has worked out just because of that mindset. But I really find it almost gaslighting when people say it's like that's it, and if you don't have the right mindset then it's your fault. You know what I mean. I really find like it's such a thin line there where it's like, yes, you need to believe in yourself and work hard. But you know, that idea of like, oh, your energy wasn't right, so you didn't sell the way that I sold, like that kind of thing I find really icky and just dishonest. So I think I'm a little pinch of woo-woo, but with mostly strategic mind and hard work, because at the end of the day, what is manifestation other than setting a goal, believing that you're capable of getting to that goal and then doing the hard work to get there For sure?

Speaker 1:

I find that the way. So I reckon I'm pretty high on the woo-woo spectrum these days, but purely for my own quality of life. You know, it's just my, it's my spirituality, which I do bring through the business in some aspects. But the way I actually got into it was through psychology and science. I was very skeptical about all of this and so I'd read about cognitive behavior therapy and I'd I got really into the psychological level of it and what I actually have realized is the, the crazy witchy woo woo manifestation people who know what they're talking about, and the highly trained science psychologists. They're actually saying exactly the same thing. It's just different language for it, Forever differently, exactly. And it's it is. And I think there are elements to like. Your energy has to be right, but the energy comes from this idea of self-worth which is programmed into us from when we are children, and that's this idea of schemas and which is what we bring through all of our marketing frameworks as well.

Speaker 2:

I think this is a good conversation, though, because it's good. We just did a podcast episode on like mindset myths and we even talk about it. I listened to it. No, awesome.

Speaker 2:

And we talk about, like you know, all the things that are wrong kind of in the manifestation industry, that people are like they're just leaving out really important pieces to the whole puzzle, and that's what Maddie's talking about. Was that subconscious reprogramming and like yeah, I've listened to science about manifestation. That's like neuroplasticity and rewiring your brain and all that, and it's just science. Oh, they do a lot Totally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it just gets muddled sometimes in the messaging of people selling that who are saying basically, like pay me a lot of money and I'll teach you how to do this, where it's like really like yes, reprogramming is a thing, but it's really just about like I did hypnotherapy forever. It's just like, yes, I don't know. Like, yes, you can reprogram and you can feel better, but I just don't think the method to doing that is necessarily like paying one person, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to somehow like unlock some like magic source I think everyone has access to it right now. Yeah, and it is probably just about like finding again, finding your own practice with it. For me, like hypnotherapy, worked really well Journaling. I still journal every single day. But yeah, I guess am I making sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, and I actually I did a piece of content on this a little while ago where I said it's actually really important to especially with your mind, with your mindset. I believe it's actually really important to be drawing on different sources. So you know, I'm a member of To Be Magnetic, which is about, yeah, essentially neural reprogramming, but then I also worked with a psychologist for a period of time, but then I also tune into some crazy like meditation stuff which is completely Archangel Michael coming down to my bedside and talking to like so it's like these different but they all lend in and they blend in and they make all these parts make a whole, and so I agree, it's like putting your faith into one person. That's that's literally the worst thing you can do, because that is, if anything, that is saying that you don't believe in yourself enough to trust that you can, you have the answers and you're giving your entire future and you're giving your self-worth away to somebody else to fix for you, which is not possible.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a really good point. I had to kind of pull myself up this year on business coaching because I'd been investing for years and years and years into different experts and then this year I finally invested in someone and I was like you know what? I know all this stuff, yeah, I'm good. Like I don't need someone else to like look over my sales pages or like tell me that everything's fine, like I'm good at this point. I don't.

Speaker 2:

There are other things I want to invest in my business, to get support, but I don't necessarily need this like person who's a little bit further along than me to like tell me that what I'm doing is okay. And I think that's a similar energy of like paying someone else to like reassure you almost. And it's like at what point are you like almost negating the work? Because you're putting the, you're putting your, you're relying on someone else for the self-trust that you should be able to cultivate on your own Bingo? Yeah, I think, maddie, you had that similar journey, hey, with coaches, coaching, yeah not just coaching but also like team members in my business.

Speaker 1:

I find myself in moments of uncertainty, really looking external to myself and looking around and asking everyone else for their opinion. And it was my sister only recently who had to sit me down and say stop asking everyone else. As much as she loves to, you know, she treats just like everyone in my team. They teach the, they treat the business as their own and that's that's what I want, but it's at the same time as the business owner and the visionary as well. Most importantly, I think you need to just decide on your own what you want. Take in maybe people's opinions, but you ultimately need to make the decision and trust yourself and back yourself, because you do have the answers.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I always just think like be decisive, like that is like one skill I'm always trying to hone in on is the leader of my business. I don't want to grow a big team, but I think I'll just keep like my husband and you know I'll keep my husband and I'll maybe like hire on a couple more contractors here and there. But, yeah, just think decisive, you know, really like backing your decision, and if it is a failure which I've had plenty, oh well, like no big deal, just go back to the drawing board. So yeah, I love that. All right. Well, let's get into helping the creative entrepreneurs in our audience and in your audience. First of all, can you define creative entrepreneur? Who sits in that bucket and then talk to us a bit about launching? Sure, I'd say anyone who has a skill set, a creative skill set, so copywriting, web designer, stylists I'm trying to think of the people who've been through my programs recently web developers, you know, photographers, people in that kind of bucket are creative service providers or creative entrepreneurs. Let's dive into your method. Wow, my warm up method. Yeah, so my whole thing is working.

Speaker 2:

In the music industry, I learned how to basically sell concert tickets to niche audiences and when I started as a creative service provider, my first thing in my business was being a web designer and I just found the first year such a struggle because just randomly waiting for clients to come to me, I was like this is the worst. I randomly get inquiries every once in a while. It's so unpredictable, you can't control it and it's really stressful. So year two, I was like I'm going to launch my services. I used to launch concerts and festivals and just see if that increases my sales and see if that makes me have a better situation with my sales. And what happened was I 4x'd my income. It was so successful that my income literally quadrupled. And so I was like, okay, this is insane. I need to teach this to other creative service providers, because if there's one thing creatives are really terrible at, it's making sales. They just hate being salesy, hate talking about their offers. So I just kind of packaged it up in this program called Launch your Own Way, where I literally teach them kind of how to launch and with a bunch of different frameworks that they can obviously like kind of adapt to their own style and business.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, the main thing is making sure you have a warm audience, an audience that's super engaged, that trust you to create that transformation that you're promising. So I kind of have a warm up method. Step one is really just understanding, like, where your audience is at right now. So how warm are they? Are they cold? Most people do have pretty cold audiences because they're kind of neglecting wherever they're building their audience because they're busy delivering a service. So it's really about like identifying what heat level is your audience. If they're cold, they don't trust you at all. They're not ready to buy. If they're warm, maybe they're a little bit engaged, but they're not quite ready to buy. If they're hot, they're like a hot audience, they're ready to buy. So first is identifying the heat level of your audience, audience. What would you guys say do I know you have a lot of different instagrams do you feel like you have a hot audience and you feel like your insta or your podcast has like warmed up your audience a lot? I feel like my maddie's tiktok is the main.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah I love your tiktok. We operate very similar where we we use our funnel method. So top of funnel is obviously cold, middle is warm, bottom is hot. We do use a few different platforms for different stages of our funnel, but the most successful funnel we've ever had, and still have, is using my TikTok as the top of funnel, so getting people in initially and then we warm them up using Instagram and we sell using Instagram and emails and DM nurtures as well.

Speaker 2:

So they go from TikTok to Instagram often.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's usually how we like to do it. I find and I'm sure you find the same TikTok's not great for selling Like you might make a few sales through TikTok. So we do sometimes post some bottom of funnel stuff, but it doesn't generally perform well and it's not really a community platform?

Speaker 1:

No, it's not. I guess the biggest struggle we have had is that we have evolved so much as a brand. We started as Birdcage Marketing, as an agency, nine years ago. Then we introduced the school, then we introduced the studio space and then we've got the podcast as well and we really we found that by having the old Instagram and having all brands under it just wasn't working for us, so that's why we did decide to split things out. Now what you'll notice is our school Instagram. We're probably most active on that and it's steadily growing, but that's where the main action is happening in the DMs on that account. Like that's where the engagement truly is.

Speaker 1:

On the Birdcage marketing Instagram and the agency. That really is just like a final check. That is, we don't use that so much to warm audiences up or to attract or to warm or to convert. That's really we find with agency work, we're very particular with who we bring in and so a lot of that is through networking or there's a longer lead time and they're basically then just checking out Instagram. Okay, yes, they're doing what they say they can do, but we're not ultimately focusing on a huge amount of growth in that space. To answer your question about the podcast, focusing on a huge amount of growth in that space. To answer your question about the podcast no-transcript from that warm to that hot, because that's ultimately that's where the trust comes in. If you can listen to us having a conversation for 30, 40 minutes and you're completely aligned and you get a lot of value from this, that's ultimately the final tick. I love these people. These are my people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. I think podcasts are so awesome for that. Dms definitely Close friends is another one a lot of people in La Tron way use. So, yeah, that kind of actually brings me to the second part, which is building trust. So taking your audience from viewers so maybe on TikTok, just like casually following along to actually engaging with you and like trusting you and really like believing that you can create that transformation that they want, believing that you're the one Because there's so for my audience. There's so many creative service providers out there. There's so many people selling web design services, so it's like how do you actually stand out too? So I think a big thing of building trust is also having a point of view, and I think that's why podcasts are so awesome, because you're expressing your point of view all the time on here and people are really connecting with that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Can you give us an example, kelsey, of this stage of warming people up? Maybe give us a specific client example of something you've worked through recently? One of my students. She was doing her first course. She always did brand and web design and she wanted to release her first course on how to create show at websites. But she didn't want to alienate her current audience, who were mostly coming to her for really high-ticket design, and she wanted to just capture the people in her audience who were also designers, because a lot of designers have other designers following them and like they'll never buy a high ticket web design because they do that.

Speaker 2:

So she basically started close friends on her Instagram and just added everyone who was in her audience who opted in said they wanted to join, but also people who were, like she knew were designers, and she totally like launched a beta version of the program, just using close friends, and she took people through the entire process from naming it and, like you know, giving them options of what to name it with her to designing the sales page, to designing the program, to like designing what was going in the program. So I think this idea of like working in public, like actually building in public is such an essential ingredient to building trust, really making people feel like they're invested, not only in the you know, okay, give me that beautiful new website but also like oh, I built this with you, like I've been part of this since the ground up and I want to get into this offer. So she ended up selling out just using Close Friends with a brand new offer and I think she teased it over a month and a half before she opened the doors to the beta. I think she sold 30 spots to it and now it's become her signature program. It has made her hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it's pretty awesome. I just got chills. That's so cool.

Speaker 2:

I know close friends like such a simple thing, like it's like always there, but I wouldn't have even thought to use it that way until she did that, and now I use it for some of my programs as well. So that's a great example. But there's so many different ways to do it. I think podcasting is a great way, so private podcasting. I don't know if you guys do that as well, but basically last Christmas, because everyone was out of office, I was like what can I do to keep my audience warm over the holidays. So I released a private podcast called the Warm Up. It was basically how to warm up your audience in a mini course, like an audio course, basically in podcast form, and I released it over the holidays and then it converted, I think, something like 30% into my program Again, the power of podcasting.

Speaker 1:

So how do you make it private? Because, funny story we were going to take a break from this podcast over Christmas, but I feel like my brain doesn't stop and I would love to do like a really informal, just like almost like voice notes style of just what I'm thinking.

Speaker 2:

That's a really good idea. Yeah, I'd say, with private podcasts, just do like short, like almost like a really clear, quick transformation. So mine was like how to warm up your audience in like five episodes, you know? So it's like something like that, and where it's there's a beginning and an end. But there's a program called Hello Audio not sponsored, I wish, but basically there's like they put it behind a paywall or like you charge for it, and then they get a secret link that then goes into their Apple iPod store or Apple podcast store, but, like it's private, only people with the link can get it into their podcast. So, yeah, it's really great, I recommend it.

Speaker 2:

I followed another marketer. It was a free one, but she had a private podcast and it would either go through Apple or Google podcasts Exactly, she just needed to DM you the link for every new episode or she would put it in her newsletter. It was just a way to, I think, like get people a little bit into another step in the customer journey. Yeah, such a great way to build trust and warm up your audience. Yeah, hello Audio is the thing that I use. I think, like Patreon does it as well, yeah, but yeah, I just saw another marketer talk about. She called it like incubators and I hadn't really heard of that word before. But it's like what you're saying, like either a community or a you know subscribe Instagram DM thing, or like a school, like a SKOL or Facebook group like, or the podcast, like I think this is all really interesting somewhere to kind of segment out, uh yeah, and a group of your audience that are like the most warm for your offer, that you can like continually serve them with high value. I think is is the the thing to focus on kind of in this? Yeah, kelsey, do you have a? You probably have a few, but do you have like a free? We call it, what do we call it now, maddie, step one offer, step offer. Do you have like a freebie that you get people in first and then they would move on to that? Is that kind of your customer journey of social media freebie, then maybe a small payment and then coming into your bigger program? Yeah, it's kind of become it like not intentionally necessarily, but I think like adding that paid private podcast has added that low-ticket kind of warm-up offer. But I've always had a bunch of freebies around a launch. I usually do some sort of a live workshop or I'll do a live challenge or something like that usually. So I'll do like a one-off freebie and then kind of evergreen freebies. I usually have like an AI tool that you can access or, yeah, another training, but it's like a replay, kind of pre-recorded training. So, yeah, I do.

Speaker 2:

I really think that that's a great way to again like segment out people onto your list. I think as far as, like when I launch my newsletter, list is like far and away the like biggest selling thing for me. So it's like anything I can do to build that is always a priority. How do you feel and what do you tell your audience about Evergreen versus live launching? What are the pros and cons for you there? Yeah, for that I just say choose in, launch your own way. I'm like there's pros and cons to both.

Speaker 2:

Right, I think there's something really beautiful about closing doors, because like building that anticipation with a waitlist is unmatched to me. Like when you have a waitlist for an offer and you can again like continually serve them with emails and just like build anticipation with this group of people opting in and being like I'm interested in this offer. I think that's just like gold for selling. But I also understand that some people don't want to close off their offer. If they do want to be able to take inquiries all year, sell all year round.

Speaker 2:

But then your challenge becomes getting as many people as possible into a funnel. So do you want to pay for ads for that or do you want to just post about it a lot so that a lot of people are joining the funnel? So they both come with challenges. I'd say you can live launch both, though Like I still, even though Launch Runway is evergreen, I still like give it a marketing push, a launch every quarter, but then I turn it back evergreen and into a funnel. In between it's just like a concentrated marketing push where maybe there's some incentives should join, or there's some like live elements that I'll give people, just because I find like it just sells so much more. When you're like giving it a concentrated marketing push, my funnels go okay. My evergreen funnels go okay. I don't do ads yet. I want to do that next year, but I just find them more of a slow burn.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we've. In our full library program. We and the way that we work with our agency clients and our coaching clients. We teach them to use organic channels first so that you understand what content resonates with your audience, and when you're ready, you can start using paid ads to amplify that. And we find the results that come through that absolutely incredible compared to the old way of doing it, which was using the ads ad campaigns to test the creative in the first place. So we, when we launched the full library last year, we had about our InstaTalk funnel, which was what we teach using TikTok and Instagram together. That generated about half a million dollars worth of sales for us, for our program.

Speaker 1:

But then the ads behind that. I think that's probably done the same again in even a shorter amount of time, but they need to be. Yeah, it needs to be done together and it needs to be done in a particular way. You can't just it's not like the good old days of Facebook ads right, where it's like you'd get a 50 ROAS on a new campaign you need. I think we probably share a similar outlook where it's like I want to get my organic funnel right and then, when I'm ready, I'll use the paid ads.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, I think you want your organic funnel to be selling really well and then put money behind it. And I've definitely made that mistake in the past where I've just put money behind it before it was like really well oiled and before I worked out the kinks in it. So now that I have, I'm like okay, it's getting well oiled, it's doing really well. Now I'm like, okay, 2025, I'm going to put money behind it, but not until I felt really confident about it selling organically. Do you have Mr Handbrake there to coach you through that? Waiting till 2025? He's like are you sure about this? I'm like I don't need you, I'm just going to go for it. But yeah, he's always behind the scenes being like are you sure about that? But yeah, for 2025, maybe I take your, your library course to to teach me how to do that.

Speaker 2:

Well, absolutely, teach people to DIY their funnels yeah, everything.

Speaker 1:

so the way that that we sort of work is everything we do needs to be based on strategy, so we get people to pre-work a strategy and it's very sophisticated marketing psychology that we've aim to make very easy to use Like it's like a, it's like a build, build a bear type strategy program, and then we have our next stage, which is the action, which is where we then teach how do you execute on that strategy, and the main focus is organic social media, then it's email marketing, then it's paid ads right, and then we also have training how to optimize your website as well, to make sure that it's you know.

Speaker 1:

If you're paying for ad spend, you want to make sure that the people coming to your website are going to convert and it's going to be worth the money. The biggest thing that I would say, though, is I'm not a tactics girly. I don't believe that tactics are going to save your marketing, and so, if we look at anti-audience, I think that's probably our anti-audience is people who purely want to learn. I just want to learn how to do paid ads. I just want to learn how to do Instagram, because it's like, no matter how good your campaign is set up, no matter what structure your reels are looking like, if you don't have the audience profiling, the brand substance behind it, it's not going to save a bad campaign, and so what that then means is the action you take can actually be a lot less than what someone who's scrambling around trying to do all the tactics. So we teach you what you have to know and we don't teach you the other stuff. That's just basically box ticking.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that. Would you say you get a lot of creative service providers as well, or is it more people, people who are, you say, coaches and things like that?

Speaker 1:

um, we get a real mix of service, coaching and e-commerce and so everything, and that's always been how our agency's operated as well. So everything we have in our program. We give examples for the three different types for service, e-commerce and for coaches. I would say that we get a lot of probably probably more than 50% of people in the full library are marketers like us, and so what? We I don't know if I'm allowed to say this yet what we really want to do is turn the focus in 2025 to supporting more and more marketers in that space, and then we're going to be giving brands exactly what they need, so we're kind of going to be splitting the offer. Am I allowed to say that yet, caroline? I?

Speaker 2:

don't know, I think. So Exclusive, I love it. We'll give you all more details as they arise. This is one of those. I was wanting to reference this because we had a meeting just yesterday and Maddie was like I've got to still do things my way, which is like fast and go, she's like, but I'm going to try to meet you guys where you are and where all the handbrakes of like we need to scramble and get everything ready, and she's like I need momentum to execute, but I also want to do it your guys' way. So, yeah, more details to come, everybody, awesome.

Speaker 1:

Not trying to handbrake. That's exciting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, it does feel good at this time of year. You're just like can I finally take a little breather? Like finally start kind of thinking about 2025 and like all of the exciting things you want to do? I've been really enjoying just. I'm doing like a bit of a rebrand in 2025 and just thinking about like I had a call with my web designer and developer this morning and just getting all those pieces together and it just feels like exciting. I don't know, I just love working on my own brand. I still just have so much excitement about that part of the entrepreneur space. You know what I mean. It's like I don't know it's fun.

Speaker 2:

Have we gotten to the third step yet? Yeah Well, the third step is pretty simple. It's just convert yet. Yeah Well, the third step is pretty simple, it's just convert. So like not I think this is where people get really hung up is like actually asking for the sale and it's like you have to actually ask for this and not in a pushy way, but like you do have to repeat yourself.

Speaker 2:

Like there used to be that marketing role of seven where people had to see things seven times. I swear it's like the marketing role of 3,000 now because of how inundated we are. So now that you've warmed people up really believing in your offer enough and the fact that you're helping people, enough to unabashedly tell people to join, and that's kind of the final three-step to the method is to convert. And that's kind of, the final three-step to the method is to convert. You're so right about having to mention it 3,000 times. We tell this to our clients, I tell it to my coaching clients all the time. I'm like they're like okay, so what other content ideas? I'm like but you go back and you do that same thing, just in different formats, over and over again.

Speaker 1:

Say the same thing 100 different times.

Speaker 2:

Literally repeat yourself. I can't tell you how many times I've run a marketing campaign and someone's emailed me after being like I missed this. Oh no, like, are doors still open or can I still get this deal? And I'm like, oh damn, like I thought I was being so annoying. Oh, you didn't even hear about it, you know.

Speaker 2:

So I think that that's the biggest thing with converting is, we do all of this work to warm up our audience, but then we forget to invite them into our offer. So it's really this like invitation of like, come experience this. Like, yeah, making sure that you don't forget to invite people along. And the whole reason you created the thing is to solve a problem. So, like, don't be ashamed of solving that problem for people. Yes, you should be compensated for it, but you're selling a service. Selling is service. Like you're solving a problem for people yes, you should be compensated for it, but you're selling a service. Selling is service. You are solving a problem for people. They want your solution, so talk about it. Don't talk about it like it's a sale. It's not like some car that they don't want. Yeah, I wonder if that's why people feel weird about it, because maybe the way that they've experienced being sold to.

Speaker 2:

The other day, a guy knocked on the door and I answered it and he was like hey, I'm here selling HelloFresh subscriptions. And I was in the middle of something and I was like, oh no, we're all right, we've had it before, but I have some dietary issues, so I can't. And he's like, oh no. But I'm just like, oh no, it's OK, we don't want it. And then he's like but this time I'm like, no, seriously, please go away, like I do not want it. And finally he walked away and I was like, oh, I feel so bad because he was just trying to sell me something.

Speaker 2:

But that was just like a bad experience and I didn't want it. And coming to my door is weird. And I wonder, because we experienced that so often. It's like we feel weird when we're asking people. You know what I mean. Afterwards I really reflected. I was like, oh, I felt icky. Maybe that's why people feel like he's selling all the time, because they feel like they're knocking on someone's door. But that's not the energy. The energy is that you've warmed them up so much that they're literally waiting to buy. Yeah, you have to assume a different persona and character and not reflect on all the bad selling experiences, but try to reflect on good selling experiences or create your own like make it your own character.

Speaker 2:

That's so true Because surely we've also had those great selling experiences. I mean, I've just come off of Black Friday and literally went to the mall yesterday to try the Dyson Air Wrap, because I've gotten so many different things about Dyson Air Wrap and I'm like, oh, I got to go try it and see if it's worth the $700 or whatever it is, and to me that was a good selling experience because I got to try it and I saw so many different people using it and I'm kind of umming and ahhing about it. So we all have good selling experiences as well to go off of. Yeah, I love that. I feel like we're running out of time a little bit. Yeah, sorry, I'm a yucker. No, you're great, I feel like. I just have one more question I want to ask Maddie, let me know if you have any more, but I'd just love to know.

Speaker 2:

I guess, like one of the sticking points you said for your audience with implementing these funnels is the converting. Would you say that's like the hardest part for them or what's like the biggest challenge when they're trying to implement this structure? No-transcript shift in the way that you're showing up and the way that you're approaching your business. It's like you're not this like passive person in your business, you're the CEO of your business, you're going after it and you're in control. And I think a lot of service providers struggle with that, because they're service providers, they're providing a service. So they're like oh no, like my clients tell me what they want and they set the prices. You know those kinds of things. So it's this massive. It's so much bigger than like selling. It's a whole different way of approaching your business that I think people need to wrap their mind around often.

Speaker 2:

I resonate with that as, like I was a freelancer too, like copywriter, I'm an ads manager, and it felt like, okay, I got into this because I just want to be behind the scenes, I don't want to stand in front, I don't want to be a business owner, I just want to be a freelancer.

Speaker 2:

Like it's a whole identity shift. It's like a freelance mindset to be like, okay, yeah, I'm just going to go word of mouth or hopefully someone slides into my DMs or fills out my inquiry form every once in a while and I'll just make ends meet. So yeah, there's lots of mindset things involved around just being worthy of even having that amount of clients and being worthy of even asking people to purchase your offers, and also like shifting your offers from whatever you want, like your clients just being like I want this, this, this and this, and like you taking orders to being like, no, I have this package and that's what you get. Like that's what you're ordering. So it's a big shift, yeah, and I think some people do the shift seamlessly and some people do the shift seamlessly and some people really struggle with it.

Speaker 1:

Final questions. Maddie, no, I love this conversation. I feel like our methods are really, really similar in how we approach things, but I love that you've really niched down into creative entrepreneurs and specifically about launching, because that is a skill in and of itself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I could talk about it literally all day. So I felt like that was kind of the sign because I used to do a lot more stuff. And then I was like you know what? Launching is just the thing I want to talk about all the time. So that's the thing I'm going to just go deep on and so far it's been good. I mean it was scary to do that, but so far it's been really good. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Where can everyone find you and Coming Up Roses Kelsey, everything is cominguprosesco. So at cominguprosesco Instagram, that's usually where I'm hanging out. I'm a millennial, so, instagram, maybe I do need to join the library so you guys can teach me how to TikTok. And then, yeah, cominguppersesco is my website. Yeah, awesome. Do you have any offers currently going? I do. Actually, I have my private podcast. You can listen to it like part of it for free. I'll give you guys the link for people to sign up if that's of interest. Just to check that out and kind of hear people's launching stories. It can be kind of helpful to like there's lots of alumni on there. Kind of hear people's launching stories. That can be kind of helpful to like. There's lots of alumni on there kind of talking about how they warmed up their audiences, how they launched, things like that. So it's super helpful if you've never launched before.

Speaker 1:

Love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks so much for joining us today. This was a really fun conversation. Yeah, it was fun. If you guys are ever in Newcastle, let me know. Carolyn, where are you based? I'm in cans. Oh, cans, I did know that you mentioned that on an episode.

Speaker 2:

Okay, nice, if I'm ever up north, I'll let you guys know definitely, I was thinking about going to queensland in the new year because they have like a bluey exhibit in um brisbane and neil's like my son is just like we have to go, we have to go. So we've been thinking, so we've been thinking about going, but that's obviously far from both of you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, queensland's a big state, you forget so much.

Speaker 2:

I know Also it's been closer to you than it is to us, I know. But yeah, you never know, maybe I'll go up to Cairns, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, kelsey so much.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Not so Kind Regards podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. If you did, we would really appreciate if you left a review, on whatever streaming platform you are using. It helps us to grow as a brand new podcast and to help many more business owners and content creators reach their goals, just like we hope this brought you one step closer to yours. Remember, connect with us on TikTok, at Maddie Birdcage and at Birdcage Marketing, and the same handles on Instagram again, and if you really want to learn how to work with us, make sure you head to our website and book a call. We would love to speak with you.