Ep 207 - Why Free Isn't Free: The Truth About Live Launching

Someone left "not free!!!!!" on one of my ads this week for a free workshop, ad my first response? It was genuine sadness and this episode is about exactly why.

Because that comment tells a bigger story. About an industry that has burned its own audience with lazy free offers. About the visibility wound that has female founders bracing before they even hit publish. And about what it actually costs a founder to run a free live launch, the ad spend, the team hours, the hundreds of thousands in training sitting behind a 90-minute session she's not charging for.

This episode goes into the conversation the online business space is afraid to have: selling after a free offer is not a betrayal. It is the whole architecture. And withholding your offer is not generosity, it is a disservice to the person who needed it and never knew it existed.

Plus the reframe from my mentor Tracy that shifted everything: what a blessing it is that I get to teach this.

If you are in a launch right now, or about to be, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• Why lazy free webinars have destroyed audience trust and what a real free offer actually delivers
• The visibility wound underneath why female founders shrink before they're even visible
• The real economics of a live launch ($7–$14 per lead, team costs, years of training)
• Why selling is not manipulation and withholding your offer is not generosity
• The mentor reframe that changed how Jess holds the energy of every launch

Links mentioned:

Free Business Frequency Mapping Session (11–13 May): jessicaread.com/activation

Explore working together: jessicaread.com/offerings

Related episodes:

Ep 204: Tall Poppy Syndrome and Your Nervous System

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the F*ck Yes Frequency. The podcast where strategy meets energetics and your business gets to feel like a full body. Yes. I'm Jessica Read, frequency first business mentor for the woman building a sustainable, scalable, and sexy business grounded in her unapologetic self-expression, authority, and embodied leadership. Let's drop into the episode. Someone left a comment on one of my ads this week for a free workshop that said, not free. There was five exclamation marks. I sat with this for a minute. My first reaction wasn't that ping in my tummy that I used to get. It wasn't anger, it wasn't even defensiveness. It was genuine sadness. And I want to talk about why I think there is something in this reaction that really deserves a conversation, and a lot of founders really need to hear right now, especially if you are live launching with webinars, with trainings, with challenges. If you are putting yourself out there and you are bracing for this exact kind of thing. This is episode 207, by the way of the Fck Yes Frequency and welcome if you are brand new and listening today. It is so great to have you here. This is a really, really raw and honest conversation that I wanna have, and it's something that I'm sure if you haven't seen yet, you are not gonna be able to unsee. Now we are going to talk first about live launching. The very first reason why this comment made me sad, had nothing to do with me. It made me sad for the industry in general. It made me sad for women in business who have been so burned by people who are promising these transformations in their free webinars or their free workshops. They're promising these very clear and specific transformations, and then we go and we give our time and our time as a female founder is our most valuable commodity. And we sit on that webinar and we listen to them talk about their story first. Okay, amazing. Yeah. Then they talk about their framework. I've been to so many of these, specifically these like 20 minute ones. I've seen the patterns. They talk about their framework. That doesn't mean anything to me yet because I haven't actually been emotionally engaged. I haven't had some sort of win with them. I haven't had some sort of awareness. They're going straight into their framework, doing a ton of testimonials through and then inviting me to their program. The next 30 minutes is just on a countdown timer of the program. Now that's fine if that's what the training or the webinar is actually positioned to be. Come and learn about how this program will change your life. But because we all have these marketing messages, they are promising an outcome. They're promising to give you something on that training. And most of the time these days people are rushing through these so much so, and maybe not being taught the proper frameworks as well, like a really good high converting framework that actually builds relationship and gets wins for your people. That's not happening. And I wanna tell you the difference really quickly. So the workshop that I have upcoming, we are doing a business frequency mapping session. This is a real tool that I use in my business that you are actually going to get to go through, live on the call with me, and also take it away so you can use it again and again. Now that tool is going to tell you exactly where your strategy is leaking and where your identity is not supporting it. You get a map of what that looks like, and then you get to go and do something with that information. That information is valuable. It is so valuable. It's also exactly what I'm promising. So the offer promise for this workshop is fix 'what's causing your inconsistent income and close the gap to stable 10K months in your business'. This map is going to show you exactly what we fix, exactly how to do it, exactly what you need, and what your next strategic and identity focus is. The offer promise you'll leave knowing your strategic income leak, the identity pattern running your pricing, where your strategy and your energy are misaligned and your next best strategic move. That's exactly what I am teaching. So what we see is that a lot of people are going to these webinars where they have been promised something really specific like that. But they don't actually get even that. You know, obviously we don't teach our program in there, but I am a big believer in really actually giving someone a tangible, valuable shift. If they are going to give me their time, I am going to give them value. And the thing is, is that with so many people doing what I actually think is just a really lazy version of this. Giving absolutely f*ck all for someone's time. I'm gonna share my framework too, after I've gotten you the win, like, not before. It doesn't mean anything to me. I think we need to respect business owners time more. I think that people have been so burnt by these webinars that just, they just don't give value. And so it's actually, it makes me so sad that this is the industry, like as an industry, do better, learn how to structure a webinar as an industry, care about your client's outcomes more than you care about getting them through the next phase of your funnel. Like just care. Just give a sh*t. So that's the first reason why this made me sad. I don't think questioning the fact that I was giving something that people genuinely pay me $12,000 to sit in a room privately and go through with me, because when they break through that, when they know exactly where to focus, that results in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue, it's highly valuable and I don't blame someone for questioning that this thing is free and that they're actually gonna walk away with some kind of value from this session. But it's the conditioning of the way that this industry is now. The scar tissue from a hundred empty free offers that absolutely mean that the value gets filtered out before anyone even shows up to receive it. And that is not anybody's fault. This is the industry's fault. So let's acknowledge that and let's do better. Now the second reason that this comment made me really sad was because when I think about the women that I work with, and I think about the identity layers of visibility, the nervous system, layers of visibility, you've heard me talk about this a lot in the podcast. We go really deep into this in Frequency First Business. This is where one of the biggest identity leaks sit. Invisibility, consistently, across the board, regardless of how far into their business they are, specifically around what happens in their body when they put themselves out there, and then they get a response that is maybe questioning their integrity. They get a response from someone. I shared an episode a couple of, well, probably a couple months ago now, of these mean comments and how I dealt with that. They fear that. The visibility wound is trying to stop them from putting themselves out there. And I have done not enough work on mine that I could see it for what it actually is. So I don't let it run the show for me. But I did feel it for just a second. So many women that I work with are bracing for exactly this before they even hit publish. They're bracing to manage criticism. From someone who hasn't met them. They're bracing for comments that are mean. This comment wasn't mean, but you know, like I said, we've had mean comments. They're bracing for people to question. I'm thinking even back to when I first ran ads, questioning my qualifications when they'd never even looked at my website. They didn't even understand what it was that I was doing. So, these women are shrinking their visibility and softening their message, and then underpricing their offers so that they can keep themselves from being a target. And so a comment like not free is something that their nervous system is actually anticipating and fearing because it's a way of questioning their integrity. I don't believe that was the intention of any comment. But I just wanna use that as an example of why women are actually bracing before they are visible. So I just want you to stay with me if that is you. That's the second reason why this comment made me sad. The third reason, and this is the one that I've been thinking about the most, and this isn't directly related to that comment, but it is related to live launching and I think I actually need to get Jada, my launch manager in to have this conversation with me. There is something actually true about this comment. It's not free for me, but it is free for the people attending. What people don't understand about live launching, and I mean genuinely do not understand, and not because they're not smart, but because we never talk about it, is what we are actually giving away when we say that something is for free. So I'm gonna be really transparent with you. To run a session like this, this is the second time we've run to this program this year. The first time was new messaging, so it was an experiment. Okay, so I'm investing in ads knowing that it is an experiment. Am I getting it back? Is anyone even gonna join? I know they're gonna get value out of what I'm teaching for free, but is anyone even gonna come through to the paid program? Second time we're running, there isn't a messaging shift, and I'm spending anywhere from $7 to $14, sometimes a little more. To get a lead to that event. So for example, at the moment we have a hundred people registered that is $7 to $14 per person. And that is not because I'm complaining about that. That's the choice that I've made. That's because I believe in what I am delivering and what actually I really love, and I'll talk about this a little bit more in a moment. My mentor has given the best reframe on this, like how abundant. How abundant did I actually get to pay for these people to come and learn and experience this extremely valuable tool? So for every hundred people in that room, I've spent somewhere between$900 and $1,400 plus the other bits of ads that is pushing out to ones that are not converting for a free event. And then there's me, there's the preparation time, there's the energy. I'm building an interactive tool. I spent years building these frameworks. I have spent years mentoring people. I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train in strategy, to train in nervous system, to train in subconscious work, to train in clinical hypnotherapy, tens of thousands of dollars that I've invested in my own personal development so that I can stand in a room and take someone through something that actually moves their business. And I'm not charging for that. So I don't mean to say this to be precious about it because this is what we all go through. And again, it's a choice. This is how I choose to market my business. I love live launching. I love it because I actually get to deliver value. I get to be in the room with people. I get to answer their questions. I get to know them. I get to build relationships. That is my channel of intimacy. I love that setting and I love being able to teach this, but I want you to hear this as a founder, either who questions or who takes for granted if you're a business owner and you haven't live launched yet and you take for granted the free trainings. Out of these a hundred people and, and the next few hundred people that will register by the end of next week, some of those people are gonna turn up. I've paid for them anyway. Whether they don't turn up, whether they never watch the replay, whether it sits in their spam and they forget that they even signed up to it at midnight when they were thinking about the finances of their business. When they're unsubscribing from the email list, when they're unsubscribing from a text message, I've paid for it anyway. Now think about that when we're taking our three things for free. And when we're then getting mad. And it actually shocks me that business owners, I've heard this before and I don't agree with this mindset, that we get mad that someone is pitching an offer, inviting you to take the next step into a paid program after something free. So not only my time, my team's time, we have team on the call. I'm paying my team to build the sales pages. My team are building out all of the automations, all of the emails, like everything that goes into this live launch process. It costs a business owner to do that. And the thing is, is that if you are the one delivering, then I want you to think of this like Tracy taught me. Like this is an investment that we make in our business because we believe the ripple effect is worth it. Not just because live launching is an effective way to bring people into your program, but we are giving this, doing all of this for free, taking a risk because not all launches pay off on the first 1 to 10 times. We're taking a risk because we believe that ripple effect is worth it because we believe in the work that we are doing and because we know that if we can get someone the right information, the right experience, or the right shift, even in 90 minutes, it changes thing for them. And that matters. That matters more to me than the cost of it. So when someone shows up and receives that, and I mean, really receives that and people do, and they work through the tool and they get the clarity that they have been stuck on for months, and then they're able to make the changes and stabilize their income, which means they get to keep running their business and then maybe they decide my program is not the right step for them, that's more than fine. In fact, that's kind of the point. When someone receives and decides they want to keep going with me, amazing. That's me saying, okay, here's what's possible. If you wanna go further, this is how, but it's not a betrayal of the free offer. That is the whole architecture of how we build businesses that help people. The free offer holds value, doesn't give everything, but it has to give value. So let's talk about selling for a second. I think there is something deeply confused in the online space about what selling actually is and when it becomes a problem. So selling is not manipulation. In fact, I love being really transparent about these workshops. Like we tell everyone at the very beginning. At the end of this, I am going to share with you what Frequency First Business looks like because some of you are going to want to move into it and some of you are not. But for the ones who want to, I know I can help them. I'm not leading you into this workshop and the false pretenses. I'm giving you exactly what I promised for this workshop and at the very beginning I'm gonna tell you if you wanna move forward, there is a way you can go deeper. I would love if I could give everyone the deeper for free. I absolutely would, but I invest in the podcast that costs me time and money. I invest in these free workshops that costs me time and money, so I'm giving as much for free as I can, but selling is not evidence that the free content wasn't real or wasn't good. Selling is saying, I have built something that can help you. Here it is. Here is what it costs you. Now you get to decide, do you want this thing? That is it. That is the whole thing. And yet, somewhere along the way, and I have thoughts about why this has happened, particularly for women in Australia where Tall Poppy Syndrome runs really deep. Selling became something to apologize for, something that has been like made evil. Oh, she's probably just gonna sell me something. Well, yeah, I am at the end of this after I give you what you came for. Because I have a business to run and if I wanna keep making the impact that I'm making and I wanna keep my family fed and my mortgage paid, I need to sell something. And do you know what? You're a business owner, so, so do you like that's where my mind was actually awake last night thinking. Why is business owners that have a problem with people selling something? Aren't you selling something too? You know, maybe it's a product and you sell it differently and your ads look different. Your call to actions look different, and the way that you sell looks different, but you're still selling something. Otherwise you don't have a viable business. You've just got a very expensive hobby. So selling is not something that you have to minimize, and it's also not something that you have to bury under 17 disclaimers about how you're not really trying to sell. You are. It's okay. It's okay, but we are doing it from a very, very impact driven, loving, nurturing way that is delivering real value first. I love that these webinars, this one, the one that I ran earlier this year that was all about identifying your survival identity. People make real changes in these. They go and they have big, big impact. I get to impact beyond the people who come into my program. How amazing is that? So I've tried to hide selling before. I've tried to make, oh, and then would rush through it at the end, you know, oh, and by the way, I've got this offer, and if you wanna join, then here's the link and buy. My offer is f*cking amazing. Frequency First Business changes your life, genuinely changes your life, generally changes your business. If you wanna log off and not listen, fine, I'm not offended, but I'm gonna tell you about it because I genuinely believe I have something to offer, and that is actually mindset work that I have had to do in my authority, which by the way, we work on in Frequency First Business. In my money mindset, in my wealth story. Which by the way, we also work on in Frequency First Business. It is so valuable, but you need to view selling as service. So what I know now when I have built something that can generally change someone's business, and I have, I've got three amazing containers that you can actually work with me and then I've got some resources that you can actually go and dive into and self pace through. All of which are going to genuinely change your business. And I have watched it happen over and over and over again. Withholding that is selfish. That's a you thing. Withholding that offer is not you being generous. It's a disservice. We teach this and She Holds Wealth. We teach this in Frequency First Business. The person who didn't know that it existed, they need to know because what if they don't know that it exists? And it could change their life, and then you don't get to help them. So when you're not selling, it's about you. It's about trying to not feel bad. About someone who is upset that something's not free. I used to get this a lot more when I was in the industry of working mainly with clinical hypnosis and EFT, and I was working with stress management, burnout, recovery, anxiety, panic, and trauma. And people would generally get upset that they had to pay for something. It blows my mind. It blows my mind. I have nothing else to say. You are allowed to sell your things, be visible, sell your things, do the inner work so that you can stand in your authority and you can go, I know that what I have to offer is life changing. Therefore, I am going to own it. I'm gonna claim it. This is the energy, the end of Frequency First Business, by the way, I'm gonna own it. I'm gonna claim it, and I am going to sell it. Because it is a disservice if I do not. We learn how to build the emotional resilience to not take other people's perceptions and other people's feelings personally. So there was a little rant. Went a little off my dot points. That's okay. I touched on earlier the reframe that Tracy, one of my mentors, she's been my mentor for five years, that she offered around this maybe two years ago, and I keep coming back to it. What a blessing it is that I get to teach this. I get to give it away. I get to make a difference. I get to pay for these people to come and learn. What a blessing. It's really easy to think about ads and get really like, oh, I just spent $5,000 on an ad campaign. Oh, I just spent $10,000. Okay, but what a blessing for every lead that comes in, for everyone who downloads your lead magnet that you pay for, for every person that registers for your webinar that you pay for. You get to pay that for them. Like how awesome is that? What a mindset to have. What a blessing. The energy that I held around ads before and around leads, it had a big scarcity energy. It was, I'm spending money to have these people here and they're not turning up and I'm giving something valuable away for free. That was the undertone of it. Okay. That was me and my money wounds. That's phase 4 in Frequency First Business. I need them to see it. I need them to watch it. I need to feel appreciated. That energy is exhausting. That is not the energy that creates transformation in a room. That is not the energy that creates an abundant business. The energy of what a blessing is completely different. It is expansive. It is generous without being self-sacrificing. It holds the value of what's being offered without having to like force people into recognizing it. And honestly, that is the energy that converts because it is the energy of giving. It is the energy of abundance, and it is the energy of detachment. Again, that's phase 4. See, I'm not shy to tell you about my offers. That's phase 4. I'm about to open a Frequency First Business Cohort. You can explore it. You can come to this workshop where we are going to go through this business mapping if you want to. All the links are below. Depending on what date you're listening to this. These live workshops are happening on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of May. The thing is, though, the offer at the end of your presentation is not a bait. It's not a switch. It's an extension of the same energy that was in the room the whole time. So this is the way that I choose to hold energy in these events, not because I am pretending that Facebook comments don't sting sometimes, but because I know what I am here to do and I'm not going to let the potential of people commenting or people not loving the experience or people thinking differently. I'm not going to let that shrink that. I know my authority. I stand in that energy. This is me fully expressed. So if you are in a launch right now, if you're about to be in a launch, please know the comments will come. People who don't understand the value of what you've built, people who've been burned before, so burned that they can't receive it, my heart breaks for them. Those comments will be there. Those judgements will be there. It's okay. Those comments are not evidence that you're doing something wrong. So your job is to notice what happens in your body when it land, and if there is a part of you that immediately wants to pull back or soften or offer more. So I just politely just explained what this workshop actually is, and then it's up to that person if they want to come or not. We don't need to be defensive. Just explain If you want to explain. As long as you're not adding more disclaimers, you're not dropping the price. Notice when your visibility wound is running the show. Notice when your survival identity is trying to protect you from the discomfort of being seen or questioned. So go sell your stuff. Sell your things. Oh, that's what I've got for you today. If you haven't registered for our Business Frequency Mapping and you're curious, all the details are in the show notes, come and see what a genuinely free transformation looks and feels like, and then see what an embodied cell afterwards feels like, and if you just wanna explore what working together looks like, that is in the show notes as well. Thanks for being here today. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye for now. If this episode awoken something in you, good. You are ready to lead from your f*ck yes frequency, and you'll find ways to go deeper in the show notes. And before you go, I would be so grateful if you could leave a review and share this episode with someone who you know that is done leading their business from survival and ready to create and live in overflow. See you on the next one.