Finish What You Start and Watch Profits Soar KDS: 058
I have a feeling this might be a bit of a rant… so I’m going to apologize in advance for that, but it’s truly only because I care and am SO tired of seeing this happen.
And because I have been there myself.
I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is with the online space and why people start things and never finish them. They’re paying WAY too much attention to what everyone else is doing and have some weird expectations about results.
We tend to see someone else’s results and assume that we should have similar results, right out the gate.
We have no idea how many failures, tweaks, attempts, or tries the other person has experienced. Then we make assumptions based on someone else’s results and when we don’t get similar results, we tell ourselves stories about why it worked for them and didn’t work for us.
As an example:
I’m in the Thinkific Facebook group and someone who had a very successful course launch shared her results with the group. I don’t remember her exact figures, but it was a great launch (I want to say it was close to 6-figures).
Ready for this?
Her niche is weaving.
She shared everything she did in terms of marketing: she paid for an email drop to an industry magazine (bear with me if that’s not the right term, but basically she paid the magazine about $1500 to include her course offer in an email, which resulted in about 12k of course sales).
She also ran Facebook ads, which didn’t have a good return. Add to that it’s a small community and people are connected to each other (this is a great example of ‘the riches are in the niches’).
Now take a product like a Facebook ads course.
How much competition do you think there is for a course teaching how to run Facebook ads?
A HELL OF a lot more than weaving.
I’m giving that example because Jodi and I just purchased a Facebook ads course from Claire Pelletreau based on some amazing results my friend Maritza Parra got going through her course.
Let me back up and say that Maritza has been marketing online for a LONG time. She’s hired agencies, we met in a Mastermind that was based on running Facebook ads, she’s taken other courses on ads… you name it.
THIS time she went on a recommendation from a coach of hers who had also gotten amazing results and made a commitment to do the ads herself.
To get really good at it and get them working.
(Note: also why Jodi and I have decided to run our own ads as well).
Maritza just had some amazing results and has given me permission to share them here. If you’re listening to the podcast, I’d recommend checking out the post because it might be easier to follow or grasp the results in a written format.
Here are her results:
I spent more on FB ads than I ever have, ads were more expensive but since I was selling a $10 series with a $9 order bump I made money on the ads and filled my new membership with 177 members.
Many people joined who’d never heard of me.
Free optin:1542 optins
$1733.22 ad spend to Free optin page
DYE $10 series: (challenge – but I didn’t want to use word challenge)
$7280 728 $10 buyers
$3861 429 $9 order bump
$1873.22 ad spend straight to $10 DYE sales page
$2291.52 retargeting ad spend to Free Doodle optin subscribers who did not purchase $10 DYE series
From $10 series $11,141 $10 series sales
$5,897.96 ad spend
$5,243.04 made from series
I’m going to reopen the membership for 24 hours on Cyber Monday to give people who missed it the chance to enroll at the founding member price.
Membership numbers:
New Members $33,858 = 114 yearly members x
$297$1,701 = 63 monthly members x $27
$35,559 114 $297 membership sales
$496.41 ad spend to membership sales page (I was a little overwhelmed so these ads were almost an afterthought. Building a team is next on my agenda)
$35,062.59 total from membership
$40,305.63 cash collected (from membership and $5,243.04 from series)
I have a bonus lesson on month 6 and another on month 12 plus I’ll be working on retention for sure.
$59,016.63 total
Thank you for this life changing course Claire Pelletreau. 
It felt like every time I started ads you’re always right there with me in your videos giving me the confidence to spend money on ads.
I was already a successful life coach but this brings something I’ve been dreaming about for a long time – leverage with a one on many model. Happy Thanksgiving and Thank You!
Pretty powerful results!
I’ve watched her over the last couple of years get laser focused and stay the course.
Novel idea, right?
Maritza is the epitome of trusting her gut, following her intuition, and simply… doing the work.
I’ve seen so many people start something and not finish it.
Finishing doesn’t always mean you don’t complete the creation and “ship it.”
For the sake of clarity, let’s assume I’m talking about a course (but this could be any product).
You create a course, you launch it, and it sells.
YAY! Go you.
Then you get back to business as usual. Maybe you have client work or a follow-up course you want to create, so you get back at it.
Here’s what “not finishing” looks like in this scenario:
I get it. None of that is sexy.
But I PROMISE you it becomes sexy when it starts working.
Remember the new saying Jodi and I use all the time?
This SH*T works.
Marketing and growing a business is consistency, measuring what worked, what didn’t, and course correcting.
Yesterday Jodi and I had a call with our Facebook Ads rep (disclaimer: I don’t know how you get a rep, they reach out to you after you’ve spent a certain amount of money I believe).
This rep is great, she’s super smart, really knows FB Business Manager and is helping us with a handful of things.
We’re scaling slower than we’d like, but it’s because we want to do it correctly.
Anyway, yesterday the rep couldn’t totally understand why something wasn’t working better and then suggested we look at influencer marketing through Facebook (we didn’t know it was a thing either).
I basically put the brakes on that immediately.
Would it be something to look at doing?
Absolutely.
But not right now. We need to get what we’re doing working.
All that would do is distract us and further delay us from dialing our ads in and getting them working.
We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. But I’m not doing to throw the baby out with the bath water. We’re going to get these working.
Which is also why we bought Claire Pelletreau’s Absolute Facebook Ads course (the same one Maritza raved about).
I’ve been listening to Claire’s podcast for most of this year. I know she delivers and gets results.
One of the things she teaches is quality lead generation ads.
After this past Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend we knew we wanted to go all in with a quality lead generation ad.
Why?
We make money when we send emails.
We’ve worked really hard at our follow-up sequences, launched the Creativity Published Newsletter (now 21 issues!) and create content that supports and provides value to our audience.
This is the long game.
So now we’re going to pre-record a training webinar (which we’ve already given so we know it works), run ads to the free training and make an offer at the end of the training.
We’ll create a follow up sequence for everyone that registers for the webinar and send emails accordingly based on behavior.
Then we nurture those leads with valuable content and continue making offers to them.
Notice that none of this includes creating a new product because we’ve decided we’re not selling enough.
This is all about getting the “machine” working and then scaling that.
We did this with our purchase follow-up sequences.
We created them when we first launched and added what we needed when we created the Trello product, then last summer we revised our purchase follow-up sequences and improved them all.
We wrote new copy, improved the design of the emails, and updated the campaign flows.
None of that was “fun” (well, that’s not totally true, but it’s not as fun as creating content or new stuff)
Keep in mind: we both have our own personal brands and businesses that we’re working on as well, so maybe we could get it done quicker, but the bottom line is we’re committed to getting what we’ve already created working before adding anything else (and trust me, we have plenty of ideas and plans).
How to Finish What You Start
This is probably not the answer that most people want to hear, but I’m going to keep it real with you.
Get your mindset right.
What I mean by that: Decide you’re in this for the long-haul. You don’t build a sustainable business by starting and stopping all the time. Do you think Kellogg’s produced their first cereal type, sold a few and then just kept making more varieties of cereal?
How much more successful do you think you would be when you launch or release a product if your foundation is built and WORKS?
Be Patient.
Again, not exciting, but it takes what it takes. Stop judging yourself for not being where you think you’re supposed to be.
Not to mention, how much further along do you think you could be if you had stuck with ONE thing, built a really solid foundation, and got it working?
Instead of half-assing things over and over again, you become a master of your craft.
So many marketers I know over-complicate things.
Problem, solution, result.
From there you tweak.
ALWAYS be Selling.
Some people may be born to sell… then there’s the rest of us.
For most creatives it’s not what comes natural, but you’re going to be miserable if you don’t learn how to do this.
Yes, you can learn how to sell.
Enough of the bullshit of “how to sell without being salesy”… it’s only feels salesy because you don’t know how to do it and you don’t do it consistently.
I truly think most people are coming from a place of integrity. You have to get really honest with yourself and hold yourself accountable. Does it not feel right because it’s not language you would use OR does it not feel right because it’s new and outside of your comfort zone?
Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone.
This hit home hard for me last week on my drive to and from California to see my Dad for Thanksgiving.
I listened to a complete audiobook each way (9 hour drive, the dogs came with me) and even though I had listened to both of these books, there was one very clear message that resonated.
You have to learn to be comfortable with discomfort.
We can’t grow by doing the same things we’ve always done. I mean growing personally and growing our businesss.
I’ve seen a handful of entrepreneurs never grow because they really don’t need to, so they continue to play at business or play it safe, which is fine. No judgment (this is usually when a spouse or partner is covering their living expenses, so they treat their business like much more of a hobby than a real business).
The ONLY way to change your current situation is to change what you do and how you do it.
Be Consistent.
We all fall off from being consistent from time to time, and that’s O.K. I’ve had different times in my business when the podcast was paused due to life circumstances and that’s fine.
I didn’t make a big deal about it, I communicated what was going on, and got back at it.
Every time things go sideways and you create a big “to-do” about being gone and now you’re back, etc., you chip away at your trust in yourself (and your audience).
Does your audience want to know what’s going on? Sure, but keep it direct and get back to providing them value.
Decide what you want to be consistent with and just do it. You do NOT need to be consistent everywhere all the time.
Remember, I’m all about #FtheHustle.
I like to write (content and emails), podcast, and do some occasional live streams or webinars. I do NOT want to spend my time on social media all day. In fact, outside of paid traffic and my group I’m seeing much less of a return on organic social.
I’m not saying it’s not valuable, but outside of sharing my own content and engaging with people? I’d rather pay to build assets (a list of subscribers, buyers, and website traffic).
Pick one or two things you can stick with and go all-in with them. Give it a few months of consistent, focused action and then measure the effectiveness of it.
Let’s make 2021 the year you Stop STOPPING.
Give your creations time to grow and evolve. Build the foundation. I promise you your profits will soar when you focus on creating something solid and really finish what you start.
Links from this episode
