Paid To Create Podcast
Fireside chats with some of today’s best and brightest Creators
Welcome to Paid To Create, a podcast that features insightful conversations with some of today's most successful entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Join us as we delve into the minds of coaches, consultants, agencies, and experts from various industries to discuss their experiences, strategies, and journeys to success.
Our guests have a wealth of knowledge and expertise in their respective fields and will share their insights on what it takes as a creator to build and grow a successful business.
Each episode is a chance to gain practical advice and inspiration from those who have been through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
Our goal is to provide valuable insights and actionable tips to help you take your business to the next level.
Paid To Create Podcast
Festive Cash Flow: Holiday Marketing Tactics to Boost Your Bottom Line
In this episode of Paid to Create, we’re tackling holiday sales head-on, including some of the common objections that hold entrepreneurs back. From the concern of “holiday sales fatigue” to worries about discounting too deeply, AJ and Sarah break down why leaning into holiday promotions is not just beneficial but essential for your business. With practical, proven strategies, they’ll show you how to capture seasonal demand and leverage it for long-term growth, even if you’re wary of competing with big-box retailers.
Listen in as we explore:
- Magnetic Holiday Offers – How to craft irresistible, limited-time deals that boost sales without cheapening your brand
- Converting Holiday Shoppers to Year-Round Customers – Overcome the "one-time buyer" mindset with strategies that build loyalty long after the holiday rush
- Standing Out Without Discounting – Creative ways to grab attention and increase sales without slashing prices
- Social Media & Ad Hacks – Reach more customers with social media tactics and ad strategies that drive high ROI during peak shopping times
- Inventory Management Secrets – Avoid holiday stockouts and overstocks with smart inventory moves that keep cash flow steady
- Post-Holiday Follow-Up Blueprint – Capitalize on new relationships with perfectly timed follow-ups that turn holiday shoppers into repeat customers
The holiday season is a prime opportunity to connect with new audiences, showcase your brand’s unique value, and set up a strong start to the new year. Don’t miss this episode, packed with insights on how to make the most of this critical season—even if you have reservations. With the right approach, you can attract new customers, grow your brand, and boost your bottom line.
Listen to all episodes at paidtocreatepodcast.com
But like, let's say, you're doing a Black Friday promo, like, if you wait until Black Friday, you're behind, right? There needs to be a series of pre-sale before that information, either advertising or emails or like there's lots of ways to get the word out about what's going on, but you want to build the anticipation. Welcome everybody to another episode of Paid to Create. I'm AJ Roberts. Alongside me is Sarah Jenkins. Yay, before we get started today, if you're listening whatever platform, hit that subscribe, like follow whatever it is, so you can get updated when these things go live.
Speaker 1:So we're what, like three, four weeks out from Thanksgiving, you guys will probably get this closer, and we were talking about holiday promotions and different things like that.
Speaker 1:And we were talking about like holiday promotions and different things like that, and we thought we'd just do an episode on it, because you know most people, when it comes to holidays, they think of like e-commerce or Amazon and Walmart.
Speaker 1:They think of like the big Black Friday deals, cyber Monday deals, christmas sales, new Year's sales, all of those different things, and oftentimes they opt out right, like a lot of small business owners think of this time of the year as a slow time of the year, time of year where business is not as fruitful as the rest of the year.
Speaker 1:And the reality is, all the research shows that customers, clients, whatever consumers and this is the most amount of money they spend throughout the years during the holiday season. And so when you look at these different holidays we have traditional holidays, we have throughout the year You'll notice when you go to the grocery store or anything like that, they're months ahead. I mean, as soon as Halloween was done, christmas decorations the next day, yeah. So there's a reason for that and we figured we'd go through, break it down, because we know a lot of, especially like, like, entrepreneurs, creators, people who, uh, you know, solo business owners um, they tend to to not think of this as a time that they can jump in and leverage. I think that's a little bit of a mistake. So, anything on, just like the reasons to do holiday promos oh well.
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing I thought of when you were saying people don't want to jump in, like if everyone's giving gifts, that's Christmas and it's gifts giving time.
Speaker 2:So you think of your finances like you want that TV, you're going to wait for Black Friday to give that to your sister-in-law or whatever. But then one of the things I thought was pretty, pretty great is I've seen a couple of times a coaching, consulting program would do the give this gift to yourself. It's on sale now and you know you're going to grow your business starting January 1st, just like we're all going to join that gym January 1st. It's like you go back and think what are people spending money on? And if they're thinking of other people, they're also thinking of their future revenues. Right, and they're actually spending money now, albeit recklessly if it's, you know, Home Depot on a Black Friday, but it's not, and you could give that gift to yourself and think of the future of your revenue after you spend all this money on all your gifts too. But you get the deal now and you join now, thinking of those next steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a good point and something that I wasn't thinking about before we started. But there's really two sides to holiday promos the one side, which is, you know, putting a special offer together, and then there's the other side of actually giving a gift to your clients. That can then either work as a marketing piece or a referral piece, and so we'll dive into that a little bit. Today, some people don't want to do holiday promos for various reasons, and really there's two reasons you wouldn't do it. Number one is you don't like money and you just Boo, I disagree.
Speaker 2:I like it a lot.
Speaker 1:I know you like money, but I mean people who choose not to participate in holiday promos, you know, because of the effort or the noise. They don't want to. We were talking before.
Speaker 2:They don't want to drown.
Speaker 1:People go oh well, everybody's doing it. So I don't want to be another person contributing to, to the uh, you know, mad rush of consumerism or whatever you want to say so, but there's something that you have to understand and you have to think of it from the, the, the customer point of view, or your audience's point of view, and for a lot of people, depending on what business you're in, a lot of audience wait for these offers.
Speaker 2:For sure, absolutely. I have a bunch of stuff, even my teens who want these crazy things, like a drone or something. I, you know, I bought my son a business book. He's in our meeting saying what's MRR, what's your revenue, what does that mean? And so I'll, I'll, I'll, tell him in the middle of the meeting like, oh, it's this, it's this, and I'm like okay, guess what you get to read how to win friends and influence people. Here's your own book. And Like, take one on accounting. Here we go, let's go get you accounting course right now. And if I get an email saying it's on sale for 25 bucks off or whatever, I'll be more motivated to buy it this month than next month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's important, especially if you're if, if what you sell is a necessity, right, it's not like if you're in a service-based business, sometimes that's I need it now, and like if you're in a service-based business, sometimes that's I need it now. But if you're selling art or you're selling clothing or anything like that e-commerce stuff like most people have, like if they want it, they might buy it, but they also have the ability to wait because it's not like they need it. Like that they must have.
Speaker 2:I did need that sparkly bow.
Speaker 1:Thank you for asking, so you have to think of it in those terms. The other thing is is that they're in a buying mood and the holidays they expect to get deals. Like it's, it's an expectation to open the inbox and get deals. Now, if they're not interested, they'll just avoid their inbox for the day Right, so they kind of self-select. But they don't really get mad at getting 20 promos on Black Friday. They expect it.
Speaker 1:And so you have to ask yourself well, what other point during the year other than other holidays, what other point during the year does someone get a promotion and they're like oh yeah, I was expecting that. Unless you set it up, unless you build anticipation, unless you create an event, the truth is is most people like, during the year, when they get offers, it's just your offer in their inbox, and so they may have negative feelings towards it, but they weren't expecting it, so it may not come at the right time. Holiday season, people expect this stuff, and so they're more open to looking at the deal and exploring the deal than potentially any other time of the year.
Speaker 2:Well, like if you look at a promo, if it's something's on sale, if it's for no reason, you just get this email oh it's, you know, 20 bucks off this week on your purchase of these sparkly bows. If you don't have a reason, it's not the summer sale, it's not the Easter sale, it's not the back to school be pretty for your classes sale. There has to be a reason you do the sale and this is the biggest time of year. That there's the reason of the holidays and the gift giving, even if it's a gift to yourself.
Speaker 1:And I will say this there is. You can just search on Google for like holiday calendars. There are holidays pretty much for every day of the year. So if you don't want to participate in the big holidays because you don't want to have to fight for attention in the inbox and all of that, but you want to leverage some of the reason why, there's always a reason why you can find holidays and days that have been dedicated to this or that. There's even like a sandwich day, right, and so, depending on what your business is, and depending on what your business is, you can kind of align it with different holidays.
Speaker 2:If there's no reason, you think there's something wrong with the product, there's something wrong with the business. If they're going on sale for not a summer splash or some reason to give you that great promo, then you think there's something wrong. So you avoid the sale then because there has to be two or three emails leading up to the why and how cool or fun or necessity is in your life, like me.
Speaker 1:That's something. Another reason people don't necessarily want to participate, I believe, is because they feel like they don't want to put their item on sale. Right, if you're a coach selling, coaching, discounting your services like you might not want to do because you value it, you you set your price per hour. Um, you don't want other people to be like, well, hey, wait, I'm paying this. Like, how do I get the discount? So there is a lot of scenarios service-based businesses, coaching, consulting, like things like that. They're like running a sale on your price isn't normally something you would do, and so I know a lot of people get turned off of that. But there's so many ways to to make a special offer. It doesn't have to be a discount.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, if it's, if it's, let's say, like a mastermind or a coaching class, you could say, okay, so it's 50% off the friend that you bring for their first session or their first like introductory whatever, I don't know. There's other things you can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know a lot of people bundling things together, right? So there you know, maybe it's you buying two things and then they're getting something additional, Maybe it's things you've not sold before, that you bundle together and price right. There doesn't necessarily have to be a sale. You can add bonuses that are only available during this time, so it's still the same price, but now they get 10 additional bonuses. And the beauty of that is if anybody does reach out who has purchased a product and they're like hey, I want those bonuses, like you can just give them the bonuses, Like you're not giving them like a refund or anything like that.
Speaker 2:If you're a coach and you're doing consulting, a lot of times you'll have an affiliate link to a product that you recommend, like these beautiful mics we obviously don't but, like if you're selling something as a coach, usually you've got other things you recommend. I recommend you get Vimeo. I recommend you get. You know, these lights or these monitors for your business, or this keyboard is great and you have an affiliate sale. So when you even have an affiliate sale as a coach, you can pass on those Black Friday sales too. Oh, I love this keyboard, by the way, that I've already recommended you get and you get another chance to touch your audience. Even if it's not necessarily a sale for your product, you can still find another reason to reach out to your clients.
Speaker 1:And even though, like Amazon, doesn't pay a lot with their associate program, like even going in, like the things you 10 things you use every day you could put on a on a sales page. You know, using Kartra you could build a landing page pretty quickly and you put on the 10, you know, my 10 things that help me sleep better and you have a link to it and they're all on sale, so you could build a promotion for a holiday around that, depending on what time of year it is.
Speaker 2:As long as it's legal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your favorite Christmas snacks, your favorite this, your favorite that. To your point, if you don't have something that you want to put up for an offer, but you do want to make money and you want to make an offer, yeah, those are kind of good options to look into. It's like what is it that I use that I could be an affiliate for, that I could promote that. That company is going to have a discount, is going to have a sale, right, in this case, you don't have an affiliate link.
Speaker 2:but if they have a Black Friday sale and something that you've recommended, you get another chance to touch your client, another reason to reach out, One more positive in sales in the holiday season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just think that the most important thing to understand is that it's an opportunity for you to make an offer. So I understand kind of some of the thought processes people have around not.
Speaker 2:Those were the most negative things I could think of and try to overcome them. Those were the negatives, so now we can go to the positives.
Speaker 1:And that that kind of is why I think that most people should be running offers during this time is because there's a lot more positives than negatives. Um, again, we mentioned some of them. You know, in terms of like people are expecting these deals, People are in a buying mindset because of the time of year and because of the event or the holiday, so you're kind of riding the wave that's already created for you, versus having to create momentum from scratch, Like when you do a product launch or you do a release of something new during the year. There's a lot of work that goes in that to build the anticipation, to build that. With these offers you're kind of riding the current like feelings of the client or the audience.
Speaker 2:Any sale that goes to January 7th. I am going to question just because it's not the nature of the sale season.
Speaker 1:But there's ways to set up successful sales and I think that, as long as you understand that this is an opportunity for you to connect with your audience, to add value, to give them an offer on something that you know can change their life or benefit their life in some way, it makes sense. There's not really a reason you shouldn't do it, other than you've just decided you don't want to do it. Um, and maybe you have enough money where it's like you don't have to participate in that because you don't ever run sales right, like it's just a uh, a philosophy you have with your business and, uh, depending on your business, you may not need to, it may not fit that. But what I'm saying is is you have an opportunity and you know, based on the conversations I've had with a lot of small business owners over the last year, um, you know these opportunities are what they need right now and, um, you know, I think it's just going to help, especially finishing the year with where we're at right now Strong with where we're at right now strong.
Speaker 2:It's good also, when you're a coach or client, to talk to your clients about what sales they're offering. Get ahead of it. If you're not going to offer a sale, then at least help them maximize their season for their benefit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, this is a good point actually. Maybe there's someone you can do something with as a special offer, right? You can offer their training. Partner with them on a new thing that you release.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about setting yourself up for a good promo, because I think when we look at what a lot of companies do which probably is one of the reasons that people get turned off of running promos is midnight Thanksgiving, know, midnight Thanksgiving day, or soon, you know, black Friday, as soon as it turns over, like you get email, you get a email, right, and then you don't get it. You don't get another email until cyber Monday, which is you know the next thing from them, but that's it and usually the information you get email, even even TV commercials, when you see them like they focus purely on the price, right, it's not that. The assumption is is the deal is so good that we don't really need to say anything else. So it's like here's a 50 inch TV for a hundred bucks and the assumption is is that people think you know, a hundred bucks is probably low?
Speaker 1:I don't know pricing for TVs right now I haven't bought one in a long time but like, let's say, 400 bucks or something right, Whatever it might be a killer deal. But again, if I don't know anything, if I don't know that it's a killer deal, like what's my comparison to right To assume that a prospect or potential customer has information already, it's a risk for an assumption, and so trying to just sell on price is one of the biggest mistakes I think I see over the holiday promos all through the year. Because, like, you'll get the Valentine's Day promo, you know you'll, so it doesn't really matter when it is. But if they just send one email or just have a one promo offer, like through you know an ad or something like that, um, I don't know if it does. Well, unless it's something that is like kind of already established as a brand, people already know what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's going to be color, like you can assume some things about the TV. It's not battery powered. It does plug in, like some things you can't assume because all TVs are built that way. I assume all TVs are built that way. But so if you've got other people doing other promos, there are assumptions in that one-time email, but there's no reason to do one email, none With the scarcity you know with the why you should buy. What qualities on this TV are OLED versus the 4K? Whatever You've got those benefits, there's way more reason to email more than one time for the specificity that you're offering.
Speaker 1:And we'll go back to the product launch formula. You know Jeff Walker created that. It's still today very powerful, still doing stuff. What makes it successful is the pre-launch right. So if you are planning on doing we'll use Thanksgiving because it's coming up, it's easy for us to wrap our heads around with everything since it's in the stores and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But like, let's say, you're doing a Black Friday promo, like if you wait until Black Friday you're behind.
Speaker 1:Right, there needs to be a series of pre-sale before that information, either advertising or emails or you know promotions in different ways wherever you're on a podcast or like there's lots of ways to get the word out about what's going on. But you want to build the anticipation and on the day of the sale or the day that the offer goes live, people shouldn't have to spend the day learning about what it is they're purchasing. At that point they should be ready to buy. And you know we used to have early bird lists to gauge the enthusiasm and the excitement, to make sure that, like when we go live, like we were going to sell, you know 100, 200 copies, like right off the bat and you want to think in those terms when you're building out these you want to look at, like how do we build the anticipation for this so that when it does go live, they're already decided they want to purchase it and then the offer is where it makes it, the no brainer, where they have to buy it. Right this second?
Speaker 2:Oh man, for me as a CEO, when I look at the problems that we have, in whatever department my company's got problems I always see those as opportunities. I always say this okay, so we've got this problem over here with this one software we use. Hey, guess what? This one over here that we recommend has a sale over here. We're going to make everybody happier, we're going to save money over here and we look, I look at everything as an opportunity. So when you're talking about doing a, why wouldn't you do a promo for a seasonal? There is no chance. I'm not doing it not to make more money and take advantage of the season, but because there's. I'm excited. I'm doing a promo. I'm actually excited about what I'm offering. From my perspective as a consultant or my software perspective is what I can give to your business.
Speaker 1:Well, in that case, you know, we've done a few different ones, like with Webinar Jam. We always did share the love right, and that was to be able to bundle webinar jam with ever webinar, and then, once we had culture, also with culture.
Speaker 1:You know we've done um uh, we've done may 4th deals with. With may the 4th be with you, you know for because, like, where that's a holiday that we enjoy, we have, we have a lot of fun with. So we've done different things and what I noticed is that there's a lot of people often who are on the fence and they're not sure and they might have done a trial before you know, a few years ago and the product obviously dramatically changes over time. And when you run these offers, what you find is all of a sudden, like those people who were unsure, they don't want to miss the opportunity, and I guess in a way you've created some form of FOMO, because usually you're going to use scarcity. Usually, if you're not discounting the price, you've added bonuses. Sometimes even with bonuses, you discount the price. You know you're building up the value of this, of whatever it is you're going to offer them and then giving them a drastic discount or positioning it where the value is 10x what they're going to invest.
Speaker 2:The ball effect is great.
Speaker 1:And so the truth is, for some people, it just pushes them over the edge. And you know, and early in my career I used to think to myself, with long-form sales letters, why do we have the offer, and then we repeat it, and then we have a PS, and then we have a PPS, and then we have a PPPS, and then, even after that, we have follow-up. Why do we do all of that? They either want it or they don't. And what you find is and I learned this running webinars is that, like your majority of buyers on webinars especially today, 2024, don't come from the webinar, they come from the replay, the follow-up, they come from everything else, because the first time someone's exposed to something, they're not necessarily ready to buy, but they may be interested and they might just need a little bit more information to push them over.
Speaker 1:And I one of my favorite survey questions often is to ask people who click, who don't buy, is like why did you not buy? And usually it's because they they they couldn't find something that they thought it like. They had a very specific thing they wanted and they just didn't know if the product had it or not. So they're like if it doesn't do that, I don't know if I want it.
Speaker 1:And when you get the answers to that survey question, oftentimes you realize like, oh, we just didn't present the right information for them to find what they need with pre-content, overcoming objections early, improving the sales page layouts to make sure the things that they want to see are some of the first things, versus being buried or hidden or not even on the page they're on. They'd have to go like six pages deep, but the idea is here. Is that, like going back to what I was saying is, if you just run an offer hey, my course that I normally sell, you know? Let's say, you sell a mental toughness course. My mental toughness course is on sale for 50% You'll get some buyers because there's always people-.
Speaker 1:Don't be afraid to buy, there's always people who are just like, eager to buy right, but the people who have questions or don't know what the mental toughness program is like. You have to have somewhere for them to go look and to go deeper.
Speaker 2:But if you've if you've done that before you make the offer like I like the anti-sale yeah, I like the why not, if you say, hey, get this mental mental toughness course right now, and why you wouldn't want to buy is list those reasons that are actually highlighting the reasons they would. But those negatives first are like you know, if it's not for you, it's not for, don't accept every client I mean mental toughness and you don't really feel like that's your thing. Then go ahead and check out and don't feel bad about not buying Like it's not your thing.
Speaker 1:And I think the idea, the idea is is that by the time that they can purchase, the decision is not like oh, I got to read all this information, I got to do research, like you've already taken care of that, so you know you want to start your promos, whether it's Black Friday, cyber Monday, whether it's Christmas, whether it's New Year's, whether it's Easter, you know, valentine's Day, easter, 4th of July, you know where, depending on where you are in the world, like there's all these major holidays, major holidays like, and depending on what you're going to do, like you need to be two, three weeks in advance, like getting the, the audience prepared, know what's coming. One of my favorite brands is flag. No fail, they just posted a vlog of like shooting their black friday deals. So they haven't, as far as I know and again, I don't pay attention to every email I get from them on everything they post, but as far as I know, like they haven't, as far as I know and again, I don't pay attention to every email I get from them on everything they post but as far as I know, like they haven't said what's going to be on the Black Friday offer, they haven't like revealed it, but you get, like when you see an item you've not seen before and they're saying they're going to release. So they do two things, which is really interesting.
Speaker 1:They do a sale on older items obviously the inventory they want to get rid of, and then they release in limited quantities new items, right? So there's two sides of the coin on Black Friday there's the savings and then there's the getting the item. That's like either limited or like special, just for the for the offer. But here we are, like you know, almost, I think, three weeks out from Thanksgiving. I think it's like two and six days or whatever, but like I'm already seeing a glimpse of what that is. So it builds the anticipation, right, and it's like the visual of seeing oh, that's really really cool. So obviously like if you listen to this and you don't have a clothing line or you don't have it like that, but are there things you can do? That can start like hinting about a new program you have or you know, a new bonus that you've created? Like how do you build the anticipation where? Now, when it comes to the inbox, the secrets coming open your present early.
Speaker 2:It's my gift, open your gift. The gift is what's going to be promo. Right, you could do it. Especially you could get your stocking out whatever you could have. If you're not telling the details of the promo, whether it's a sale or bonuses or extra stuff that you're adding you can get that motivation and hype up, like the pre-launch saying on Black Friday you get to open your gift and they have to click and open that link to show what that sale is. That's kind of cool.
Speaker 1:And you probably have more chance of standing out in the inbox when the person is looking for your email, right.
Speaker 2:I know what I look for. That's where all these ideas come from. Besides, I'm shopping PBT for my girls All their love fancy pink lamps and stuff and I'm like I don't need to buy them right now. They're just brand new and out and I know it's coming and there's nothing new coming for Christmas probably. This is it.
Speaker 2:There's a new thing on Black Friday it'll be 10% off and then I'll go buy that lamp then yeah but like you get kind of alluded to in your brain if you get all these emails and yeah, you don't want to get lost in the shuffle by by maybe not doing a promo, because you're like, oh, I'm just going to get tramped down the inbox. But guess what? Pbt is going to email me again and again and again and I'm going to think about it again, I'm going to think about it again and then eventually I'll probably purchase a little bow sparkly lamp.
Speaker 1:And I'll say that's why it's so important, actually, on the days that you're running the sale, to email the unopens, to send a second email to to have, you know, a series of followup. You know, depending on actions, to really think through, like if someone clicks and adds like an ads, adds a product to their cart and then they don't buy, like making sure you have a specific cart abandonment set up for that right. So that's why, a lot of times, some of this early prep is needed as well, because you want to think through how can we maximize, optimize the conversions here. That said, you know we've mentioned email and you know pre emailing early, talking about building anticipation, is going to help you stand out. But don't get stuck on just using email.
Speaker 1:If you have, you know, direct mail. If, like, if you have the mailing addresses of your clientele, like, guess what, they ain't getting a lot of direct mail. They might be getting some direct mail but they're not getting a lot. So you know there's an easy way to make sure that you get your information in their hands right On the actual day, or like before, or whatever. And again, you'd have to think through how does this work, what would it actually look like and and you know each business would be different and some businesses aren't going to be suited for that but we also have SMS. We also have paid advertising. Now, you might not want to advertise cold to people that have never heard you before, because, again, you are dealing with a lot of other advertisers who are going to be doing that. But if you have a list and an audience like, retarget them. Like, because, again, if they don't see your emails because they do get a hundred emails or there's someone who's checked out from this, I don't want to participate in this.
Speaker 1:So I'm just not going to log into my email, but they're on facebook or anywhere else that allows retargeting exploratory like and it shows up and they know you because they're on your list, like they're going to be more likely to want to purchase right and so you as a business owner and we've talked about this before you have to remember that you're not actually the prospect or the client right and and you have to think about. You have to think about so just because, like you personally are like oh, I'm not, I don't participate in Black Friday, I don't do any of that. That's ridiculous. Like I don't care about saving a hundred bucks and having to stand in line at 5am.
Speaker 2:All of your clients. Do that.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly the prospects, clients, audience. You know everybody you're communicating with, like there's a lot of them that do, and there's a lot of people that like like there's people I've met who are millionaires, that love to coupon and I'm like What'd I say about PBT? Why do you need a coupon?
Speaker 2:I don't. I mean it's a good idea, it's a good savings. There's a reason. If you're financially wise with some of your investments or money and you know, if you know a deal is coming, you're just a little more patient.
Speaker 1:Everybody has the things they like and a lot of people like to buy stuff and a lot of people like to feel like they're getting a deal. So leverage that. You have an opportunity to leverage, that. You have the ability to leverage that. Just remember that you still need to keep the basic principles of selling. Do the pre-sell build anticipation. Make sure you're clear on the benefits. Make sure you break down everything they're getting. Just because you add five bonuses. Make sure you explain those bonuses. If it's something that's going to give them immense value, if they feel the bonus is worth more than the actual course that you're selling or the product that you're selling, sometimes people will buy just because of the bonus is worth more than the actual course that you're selling or the product that you're selling. Like that, sometimes people will buy just because of the bonus. So they normally might not buy your course but they do because you've given them one or two bonuses that really speak to them. And then they go through the course anyway and they get the benefit of that and then they turn into an amazing client. But you never know someone's tipping point. You never know the like.
Speaker 1:There's things I've looked at years ago that I have saved, as one day I'll get that or what like, and I'll put it off because it's not urgent, it's not important, it's just something I would like. Um, I think everybody does that. And then there's things that, like, you need and you buy. Like I need a new phone charger, I'm not waiting for a sale on phone charges, I'm going to Amazon ordering an Amazon basic charger to get it right. So there's different things, but most of the people listening to this I'm going to guess and you guys write in let us know if we're wrong. But, like most of people listen to this, they don't have what they would consider a traditional product to like put on sale. And that's where you do have to think a little bit outside the box.
Speaker 2:So you have a lot to compete with too. It puts you in the better box. If you look at what's happening now, what's what's coming out is anyone that does the Thanksgiving sale, that's their black Friday sale. But it's not black Friday yet. Some people are rejecting those, those brands, those big box stores, for convoluting. Don't ruin Thanksgiving, have the black Friday so when you're supposed to have it, we're waiting for that. Don't ruin my family dinner because you're having a hundred bucks off that TV or whatever. And then now we've learned that there's a bunch of brands that have that lower quality product for Black Friday. So, oh, I don't want that TV because it's actually a crappier made TV, more plastic parts or whatever they do in there. I don't know, it might be my favorite example now because there's so many choices, but you have the opportunity to say here's how I stand out from those other sales too.
Speaker 2:My scarcity is real. If we're ending this Black Friday sale and I'm going to sell a hundred or whatever accounts of these, how many coaching clients I can take? That is your limit and say, hey, I'm ending it on midnight when Black Friday ends, I'm not starting it until Black Friday starts midnight to midnight. Whatever. You've actually got that scarcity. You're proving that you're a man or woman of your word. You're saying I'm offering you this value that has these benefits that are substantial. This TV is OLED. All metal parts will last you 10 years. Here's the warranty, whatever. And be careful with refund policies, because everyone has those for the Black Friday stuff and the day after a lot of refunds because they bought something they didn't anticipate had all those benefits. But if you're offering that coaching program I guess a specialized with masterminds or personal, you know, touch where you have a limited time is money. You can only touch so many clients with that specialty service. Make sure that you're really elevating and bow tying those specialty services that are very special and that give that value increase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think also like and that give that value increase.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think also, like I can't go through every scenario of every business and what potentially they could do, but, as you're listening, like, you should be thinking it like this Like you know, if you have one or two products, like, then you're probably going to be adding bonuses, right, and a lot of times you can add, like your time as a bonus and, you know, do it in a group setting, like you could do. Like, if you have a course, it's like a self-study course. It doesn't include any personal coaching or anything like that. Well, if it's six weeks, maybe you do three Q and A calls for the group that you didn't do normally and you can invite the rest of the students if you want to. You know, and you do the Q&As, because I guarantee you could turn those Q&As into a product or you'll get questions during that Q&A. That's going to make the product better in the future. So it's like a free way to essentially like crowdsource, like what's missing? What information wasn't there, what questions they had, what information was there. But maybe you didn't go deep enough. So, like, even though you're giving your time, you're actually getting something back.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, if you have multiple products, um, or you're like, you have a, a, a business like a, you're a chiropractor or a fitness professional or something like that, like this is where knowing your average order value, the lifetime value of your clients, um, the the of your clients, the length of term that they're with you, how long they stay a member three, six, 12 months this is where it's so important, because you can create offers that are ridiculously good, that will bring you more money than it would normally.
Speaker 1:What I mean is, let's say, you have a product that's a membership site that's 99 a month and your average person stays for four months. So you know you make 400 bucks per person. So 12 months at 99 a month is 1200 bucks. 50 off is 600. You just made an extra 200 versus your normal uh client value. So knowing your numbers can help you create your offers too, because you can still do a sale, but you're actually collecting more money than you normally would. And so that's where sometimes you have to like think different about what you're doing. Because, again, if someone comes to you as a chiropractor and they normally do 12 sessions like, why not sell them 36, you know, so there's ways to do it and then you can offer a discount because you are going to make more money out of it.
Speaker 2:you know, do it and you can, then you can offer a discount because you are going to make more money out of it, you know. Or even go go a little bit funkier than that. If you take that anti-sale thought process that we talked about. Right, you say I am not offering a sale. I know Black Friday is important. I know everybody's spending tons of money recklessly or responsibly, whatever. But only my active clients are getting these extra six hours of blah blah, blah, freemiums. Only my cogent clients will get these videos that I've done for you already. Only the cogent clients. I have get these hours of my time to tell them how to elevate this number to this number or whatever you could do the anti. I have space for three to six new clients, but that's it, and I would offer a discount. But my time is worth what it is and I actually provide these extra values to all of my current clients. So if you'd like to get on board, I welcome you to do so, but like, this is what's included.
Speaker 1:Well, to that point, you could do a special Black Friday training for your, for your clients right. And they get access by. So now you could start today and say, hey look, I'm not doing a sale.
Speaker 2:Who doesn't love a freemium?
Speaker 1:I'm not doing a sale.
Speaker 2:For their clients.
Speaker 1:But I want to add value, so I'm going to be doing this for my clients. If you sign up between now and Thanksgiving or now and Christmas, depending on when you decide to do this like you'll get access to that. You you'll get access to the replay, the workbook, everything you're going to do from it. That also gives you a new product that you could go out and put as a front end to sell into your membership or sell separately, or you just put it in the membership site. But you could do one of those pretty frequently, because a lot of times if you don't have an open shot launch, it's evergreen. You have to create reasons for people to enroll.
Speaker 2:So they'll put it off. Yeah, carpe diem tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Or they'll put it off yeah, carpe diem tomorrow. Or like they'll join and then they'll cancel because it's like you know, oh, I'm overwhelmed, I'll come back. So, if you are doing special trainings, if you are putting things together, they're like additional member benefits. They give you opportunities to promo year round. But it's a really good way to take an anti-sale approach, to take an anti-Thanksgiving approach. It's a really good way to take an anti-sale approach, to take an anti-Thanksgiving approach. You could promo and say I'm going to be doing my sale on like Tuesday versus Thursday, because I know your inbox is going to be flooded, so I'm going to get ahead of the curve and that way you can go enjoy the time of your family. You don't have to be checking. So you can spin it any way you want. I think the worst thing to do is just not do anything.
Speaker 2:You said think out of the box. That's what I like to do as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think that the first thing someone needs to do is just establish, like, what can they offer right? And think in terms of you might just go back and look at what's the best thing you've offered in the past that got the most sales, the most interaction, the most engagement, what seemed to have the most buzz around it, what was the one thing or program you offered that made a difference? And just build around that and look at okay, and here again, with bonuses, you don't necessarily have to have the bonus created. The whole idea of paid to create is you get paid ahead of time and then you create it, so you can come up with five bonuses and then deliver them after you've sold. You can have dates when they're going to be live. You can do live trainings you could do, you know, if you had five bonuses, you could do five weeks of each week as a live training that you deliver the bonus. So there's lots of opportunities to literally not create more work up front for you and only do it on after you've collected the money.
Speaker 1:Um, but I would look at what, what's missing from your product that would strengthen it or would be needed Right. So we've talked about this before. If you have a product you're selling, well, you need traffic. So let's say you have a course course on how to create a course like okay, well then, how do you sell the course? How do you get traffic to the course? How do you do an upsell offer? So there's many things you could look at and go oh yeah, so I teach that these people are also going to be interested this, this and this and again.
Speaker 1:Even easier way to create bonuses is go find five people that do the thing that complements your course. Have them do a training for you, right, have an affiliate link then, and then at the end of the training they can pitch whatever they're selling. So they've delivered an hour or two of real solid content and then at the end said hey, if you want our help with that, reach out to us. Service-based businesses are usually best for this kind of thing because they'll give a ton of value in terms of their content because what they're offering is we'll just do it for you. So we've given you everything you need.
Speaker 1:But if you want to help, reach out so you can have an affiliate or JV relationship, depending on how you want to manage that. So you don't even necessarily have to create bonuses to create massive value, and so you could get creative like that. And again, look into your network, look into your customer base. You know, if you have, have things you can think of, like there's no reason you couldn't send an email out to your customers. We're like who here does Facebook advertising? Who here is an email copywriter? Who here's this right, build your own like uh, marvel, you know Avengers team to to deliver value and then build off of it.
Speaker 2:Well, if anything, we've talked about this before. Somebody asked us how do you determine what the price of your course should be? And like how do you know you're charging enough? Or you're asking, you're asking them like for money, like are you doing that from that desperation standpoint where you're like how much can I charge? Or if you're like, how can I do a sale and get all these new clients Like that's a about it? You know what you're offering is gold. For these reasons. So if you get re-excited about your own ideas, you'll get reinvigorated on how to promo it. I mean, give yourself the time to be creative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, like, if you don't want to do any of that and you're like my product's two grand, I'm not doing it. Maybe you've never offered a payment plan and so you offer a payment plan Like there's so many ways how did you know Exactly? There's so many ways to take what you have and reshape the offer, and I mean this is stuff you could be doing all the time, year round. But my point is, sometimes these national holidays that we all celebrate, they allow our creative juices to flow. Because, let's be real, If you're, if you, if you're not someone who has a lot of good ideas and you go to the mall and walk around the mall right now, you're going to be inspired.
Speaker 1:You're going to see stuff. You're going to see decorations. You're going to see stuff Like you start looking online for deals. People are already talking about black Friday deals that are coming on Amazon. Walmart's talking about what they're going to have. There's seeding already happening out there. There's probably people that you're on the list that are your like, because obviously, as a business owner, we're also usually the best consumers, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, we are.
Speaker 1:Practice what we preach. And the truth is is I've already started getting emails that are setting up Black Friday stuff. So, even if you're a day behind and you're just modeling what you're seeing or or observing, like it's better than not doing something. And I think that that's like you know now, with with the advancement of ai and the ability to kind of like brain dump and get information and ideas back, you can come up with a pretty good plan and start moving forward on this. And there's no reason that, like, if the offer crushes it, like you put it, you, oh well, maybe I should roll this back out. Okay, but we did a special for black Friday, so they're not going to get the five bonuses, but maybe they on Monday. There's something else they get because the offer converted Right.
Speaker 1:So, like, if you are just doing a black Friday offer, don't forget there's cyber Monday and then, like, if the offer crusheses it, you can do the same offer but without those bonuses. Like you have to change something, like you said you have to. You know, be a, be a person of your word, so that people, because, like, because the, the minute you don't like, the minute you're like, oh, the like was supposed to close the cart at midnight, but my developer forgot, and so I'm leaving it open for another 24 hours, like people. They know that's not real, but here's the funny thing you still make sales. But here's the truth what so hell.
Speaker 2:It's real, but it's almost never.
Speaker 1:Almost never real but the truth is is, if you don't like, if you don't reopen the cart, you will get a ton of messages from people who genuinely missed the sale, who, like, didn't see the emails, didn't do those things, and I remember. So I probably shouldn't say this on air, but I don't care. Do we ever Like? Before I invested in myself. I was given a hard drive full of some of the top internet marketing courses that were of the time, and one of those was Frank Kern's Mass Control. So I go through it, I use what I learned.
Speaker 1:And we did a launch and I made like 135 grand and I felt so bad that I reached out to Frank and I was like, hey, I got to pay. You Like how much is the course? And he's like it's not for sale, bro. And I'm like no, no, no, I got a pirated copy. I made a ton of money. I don't feel right. I want, I want like, I want to like balance the universe here. And he's like you just have to wait until the launch. He would not take my money. Now most people are like that's crazy. He would fast forward to the launch.
Speaker 1:I was like, soon as it went live, I purchased. I didn't need to purchase. I already had the course. He didn't take my money. I could, but much like he built so much goodwill I'm using his words here he built so much goodwill and like basically making me wait, that like when you get those emails, don't send them the link to buy at the discount. If it's genuine, let them know that right now it's unavailable, it's over, but it may become available again, you know, in the future and you'll let them know and the desire to buy will go through the roof for those people and they will not ever miss a deal again always want to what you can't have so, like it's funny, because, like you know, probably for every pirated copy, like you know, one in one thousand feels bad enough to go pay the original creator, but that's because nobody really does anything with the information.
Speaker 1:My point, though, is just simply that if someone wants to give you money or wants what you have, making them wait is not always a bad thing, right? So don't get into the pressure, after whatever time period you do, to open the cart up for no reason. Maybe it's two weeks later, you open the cart up again and you've got a different set of bonuses or a different reason why. Maybe it's Christmas, so there's a little bit longer of a gap a month or so. But just have patience with that and understand there will be people who write in. But, trust me, the mistake is, if you could and I think legally, if you give someone, if you, if you close the offer and then you give someone a backdoor access, you actually have to give everybody who asks for the backdoor access. I'm pretty sure that's. There's like some legal thing there where you can't it can't be selective on it, so so, basically, it's like once you've done it for one person, you have to do it for everybody else, is my understanding.
Speaker 2:Maybe you have to do it for everyone that wrote in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I meant. I don't think you publicly have to go out there, but like you can't be picky and choosing. But like, well, I'll give this person a link and not that personal link, because I think if it gets out that you well, if they write you rudely, maybe you've got the right to say no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get so confused by what, what you can and can't do, but the, the but. The truth is from a good goodwill, a from a commerce standpoint. You know, just just stick to the word. Whatever you decide, just stick to it. You know, if you decide to shut the cart and then reopen the cart, that's your choice. But at the end of the day, like being ethical never really fails long-term. You know, short-term you might lose a couple thousand bucks here or there, but long-term it always seems to come back tenfold.
Speaker 2:I think, to always do what you say you're going to do. Yeah, it's just an integrity thing.
Speaker 1:Cool Anything else on the promos. Holidays are your like favorite time of the year.
Speaker 2:Wow, my love language is gifts and it's not even that I like receiving gifts which I do and they become staples in my home. I can't get rid of. Like my mom knit me this red blanket she made herself, which is crazy, but she made it and now I take it with me, like on planes, on trips, like it's my blanket and the cat's out. I'm like, make sure we are, we are explaining, like the actual value, even with a discount or not, the amazing things that you can do with this product, because I am still excited about it and I'd love for them to use it as a gift or give it as a gift or have it as a gift and I'd love to do the discount and I'm less motivated.
Speaker 1:You said something there that triggered I don't know why it triggered this thought process.
Speaker 1:But if you have a product and there's multiple levels, so you have like a basic, you have like a professional, you have like a VIP elite, whatever multiple levels One of the things you can do because, like, you don't always have to sell to new people, right, if you have customers, one of the things you can do is allow them to upgrade and experience the next level and then, if they like it, they can continue on.
Speaker 1:So you could create, you could think about stuff like that, and I'm thinking like with webinar jam. If I was on like a basic account or culture is on a basic account with that has features that I don't have like, could I upgrade, like for a discount, upgrade to a higher level, and then you know, if I choose to stay, it does go to the regular billing. So you could also do a discount for a very limited time to let someone experience it. That's a really good idea. And then, if they want to, they can continue on at the regular price. So you don't always have to think of new customers. You don't always have to think of, you know, permanent discounts. You don't have to do discounts at all, and my favorite thing is to add value, not decrease price.
Speaker 2:What's a little funny about that is if you do have the webinar jam, right, and then you add the EverWebinar, we have that 30-day back money guarantee, whatever. So you have that refund period. So you're always welcome to go put your credit card in and purchase it for the month and then it will auto bill after that month. But if you just give it, like, just give every client you've got access that has Webinar Jam a free month of every webinar, like hey, we're just because you haven't bought yet, we're just going to give you a free month and their access is right there when they log into Webinar Jam, that is brilliant. And then like, if you want to keep it, you know, then it's that billing.
Speaker 1:On the note of free, like that's something we didn't touch on, like you don't have to sell something. You could give something free away for black friday everyone looks at freemium well.
Speaker 1:Also, it separates you from the sales, right. But let's say you have a course and it has 10 modules. Give module one away. Give or give your best module away, right, if module sometimes module one is just a warm-up so it might not be the best to sell the rest of the course, but if you have a killer module, you have you. You know that. You know, in your course there's one, one video that everybody who watches it says how it changed their life or it was the most impactful piece of the course. Give that away for free, right, with a button underneath that says get the whole course. Like you know, yes, give me access to everything. And and sell it way, because now you've led with a gift to them versus asking for a sale. And then, if they see the value which they should, they'll upgrade.
Speaker 1:And obviously there's certain things you can do to manufacture the sale in different ways. We don't have, like we can't really go through like building the landing page and all the tech stuff. Nobody wants to listen to that stuff. Long podcast, you know it's not as simple as just throwing it up there. You do want to have some good framing and emails and headlines and stuff like that. But my point is you can think differently. You don't have to just do a 50% off, 75% off sale. You will see those. You'll see people bundling up all their courses, but they're doing it because it's a lead gen. They're trying to get someone from a freebie. They're just trying to get someone to take out their wallet, because as soon as someone gives you a dollar, they are a better customer than someone who's never given you a buck.
Speaker 2:Well, I like that, that, the most sparklier the better. But if I go on like a Black Friday thing, like my kid wants this, this Barbie with this purple dress or whatever, and Amazon has it sold out by 6 am Because they only had however many and I just missed it and I was like, well, she's still getting it for Christmas, I'm going back and I am buying it because I was excited she wants it and I found it. So if you already have a course, you've given them all the emails to give them all the benefits that you are providing and they providing, and they do miss the sale. Maybe they're just excited enough. They're like you know what? I missed the sale. But here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it happens I've seen people purchase at full price after because they want it and they kick themselves that they missed the sale. But they're like, you know what? I do want this, yeah, like, and I'm not going to wait anymore. You know, I'm not going to wait to the next sale. So it uh, it does have that benefit too, that if you do a good job, people desire for the product, for the service, will go up. So I think that's it.
Speaker 2:I think we covered a bunch of things.
Speaker 1:All right everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Yay, we really rolled with that one.
