My Journey To $10K Months
Jul 06, 2020I want to share a story about where I was before I really hit those 10K consistent months. I know so many online entrepreneurs are pushing for that milestone specifically.
There's something about hitting five-figure months that really changes your mindset in your business.
If you are struggling to hit five-figure months, believe me, I know where you're at. I went through that struggle for a long time in my business. And I realized that there was one moment and one piece of advice that I got from my coach, James, that completely changed the game for me.
And so before I was introduced to James Wedmore and before I joined his program Business by Design, I was launching all the things.
I kind of came up in the business world with a coach who was notorious for launching all the freaking time.
She was launching something new every week and she was building lots of programs. I think she had even mentioned to building like 20 some odd programs in a year, like just bananas, right?
And so, I mean, bananas to me now, like get it girl, you do what works for you, but this is what I thought was normal. And this is what I thought it took to be successful in the online space as I was brand new starting a business.
When I started my business, I was launching all the things, all of the time.
And so it is not a stretch to say that I launched something new every single week, which to me now sounds absolutely batshit crazy because I don't even launch something every month at this point, but I was launching something new every single week.
So I had, at that point in my business, a monthly membership, which was a low end offer that people could get into.
I was launching monthly courses that I was running live. I had a monthly mastermind, which was a small group of people working toward a specific thing.
And I was launching my one-on-one every single month.
That's like four things, five things, four things every single month, which was absolutely crazy.
And not only was it burning me out, right?
Trying to create all of this new content, trying to create new offers, trying to serve the clients that I had, but it was burning out my audience too.
I kept noticing instances where they were so confused about what was happening and why I was launching something new again and missing out on offers that they wanted to be a part of.
But because my cart open was so dang short, they didn't know what was going on and they didn't have time to process the offer before it went away.
And so this style of launching really was just not working for me. I was working really late hours. I was working all of the time. I was finding the time when my kids were napping and late at night, I was working every night from 8:00 PM to midnight, at least. Just trying to make it happen, right? Trying to do the thing. Trying to do it all.
And when I was first introduced to James Wedmore through this free series that I was just talking about, he made a couple comments about things that I was like, "Oh, like maybe that's why I feel like this." Right? He talks a lot about how working harder and working more is not the key to success. And that was definitely something that I need to hear right then when I was working harder and working really long hours and really trying to push my way to success.
So after joining Business by Design, there was one lesson in particular that had me feeling really called out and kind of triggered. And in this lesson, he talks about building bridges to Desire Island. He talks about how everything that we want is on this island called Desire Island. And the income that you want, the impact that you want, the lifestyle that you want, all of those things are on Desire Island. And the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make is building multiple bridges to Desire Island.
So you build one program or course or something, and you get like halfway across the water to Desire Island.
And then you abandon that bridge and you start building another one, or maybe you don't abandon it, but you build multiple bridges at the same time like I was doing.
And you're trying to build four different bridges and you're kind of limping along doing all of this work to build all of these bridges, and none of them are actually getting you to Desire Island.
Does this sound familiar for you?
Because this hit me really, really hard. And he talks about how, when you focus on one offer and one bridge to Desire Island, then you can put your effort into building that one thing that gets you there.
And then once it gets you there, you can go back and solidify it, right?
Or make it evergreen, or do whatever before building another bridge. And for me, this was such a light bulb moment.
Because I truly felt like I was that person building all of these bridges to where I wanted to go.
But I thought that's how you did it, right? I thought that's how you had to be successful.
I somehow thought that people who had seven-figure businesses were just building a million bridges. I don't know why I thought that that was true. And now that I look back, the business coach that I was following is experiencing the same thing that I was unknown to her, right? It's not my business to go tell her that she could do things differently, but she has reached the same level of income every year for three years now, without growing to where she wants to get. And I see now that I have this information that it's because she is trying to build so many bridges to Desire Island.
And so when you start to see this truth, you see the things that other people are doing too, and how it can be such a detrimental mistake in your business, working much harder than you have to, to try to get to where you want to go. And so at the same time that I heard this message and I was like, "Oh man."
I came across this phrase that I don't know who said it originally, but it's the acronym FOCUS, which is Follow One Course Until Success.
And again, and again, and again, it's been put in my face that simplicity following one thing, doing one thing until you get to where you want to go is truly the way to build a long-term sustainable business that actually is profitable.
And so this is what I did. After that aha moment for me, I instantly shut down three of my offers, which felt really freaking crazy. I remember getting on a Zoom call with my two virtual assistants at the time. And I was like, "Hey, I know you guys are gearing up for this launch that we're about to do because it's another week. And I know that we've put a lot of work into this, but let's not."
And they were like, "What? What do you mean?" And I said, "I'm shutting down the membership. I'm shutting down the mastermind. I'm shutting down my one-on-one for right now. And I just want to focus on this one course." And they were like, "Okay, are you crazy?" But also like, "Awesome. Now we can kind of take a break." Because they were absolutely working to the bone too. And so we shut down everything and I focused on that one offer.
And what I did with that offer, this was in August that I had this aha and I decided to relaunch it in September.
So I took that offer and I beefed it up a little bit. I added some more value. I made it a live group coaching program where we had weekly life of calls. I added a little bit more content. And then I raised the price and I almost tripled the price actually. And then we went into relaunching it in September and that launch was crazy. I was on my way back from Disneyland, but I really did a great job of speaking to what my ideal client wanted. Because I was just speaking about the one offer, attracting a ton of ideal leads.
I remember that was my biggest launch list at that time. And I grew my Facebook Group really rapidly with that list. And then I launched this program, this new and improved version of it at a higher price, which I know so many people are afraid to raise their prices.
I launched it at a higher price with my biggest launch yet and I had my first 10K launch. And when I did this, obviously I had 10K month that month and it was my second 10K month.
The first one I got there through launching a million things and hustling my face off, but my second 10K month, I was like, "Oh, Holy crap. That was so much easier." Right?
I did the thing. I launched the thing that I wanted to do. I created recurring revenue, which is seriously the magic behind anybody who has a larger revenue stream as they have monthly recurring revenue. And it was such an aha for me.
I realized that this is how you do it, right? I'm not worried about launching another thing immediately off the back of it. And I could really pour into my clients that were in that offer. And since I raised the price, I felt really good about pouring into them rather than doing a self-study course.
That was really the aha that changed the way that I showed up in my business. And once I launched that, I was like, "Awesome. I did this. Like I got this offer to Desire Island."
It had done what I wanted it to do. And once I did that, I realized that that offer wasn't necessarily the aligned offer that I wanted to build the rest of my business off of, which again is another story for another day. But doing the one thing and doing it right and doing it to completion is what I have learned to follow to success.
So if you are sitting here and you are maybe launching all the things or you're throwing spaghetti at the wall trying to find one offer that sticks. I wanted to give you a few steps that I took that you can take to really narrow down what you're doing, focus on that one course until success, and build your own bridge to Desire Island.
Pick The Thing You Love The Most
So the first thing that I would do and the first thing that I did is pick the one thing that you love the most. So for me, I picked a course or a program and I beefed it up a little bit and I chose that one because I knew the desires of my ideal client. It was already created, which is so important, not having to reinvent the wheel every time that you launch something. And it was something that I felt really passionate about launching.
So pick the one thing that you are currently working on that you love the most. Because that's the one that you're going to feel the most aligned to launching again and again if you end up launching them multiple times. Then the second step. So you have the one that you love that you want to move forward with.
Put Everything Else On The Back Burner
The second thing is to actively decide to put the rest of the things on the back burner for now.
So for me, I knew that I was shutting down my membership. It was only a couple months old at that point. I think it was like five-months-old, but I was done. Right? I knew that was not what I wanted to do and so I shut it down. But if you have a membership or you have something that's kind of ongoing like that, you don't have to shut it down. But decide to put it on the back burner. Decide not to promote it, decide not to fill it that month and just decide to let it ride for a minute.
So put everything else on the back burner, clear your mind and forgive and release the things that you are not focusing on currently. You don't have to tear down those bridges on your way to building one of them. Right? You can just let them sit in the water and continue to be half-built until you get one all the way there and then you can go back to the next one. So actively decided to put the rest of those things on the back burner until you have the mental focus and capacity and success to move on to the next thing.
Make It A HELL YES Offer
The third thing that I did was I took that one offer and I made it such a hell yes offer. So this is really important because if you have multiple offers, they probably are not all hell yes offers, right? They may be a few half-baked offers in there. And so going back to the drawing board and saying, "How can I make this as desirable and as juicy as possible?" So for me, that included adding new bonuses, adding a group coaching element like a live as we go group coaching element. And raising the price, which I know a lot of people are probably going to say, "Raising the price, doesn't make it a hell yes."
But for me, it really did because I was adding in the other elements to this, including the group coaching, which then made it in my opinion worth the price. But I also believe that when you raise the price, you raise the level of expectation for people who are in it. And I believe that an investment is a decision to take control and draw the line in the sand in your business. And by giving people an opportunity to invest in their success at a slightly higher level.
I mean, this was not an expensive offer. I took it from 97 to 297. So it wasn't like a crazy high-end offer where I took it from 997 to 397. But I took a lower end offer and I made it a slightly higher commitment so that the people who were showing up truly showed up, right? Did the work. People who invest in a $97 offer, don't tend to show up in the same energy that they do for a 297 or 997 offer, right? The investment level kind of dictates your commitment level. You do not show up at the same level for something low-end as you would for high-end.
So I wanted to make that a big piece of my offer and really galvanize my people behind showing up and taking action and taking control of their circumstance using this offer. So I made it a hell yes offer. And I really got clear around the messaging and around what made it such a hell yes for that audience member. And the fourth thing that I did was focus my content and messaging around that one offer. If you are launching all the things or you're still throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to figure out what your thing is, your messaging is likely all over the place.
And so if your content doesn't lead people down the road to becoming your customer, then your content isn't really serving the purpose that it should be serving, right? Your content should be like the building blocks or the pavers along the path to becoming your client. And if it isn't doing that, then it's a waste of time, right? So focusing your content and focusing your messaging on truly attracting the ideal client for that one specific offer and laying the pavers for them to walk down until they're like, "Awesome. Now I ended up this really awesome castle full of fun and transformation." Of course, I want to go inside, right?
And so when you do that, that's going to be much more powerful. But when you're trying to create a million different things or launch a million different offers, it's hard to lead people down anyone which path, right? You end up trying to lead them down a million different paths, or you're not really leading them anywhere. You're just giving vague ass content. And so by really focusing your effort and focusing your messaging to lead people toward one specific thing will not only make your content stronger, but it'll also ensure that you're attracting and repelling the right people.
Relaunch It
And then lastly, relaunch it. So this part is the part that I think a lot of people don't do, right? Or maybe if you do, you're not doing it enough. If you feel like you have to create a new offer every time, you're missing out on this really beautiful opportunity to relaunch something. And relaunching is even more fun because the content is already created. So if you've launched something in the past, the program is already created, you probably have emails that you've used in the past or social media posts. Use them again.
I think that we try to make things more complicated than they need to be. And so when you relaunch, most of the work is already done for you. It's just about attracting the audience, warming them up with your content, and then putting the same content, the same emails, the same social media posts and the same offer in front of them again. And it's really like, it really is that simple.
And I think that we try to overcomplicate that, but you can just relaunch it again and then a couple months down the road, do it again and do it again and again and again. And track your numbers, track your conversion rates, see what you can do to tweak those numbers and really put on that scientist hat in your business and see how can I make this even better? How can I make this more of a hell yes offer? How can I get even better transformations?
And that's when you really shift from being a burnt out boss to really stepping into that role as a CEO and somebody is like, "Yes, this is a transformation that I can consistently create" and it becomes a game and it becomes something of a minute to try to get as many people possible, as many as good of results as possible so that you can relaunch it again, sharing their stories, to get more people in, to get them results to share it again, to launch it again, to get results and all the things, right? It just becomes this really awesome merry go round of transformation and fulfillment and success in your business.