Estimated read time: 6 mins

Life mimics art, or in this case, business — but let’s be real, in many ways they’re the same thing.

I’m sitting down to my desk today after…

🦄 Hosting 25 people for my daughter’s 5th birthday party this past weekend. 

🌿 Wrapping up the Fertile Ground community launch last week and welcoming almost 25 new members! 

You’ve maybe heard the analogy before to pretend you were hosting all the people on your email list or who follow you on social. 

When you do that thought exercise, suddenly even a “small” list or following feels like plenty to work with. 

Hosting 25 people in my physical and virtual space is such an interesting parallel. 

This debrief will be far from the flashy 

~*6-figure launch full of bells and whistles*~ variety. 

^^While I’ve shared those in the past (and may very well in the not too distant future 💁‍♀️) this one’s definitely grounded in a good balance of repeating patterns I’ve seen in all my recent launches, hard won wisdom, and a few newfound realizations.

In today’s edition of Spill the Tea

🍵💲My Fertile Ground launch debrief: what worked, what didn’t, and what’s next 

🍵💲What to do if your email list gets attacked by meany head bots and their mysterious masterminds
 
🍵💲My thoughts on the deep long-term benefits of memberships and community models (+ why if a quick cash injection is what you’re after this is not the best offer strategy)

This week’s tea: 24 members, 74% returning clients and students, and a real world example of personal growth through business

What a ride it is to create something, put it out there, and see what happens. 

This process never fails to teach me about myself and the world around me. 

First ever call in the community I just launched we got into how so much of business and marketing as solopreneurs and creators is SHADOW WORK 🦇

I have been creating and launching my own offers since 2016 (beyond selling services/freelancing which I’ve been doing since 2014). 

That’s 8 years of learning through launching and there’s never a shortage of new lessons coming through. 

There are also lessons that I’ve learned again and again and again. 

This past launch was no different apart from it feeling a little extra close to my heart. 

💭 Will people get it? Will they see the value? 

💭 Is the name too nebulous? 

💭 Am I offering too much? Is it overwhelming? 

My personal growth practice through it all… 

1. Do my best and detach from the outcome (as much as possible)

2. To just pay attention to the stories I tell myself when things aren’t going exactly how I want them to (hellooooo, subtle victim mindset 👋) 

Hot take 🔥 ⇒ Being in launch mode feels so exhausting for so many business owners not because of the to-do’s involved, but because of the expectations we cling so tightly to in our heads. 

My personal mantra recently has been “there’s no truth in the now” meaning, few things are as I think they are in the moment. 

Low numbers mid-launch DO NOT = this whole thing is an absolute fail and I suck. 

With that said… 

Here’s what really worked well during this launch: 

✨ By far the most detached I’ve ever been to the outcome. The mere act of finally bringing this offer into the world felt like victory enough in many ways. 

I remembered the whole time that most people join at the very last minute — and I was right. 

✨ Building the Fertile Ground waitlist for the last few months and offering waitlisters and past students a special discount. 

74% of people who joined have worked with me before through my other courses. 

This is similar to my last launch for my program Easy Yes where 70% of those who joined were also past students (if you missed that debrief back in July you can revisit it here) 

✨ The founding members angle — which only works when you’re genuinely launching a community membership for the first time and here’s why: 

• There’s genuine scarcity. The price is the lowest it will ever be during an FM launch.

• Your ride or dies will want to get in from the ground up not only because they’ll save $$ but because they’ll get to contribute to the future of the space. 

• Most people intuitively know that while V1 of an offer is not without its kinks, it’s often also full of charm and the natural excitement that comes with something new. 

What I could’ve done better now that I have my Hindsight™ glasses on: 

💁‍♀️Welp, my email list got infiltrated by bot submissions which hurt my deliverability and created a lot of confusion. 

This was entirely my own fault. I’ve never had a need for reCaptcha on my opt-in forms. Easy target in the house. As soon as we added one, no more bot submissions. 

The weird thing about this bot attack is that the emails used were real emails for the most part. The only giveaway that we had over a thousand fake new subscribers was the name field. 

Shout out to my deliverability genius buddy Matt Brown for his help navigating what to do to improve our sender reputation from here on out. If you do any form of email marketing, his newsletter is a must-read. 

💁‍♀️ One of the main sources of negative thoughts I had during the launch was because I felt like I bombed the Seasons of Change workshop. 

Not because anyone outright said that, I just felt my presentation could’ve been tighter and less rushed. 

Live and learn! I don’t think I’ll run it again unless it’s in a slightly different format. 

Facilitating free live sessions that feel truly valuable and effectively pitching without it feeling slimy or like the whole thing was a sales pitch in disguise is definitely an area where I want to do better. 

The free workshop numbers: 217 registrants. ~40 showed up live. Not sure the exact # of people who ended up joining FG who were also at the workshop but my guesstimate is around 5. 

Pretty much all of those registrants came from my email list, I did very little promo on social for the workshop or the membership.

Overall, not a huge needle mover but a great opportunity for more shadow work 😉

💁‍♀️Timing? But this one’s a maybe. 

I’m a firm believer that there’s never a *perfect* time for any launch. 

It’s so easy to make all the excuses around an offer not performing well because of bad timing. 

I try not to do it, but it is worth noting that with it being Q4, the elections and Black Friday coming up, it maybe wasn’t “IDEAL”. 

💁‍♀️ While having returning clients is SUCH a win, this also tells me I need to experiment with building trust and getting buy-in from people who haven’t worked with me before. 

I don’t have a solid plan for this yet. 

If you have any ideas or want to share the one thing that gives you the confidence to work with me, hit reply and let me know!

The final launch #s/conversion rates: 

Waitlist/past students conversion = 3.5%

Whole list conversion = .4% 

Total revenue = $10,139 

Total monthly recurring revenue with 0% churn = $6600

Overall takeaways and what I’m excited about moving forward 👇

Mostly I’m just so happy to finally have an option for people who want to keep working with me and who resonate with the idea of creating sustainable success using an integrated ecosystem approach to business and marketing. 

SO FUN. SO liberating. SO the start of something that is only going to get better. 

Everyone who joined is a perfect fit for this community and that feels like a huge win. 

I’ve long felt like communities and memberships are NOT the easy sell that many make them out to be (especially with pricing above the $97/mo mark). 

My friend Becky who helped me architect this offer teaches that if money is the only reason you want to create a membership, create something else. 

(Hit her up if you’re considering a community or membership for your own biz, she’s a whiz!) 

I’m excited to experiment with different launch models and entry points down the line but for now, stoked to just show up and serve the baddies who joined!

Sip on this…  

🧋Seriously, take it easy this week y’all…