Estimated read time: 6 mins

Writing to you from Bangkok with a big ol’ *sigh of relief*… 

Travelling across the world with 3 littles is no joke. 

Launching a new membership while in the midst of said move was crrrrrazy even for me but #worthit. 

I’m getting ready to head to a retreat with my coach in Phuket and eating my face off 🍜 

If you would’ve told me a year ago that I’d be here, I would not have believed you, but here we are. 

Excited to share all the (bubble) tea with you on my last launch — let’s get into it!

What you’ll learn in this article:

🍵💲35 members and nearly 600 new subscribers with ZERO organic social 💅

🍵💲It’s not you, it’s your offer: the unparalleled power of tuning into a real and present pain 

🍵💲Why I still think memberships are hard to sell right now (despite having a successful first launch!)

The tea: my KNOWN launch debrief

Let’s kick this off with an ICYMI style catch up moment. 

Last month, I killed my Fertile Ground membership to make space for something new and more aligned to flourish. 

(You can read all about it here →) 

This decision was very “grey area”. There was much that I LOVED about that offer and community, but it wasn’t exactly right. 

I’m very much obsessed with the book Reality Transurfing right now. In it, the author talks about shopping and how when you see something you like, you know it’s right. You don’t have to force it. You don’t have to convince yourself. 

You just know. 

I created KNOWN to solve a very specific problem vs. trying to solve allllll the problems (which I was trying to do in FG) and I *knew* on some very fundamental level that it was the right move. 

I’m learning to trust these inner knowings, %FIRSTNAME%. And I really believe that if you don’t fully believe in what you’re doing and selling, others can feel that too. 

Alignment = velocity. 

It’s what allowed me to take this from idea to launch in a month 🤯 (okay that and lots of support!) 

I talked about this in my EVOLVE launch debrief too. Spotting the repeating patterns in what the collective and your own audience is sharing about their struggles is a superpower. 

The social media burnout I was hearing about over and over again from those in my orbit was simply unignorable. 

Match that with my lived experience of building a business largely sans social and the bingo card is nearly full! 

THE BUILD UP 

Pre launch was no frills. I created a new free training, ran ads to it, promoted to my email list, and got 580 total sign ups! 

I didn’t promote the training organically on social at all because I’m stubborn and wanted to take my own medicine. 

EXECUTION 

I got mad support for this launch. Design, some copy, and admin were the key areas where I invested in much needed help during such a busy season of my life. 

EXPERIMENTS 

The experiments I ran with this go round included: 

1. Choosing an enemy in my messaging, in this case, social media as the only way to grow your audience. 

I’m a lover not a fighter so initially it felt kinda weird but the power of polarization and a firm stance is a known needle mover in marketing and I think it made all the difference. 

2. Ads to the free webinar. 

Honestly, my preference here would’ve been to charge an easy yes $$ for the training but I didn’t really have time for that so it was free (this time!) 

Running ads to a new training for a new offer is a risk. There’s no guaranteed ROI but this is a testing shortcut, I got to quickly determine whether this message landed with people who don’t already know, like, and trust me. 

Spoiler: the “antisocial” angle passed with flying colors 🎉 My cost per lead was like 2020 level cheap, more on that 👇

THE NUMBERS 

Training: 

Page conversion from organic traffic: 51.3%
Page conversion from paid traffic: 31.71%
Total registrants: 580 
Ad spend: $1379 
Average CPL: $3.94 

Membership: 

40 members → 13 annual | 27 monthly 
Sales page conversion: 7.5% 
Order bump sales: $111
Upsell sales: $667
Sales from existing subscribers: 31 
Sales from new subscribers (from ads): 9
Gross revenue: $11,296
MRR: $1809
Total expenses (including my time): $7556
Margin: 28.35%

Time: 

My time: 44 hours
Admin time: 43 hours 

THINGS OF NOTE 

• The best problem I have… most of my buyers are repeat customers (this pattern has shown up in nearly ALL of my launches from the last year). 

• ^^It’s a good problem buttttt it’s still something I need to crack because of 357 registrants from ads only 9 people actually bought. Is that the end of the road with the rest of these lovely new humans? Of course not. I think this trend speaks volumes about the current state of online business. 
  
  Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. Memberships are maybe the hardest sell of any offer type because everyone is over-subscribed and unwilling to invest unless they know they’ll be in good hands. 
• Expenses were high for this launch which is to be expected for any first launch. The next time I run this the profit <> expenses ratio will be flipped because the design is done and much of the copy will be repurposed. 

• Our tracking game gets a 5/10 for this launch. Certainly better than in the past but still loads of room for improvement especially with analytics and ads. 

• As far as time goes, 44 hours for me over 4 weeks while packing up my whole house and getting ready to move is a huge win and felt totally doable. 

WHAT’S NEXT? 

I’m cooking up something special for Black Friday so if you missed out on KNOWN and want in, keep your eyes on your inbox 👀

Sip on this…  

🧋One anti-social strategy I’ve yet to dabble in → writing a book! No small feat but it’s on my bucket list and if it’s on yours too, check out my brilliant past client’s new book The Author Adventure. 

She’s a book coach and editor and has taken what she charges private clients thousands for and put it into a step-by-step book on how to write yours. 

I’ve got my nose in it, holler if writing a book is in the someday (soon!) cards for you too! 

🧋Vibe for this week… 

What’d you think of this issue of Spill the Tea?

• 💸 Easy yes! — love when you pull back the curtain on the money + mindset.
  
• 📊 Math-ish mood — appreciated the data but gimme more feels next round.
  
• 😅 TL;DR — my brain short-circuited at “CPL.”