Estimated read time: 3 mins

I’m currently riding that sweet sweet inbox zero high that only processing a month and a half’s worth of emails can provide. 

^^feels a little sumthin’ like this… 

My fam jam and I are just over a month into our travels in SE Asia which has been AMAZING. And/but also full on. 

By some “cram computer time in when you can” productivity miracle I managed to pull off a pretty darn successful BFCM sale. 

Vietnam has also been shipping me some pretty powerful lessons that undeniably apply to business too. 

Game for me to spill the tea on both with you? Read on…

What you’ll learn in this article:

🍵💲5 emails → $5k → 14 new members in KNOWN yay! 

🍵💲Reflections from BFCM 2025 

🍵💲Dumbass tax and why embarrassment is the price of admission 🎟️

The tea: BFCM Debrief, dumbass tax, and diving into 2026 planning mode

Full disclosure for my detail lovers — this is NOT a super in-depth debrief, because frankly, my BFCM promo was very simple. 

No ads, no social, just straight email fiyah 🔥and a solid offer.

THE GOAL

A low-lift promo to match this very full-on season of travel with 3 littles. My last launch for KNOWN was quite energy intensive and required cooking up all the assets from scratch. The goal was for this one to be the opposite 💁‍♀️✅ success!

EXPERIMENTS

Super story based emails using fodder from our current adventure → This felt really easy and got a good response! Life inspired emails makes them so easy to write.

THE NUMBERS

Membership: 

Emails sent: 5 
Average open rate: 38.3% 
Average CTR: 0.67%
14 new members → 6 annual | 8 monthly 
Sales page conversion: 8.8% 
Order bump sales: $85
Upsell sales: $0

Total Revenue: $4641
Margin: 88.9%

Time: 

My time: 7h
Admin time: 10h

REFLECTIONS

I am a big advocate for letting things be easy when you can. Not every launch needs to be the all out version. 

CTR felt low, but that could be because I just promoted KNOWN last month and many of my lovely subscribers already saw the offer. 

A few of the free bonuses from the initial launch became a paid order bump and upsell. This move felt like the right one in order to maintain integrity with those who joined during the first promo AND it resulted in a few extra sales! 

Overall super smooth…the opposite of my initial week in Vietnam where I’ve had many embarrassing moments. 

Expats call it “the dumbass tax” and it’s simply the cost of admission. Which frankly, is the exact same for those brave enough to build a business. 

So go ahead, be embarrassed and take it as a sign that you’re doing something right. 

On this note: sometimes it feels kinda embarrassing to share these debriefs. It feels like we’re only shown examples of 6-figure months and results that feel so out of reach for most online business owners. 

If you feel the same and appreciate the real talk and real numbers even though they’re not that yuuuge, let me know below!

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

• 🔥 Loved this — simple, strategic, and so HUMAN. More debriefs like this please.
• 🤷‍♀️ Helpful-ish, but I’m craving a deeper dive next time (give me more numbers + nuance!).
• 💀 Honestly? Felt a little meh for me but I respect the dumbass tax philosophy.

Sip on this…  

🧋 Someone created this AI that’s trained on all of Hormozi’s books and videos and it’s kind of amazing.

🧋Ok but seriously…