So I’ve never done this before where I share information on my income, launches and how it all went down but when I asked on my insta stories if it was something you were interested to hear about I got a 100% YES!

So I’m going to take you behind the scenes of a 100K launch that I had in July 2020 in the middle of a pandemic.

So 2020 has been an interesting one from a business perspective.  I’ve been online in my business for over 5 years now and about 18 month ago I moved from running a lot to events to really focussing all my effort into Brand Builder’s Academy which is my signature course.

It’s what I’m passionate about, it’s what I’m here to do and my goal is to have over 5000+ women go through that course in the coming few years because I’m passionate about helping women to build bold brands that stand out and profitable businesses without the burnout and whether you’re a service provider, product based business or online course creator I think that there is a way to make it work for you.

So today I’m going to share my July launch numbers with you because I think sometimes people think that things are bigger than they actually are behind the scenes and as they say, it’s not what you’ve got – it’s how you use it that counts!

I’m going to take you through a bit of BBA history, we’ll talk marketing, the numbers and financials and then what’s next.

So I was supposed to be on BBA Bali retreat in June this year and when we got to March/April and I realised that it wasn’t going to happen I brought my launch forward from September which is when I was going to run the next live round.  I had had a few speaking gigs cancelled which meant that revenue I had forecasted wasn’t going to be coming in and the other thing was in 2020 I walked away from high paying corporate consulting and leadership role.

Once I decided that June was going to be the next live round date, I started talking about it in May that the next live round of BBA was coming.

For the first time I hired a Facebook ads manager and we started to do list building through Facebook and Instagram Ads.  Now before I go on, the reason that list building is important when you have an online course is because the stats are pretty accurate.

In the online course world a lot of launches can be predicted by the size of our email list.  And over the last few years my sales have been pretty accurate when it comes to those numbers, percentages and conversation rates which is usually that you’ll make 1.5-2% of sales based on the total number of people on your email list.  And those numbers have proved to be true in this launch as well – but I’ll get into that in a bit.  I just wanted to explain why the minute I decided I was going to launch in July I started list building and talking about it.

When you’re marketing anything and I say this to my BBA ladies – you have to build the desire, you have to build the anticipation and give people that space and time to make the decision and get themselves ready to jump in.  So I’m a big believer in what I call runway marketing.  It’s the build.

BBA History

To give you some background so that there is context.

I started BBA in 2017 so it’s been going for 3 years at the time of this podcast.

• 2017 In year one I had about 8 people join in round one at $5,586 – no real list and just marketed to people I knew. Also didn’t have much of a social following.
• 2018 I was doing a million things and didn’t really put the time or effort into launching and ended up with around $5,000
• 2019 got rid of everything in my business in about June and in September made over $70K with that one launch.  I had focused more on the list building as well.
• 2020 Feb launch made about $55,000 and July 2020 I made $105,000

When my business was primarily events my profit was around 20% of total revenue.

Now my profit is about 50% looking at your numbers is so important.

Also when I had lots of things going on in my business I just couldn’t focus on BBA and what I really wanted it to be.  I think that a lot of times course creators launch something and then if it doesn’t do well the first or 2^nd time they give up.

I’ve added so much to BBA. The content is much more advanced now than it was when I first launched.  I’ve got additional coaches, accountability, live Q&A with experts.  It’s just a different beast and the results my clients are amazing – but it hasn’t been an overnight success. Everything that I do now in the business leads to BBA and focuses on BBA.  It’s what I want to be known for so I’ve really eliminated everything else so that, that’s the case.

So that’s a bit of background on BBA over the last couple of years

Let’s Talk Marketing

In the last 12 months with BBA and basically what I’ve done for the last 3 live launches in September 2019, Feb 2020 and July 2020 the things that I’ve done as standard are:

1. Regular story selling and talking about BBA and when it’s come
2. Social images and stories – so when I was updating content, when I had secured a new masterclass trainer, when I confirmed my live coaches would be back, any bonuses that were coming etc
3. Talked about it on the podcast at least 1-2 months before it launched
4. Webinars have been a great addition to BBA because I love them and I feel like I can really connect with people who are probably thinking about joining but just need that final confirmation that yes this is for them.
5. The other thing that I’ve done with webinars is send people who joined live a message over Instagram to say thanks for joining and to let me know if they have any questions. I’m big on relationships marketing, getting to know people and being personal with how I answer questions.
6. Speaking at events has been a big one for me as well. In August/September 2019 I spoke at a number of events and had people that I didn’t know and hadn’t met before join BBA after hearing me speak so I know that, that’s a big one for me when it comes to connecting and launching.

I think when it comes to your marketing you have to look at what you love to do, what works well and what your audience respond to. If you can work that out and keep doing it and getting better at it then you can really build on it launch after launch.

In the most recent launch I hired a Facebook Ads manager which was great. I’ve been wanting to do that for ages and Louise Griffith was fantastic to work with.

We did list building through March, April and May with Digital Content Creator’s Club then we did webinars ads, retargeting ads for people who had visited the site etc.  So it was so great to have someone else manage that for me.  Like I said you have to know what you’re good at and whilst I used to do Facebook ads for my events it’s not something I want to do.  I want it done well and I want someone who knows what they are doing, so outsourcing this was really important to me.

So my marketing consisted of was:

• Facebook Ads
• Speaking
• The podcast
• Webinars
• Social story-selling and sharing
• Email marketing

And only one of those cost money which I think is pretty great

Financial Numbers

Revenue:

• 46 people joined at $2000 = $92K
• 2 existing clients joined at $1300 = $2600
• Then I had 4 private clients come on board off the back of the launch which was $10,800

So the total revenue for the launch was $105,000

The costs were:

• Facebook Ads and management for 3 months was $8,374
• Copy writing $3,300
• Gifts $275
• Total: $11,000

July Launch Profit: $93k

50% pay upfront and 50% on payment plans.
I had the full payment and 6 month payment plan initally. Then on the last day a 10 month payment plan

We’ll probably do a full payment and 10 month next time. Payment plans are great for reoccurring revenue but there is admin involved in maintaining them.

As I share with my BBA ladies,  if $50K comes into my back account then 40% or $20,000 gets paid into my personal account that schedule as salary payments over the next few months, I take 30% tax out, 10% super and 20% operating expenses.  So when you see that number it’s important to understand what goes to me and what goes into running a business.

I think with online courses it’s so important to manage the costs because some people will have a massive revenue number but will have spent a lot to get there leaving them with not that much profit.  I’m all about the profit, because that’s what goes to my family and the causes that we support.

So I don’t have a big list and that’s the number 1 focus in my business right now.

With a list of around 3000, and 46 people joining BBA we hit the stat that is always proven to be true of 1.5% of list.

So now we’re focusing list growth with a goal of 15,000 by the end of 2021.

What next

So the next live round of BBA will be in February 2021 which we have already set and when BBA this live round ends then my online business manager and I will get everything setup and ready to go for that.

In between I’ll be launching The Bold Speaker’s Collective which will be my other course.  I’m not going to building a whole of things again but I’m super passionate about teaching people how to build their speaker brands so right now I’ve created a download which is “Building a Bold Speaker Brand” Workbook and we’ll be running ads to that over the next month which is part of the list building strategy, but at the end of the day someone who wants to build their speaker brand and they aren’t getting traction in their business could be the perfect fit for BBA in February.

When I did my webinar a few months ago on how to build a profitable business without the burn out, one of the things I talked about was creating graduation systems in your business. So for me someone who wants to be a speaker but needs more help with their business in general that’s a good graduate product to take them to the never level.

I’m also thinking about creating a membership and mastermind inside BBA just for BBA graduates so that they can continue to implement what they have learnt and take things further. So I’m deciding whether to do that next year as I love working with my BBA students and once they do BBA they have the foundations that they need to then move forward and I don’t have to go back over all that again.

I also think that Digital Content creator’s club will evolve into more of a course creator’s online course as I know a lot of my clients need more help with that, so that’s down the line.

So my graduation systems is:

1. Brand Builder's Academy
2. The Bold Speakers Collective
3. Amplify Mastermind – Create your coaching, group or online program with a powerful personal brand

But that’s all being thought through right now to make sure that it’s flows, it doesn’t bog us down with too many things and it gives us room to continue to build the community and evolve the work I do.

Lessons learnt

• Hire for what you don’t do well
• Budget before you launch but also know that you have to invest to get the bigger launch
• You email will tell you everything you need to know about how successful your launch will be
• Have a templated approach to the basics of your launch
• Have a marketing runway and make sure you show up daily to build that runway
• Work out what you love to do, what works well and what resonates with you audience
• Understand that it’s a marathon not a sprint and whilst there are some people who have launched in a big way quickly, that’s not the usual path. The people I look to are Amy Porterfield, Marie Forleo, Denise Duffield Thomas and I have to say that Denise’s transparency with her launch have been such a massive help to me.  Not only are they inspiring but it having the information about how they have launched has helped me and my team come up with the right strategy for us.

So that’s a bit of an insight into my launches, what’s worked, what hasn’t, what I’m focusing on now and where I’m really going to be putting all my energy.

 

If you're interested in getting on the Brand Builder's Lab waitlist for next round then just head to www.suzchadwick.com/bba and I'll see you soon!!

 

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