| You hear this all the time from the start-up and agency world: ‘sell before you create', ‘mvp first' & test before you invest. And I agree with this, because you don't want to burn up all your resources before you start. And this includes: – create a website for your services; – having professional photos taken; – creating a company logo. XXX do not start with these XXX In today's newsletter I'm sharing how you can test your new offer, even if you are a freelancer and I'm sharing exactly how I did it with my pilot-program Thriving.Stop creating stuff that no one wantsIf you are a freelancer, wanting to create something new for your clients, if you're working for a boss and creating new things all of the time, you can use this method, down below I'm sharing how you can do this for yourself. This was my exact process on how I created Thriving: 1. Playing around At the end of February I created a post about something that I called Talent Pollution, many people responded, so I decided to create a newsletter issue about it. You can read the newsletter here. 2. Creating a free masterclass After the newsletter and a couple of my instagram stories in line with talent pollution I received many messages from people who were actually in a rut and asked me to help them. Booking a private call with me is not cheap, so I decided to host a free masterclass called Nine Lives. 24 people attended live & in the replay. 3. Offer a follow-up After the free masterclass, I had 3 offerings: 1. My 3-week intensive (€1497,- for intensive private coaching) 2. Thriving, the pilot I'm talking about (€222,- for 1 month in a group) 3. Big Business Big Life (€49,- a 2-hour workshop in 2 evenings) 4. Decide on what you want to focus on I hosted 2 more Nine Lives masterclasses and I wanted to start with the Thriving group, because more and more I believed it to be a great way to solve the problems people would come to me for. 5. Talk to people who were interested 3 people signed up for the program. Others who were interested responded that 222 euro was too steep of an investment, or that they really wanted to give it the time and attention it deserved. 6. Create the program, but not yet build it Thriving was build from the idea that I wanted to really help people to create make their life and career easy. Remember, the people who joined are not entrepreneurs, but people who are working for a boss.This was my offering, which I created in one evening: 7. When starting out, see what works and what doesn't When we started out, I created the audio recordings on the go and everyone would receive these every 4 days or so in the teachable (where my students find all of their trainings). Inside the teachable – the total lessons. A new exercise would drop every few days. 8. Monitor progress for great results & insights And our voxer group allowed us to stay in touch daily (mon-fri) so that I could monitor how everything was going, if I should change a thing or two (I didn't) and of course, to coach my students! Instructions on how to use the voxer-app. How to use it, how to leverage it and when I am there to coach them. 9. Keep on promoting the rest of your offerings & create bonuses So I decided to offer Big Business Big Life again in my stories, 2 other people purchased the workshop and the people in Thriving received the BBBL workshop for free. 10. Have a clear end-date At the end of the pilot, which was on Monday, I hosted a masterclass, where we looked back at the month and what the progress has been ever since and also the next steps they're going to take. 11. Collect feedback In the final exercise I asked my students to look back at their process and I received so many great insights, tips and routes of their customer journey. My students did such a great job and because they put so much effort into this, this was the feedback I received: 12. Build community At the end of May, I'm hosting my very first mixer for all of my clients. I love all of my clients and I want them to meet each other, see if there's a possibility for collaboration between them and I also invited the Thriving community members. 13. Process all of the feedback Looking at all of the feedback I actually know what I want to do, during the final masterclass I pitched some follow-up ideas and now I am going to create the ‘real' product. It will be different than Thriving. 14. Surprise your pilot-eers They don't know it yet, now they do, if they read this newsletter, but they will receive a first part of the follow-up program for free! I will let them know exactly what this means, but as a thank-you I am offering this. 15. Decide when to launch and warm-up the rest of your crowd I just finished launching a couple of my programs, now it's time for me to see when I'm going to launch the 2.0 version, so I'll be back with that info. And in the meantime, maybe this newsletter may count as a warm-up as well! If you want to test one of your freelance services, your e-book, your program, your public speaking gigs, your events, your social media channel, you can use the 15-steps I'm sharing with you here. Enjoy creating for your ideal client, they will love you for testing this with them!In this week's podcastI'm answering a question from one of my private clients about how to write her book. She's written many articles, she's done many speaking gigs, but now it's time to put it all on paper. And I'm sharing all the steps we've taken so far, which can help you create your book, e-book, course or talk as well. I'm sharing everything about: – selecting a publisher or self-publishing – building in public – the writing process and much more The client question coming in is from Hugo who's built a community from the ground up, but doesn't want to burn his audience by selling too much of his offerings. I'm sharing my take on this and how he can avoid the feeling of being ‘salesy‘. Listen on Youtube Listen on Spotify Do you have a question for me for on the podcast? It's really easy to submit yours! Submit your question here Happening in my business this week: This week I'm transitioning from launch mode to plan mode. In my instagram stories I'm sharing my daily process with you, which I believe it's gonna be very insightful. With my exact method on how I made April my best month yet. Curious? Follow me. There's many new things happening, but for the first time in this newsletter I am afraid it's just too early to tell… Whenever your ready, this is the way to work with me: For this month I have 2 spots left for 1-month voxer. Have a great rest of your week and see you next week! Love,Sarah P.S. If you want me to write a newsletter on a specific topic, you can always hit reply and share me your question, or ask a question on the podcast, I am always open for new suggestions! Join my Private Facebook Group (monthly free trainings) Find me on Instagram Find me on LinkedIn Weekly business advice on my podcast on Spotify Rather watch? Check out my channel on Youtube |
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