Gearing Up for the Re-Launch + The Retreat. Ooo La la.

Hello!

Hope you had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving, if you celebrate. Here in Chile, some girlfriends and I got together to cook a little feast, and believe it or not, the best part was the butternut squash pie that we made as a substitute for pumpkin pie–there isn’t pumpkin here! And wouldn’t you know…it turned out delicious?

So, lots to talk about.

First, the upcoming re-launch of Clients + Cash. In the end, I did decide to co-launch with the 72 hour sale, and I did that because it made more sense; customers can pick up Clients + Cash for $197, or they can choose an upsell of the 72 hour sale, which will cost $500 but include Clients + Cash and over $4,000 of other high-end products. (Clients + Cash is the most inexpensive product in that batch.)

It’s very much in my best interest, and in theirs, to pick up the 72 hour deal…because it’s such a deal. And for me, I’ll earn $400 from each sale, as opposed to $200. The only downside is that I won’t see that money until December or January. The guys running the sale have said that they’ll try to get affiliates paid in December, but it’s possible it’ll be half in December, half in January. And truly, I don’t care, but it’ll affect my numbers in 2011. Then again, if I get the sale in 2011, I might just go ahead and count that toward this year’s revenue. We’ll see.

Right now I’m in the process of playing with 1ShoppingCart to set up the product, and I’m almost finished–the last thing to do is see if I can get an option to pay in two installments. (For Clients + Cash.) I can recall many times where I purchased something because I could pay in installments, rather than all at once, and it’s an option that I personally like, so I’d really like to extend that to others if I can.

1ShoppingCart, after much experimentation, isn’t really my favorite. It’s not as user-friendly as it could be. Infusionsoft is where it’s at, and at some point I’ll be transitioning to that, but we’re looking at a good $300/month, which means there’d be a lot of work involved, because I’d definitely have to transition from both 1ShoppingCart AND AWeber (email marketing), because together, those cost me $200/month. So I’d have to ditch them both before transitioning to Infusionsoft.

To be honest, I don’t know what to expect from this launch. I’m fairly certain that anyone who was really into it, would have purchased months ago during the pre-launch for the $97. Then again, I’ve obviously grown in subscribers since then, so those individuals might have more interest than others who simply didn’t move before. I really don’t know what to expect. However, I can tell you one thing–I would like to build in some form of scarcity into the sale as well, because scarcity works. It’s not an attempt at being shady–it’s merely a way to help people decide sooner rather than later. If you open up a product and just have it there forevermore, people rationalize, “Eh, I’ll pick it up later when______.”  So in that sense, it’s a good idea to try and offer some type of limited bonus, for example, to get people to act now, rather than later. Because often, later doesn’t come.

Obviously the 72 hour sale is a prime example of this. That’s why it’s only for 72 hours. People know it’s now or never. It forces them to make a decision. So, of course, I’ve got that on my side. But I’d also like to build in some scarcity if individuals want to just pick up Clients + Cash, because obviously, not everyone has $500 on hand. That’s A LOT of money. And I don’t expect many sales, to be honest, because I know my market.

So what I’m considering doing is offering a 30 minute consult for anyone who purchases Clients + Cash OR the 72 hour sale during that time frame. Or, alternatively, for the first 20 people. But the problem with that is that people don’t know if they’re one of the first 20 people, really, but they definitely know what the 72 hour window is, and can still act. On my end, it’s potentially a lot of work, but at the same time, I enjoy talking and helping my customers…very much so. And it adds more value, of course. And I do believe it would act as a facilitator of sales during that initial 72 hour period. Especially because I don’t offer hourly consulting anymore.

I should also mention that I’ve set up an elaborate autoresponder for anyone who does purchase Clients + Cash through me. An autoresponder is a series of email messages that automatically get sent out in intervals that you dictate. In this case, the autoresponders are triggered through a sale. The idea, of course, is to add value, and also help keep those customers as warm leads and feed them into your sales funnel. You want to prove your value and have them aching for more….because you’re that good.  That’s obviously the principle that I build all of my products on–I want people to really feel like it was money well-spent. And with something like that, details go a long way. I think I mentioned before how I had my right-hand girl personally call every single Clients + Cash participant during the beta round, and ask them how their experience had been thus far with the material. I’m also in the process of getting my hands on some nice note cards, and I’ll be personally writing a card to each participant thanking them for their time. And the reason is because the details go a long way. However, since I won’t be running Clients + Cash anymore as a guided course complete with Facebook group, etc., I was looking for a way to continue the conversation in a way that’s more automated so it’s more scaleable. I was also looking for a way to add value via the autoresponders. So what I ended up doing was combing through every single discussion that took place in the original Clients + Cash Facebook group, and took screenshots of the valuable conversations that other service providers would find useful or interesting (i.e. on how to price your services, what to do when your family doesn’t support you, etc.), and then edited each screenshot to protect the privacy of the individuals who participated by blanking out their names. From there, I created an autoresponder series of 8 email messages going out every two days (so for about 2 weeks) that contained a topic and a related Facebook discussion. At the end of each message, I encourage customers to hit up the TMFproject Facebook page to tell me about their experiences with that given topic. That way, they can feel somewhat involved, they can learn, and on top of it all, it benefits me immensely to have customers posting on my public Facebook wall about Clients + Cash, because it serves as a form of marketing. I always do that with my products–encourage people to go talk about something in the product on the Facebook wall, and for that reason. But also because it’s a place where I *can* interact with them, in a much more scaleable way. So that also adds value.

And then, of course, toward the end I point them toward Products + Cash, which is the next program that I’m developing, and the official TMFproject Store.

Speaking of Products + Cash, I’ll be pre-launching that the same way as I did with Clients + Cash in early December, and aiming to wrap by the end of December, because if anything, my biggest challenge with Clients + Cash was keeping to a creation schedule–it took me far longer than I expected, so this time around, I want to make a real effort to get a finished product out the door much sooner. There were many, many people from Clients + Cash who were interested in product development, and many have already signed up to a special list I developed to be notified when the pre-launch for Products + Cash is ready.

So before the end of the year, I’ve got 4 major income streams to help us reach our goal (I’m not even sure where I stand relative to the goal…I need to look at it, but I’m thinking I’ve got a good $10,000 to go):  Relaunch of Clients + Cash, 72 hour sale, pre-launch of Products + Cash, and sales for the Costa Rica retreat! And that’s what I wanted to talk about next.

The retreat is going to be kick ass. There’s been a ton of interest–around 50 people who have specifically emailed, so that’s great. I was working with a travel agent over the past couple of weeks to see what we can do in terms of accommodations and flights, etc., and originally I was going to try and block out a number of rooms at a certain location and have everyone there. BUT. The travel agent kept coming back with pretty high quotes per person–we’re talking between $1500-$2000 for 6 nights for accommodations ALONE! And while I could just jack the prices of the whole thing up a lot to cover it, I want to look out for my people and not try to rape them up the ass, basically. That’s just ridiculous. Obviously the hotels are sexy, but…I want to keep people’s budgets in mind and try to make this as do-able as possible. So, ultimately, what I think I’ve decided to do is let people choose their own accommodations, and recommend a hotel where I’ll be staying, where I think they should try to book a room…but are under no obligation. That way, if their budget requires it, they can stay at a more affordable location, if they’d like…or hell, they can even stay at a fancier place, too, if they want. Ultimately, the workshops and things of that nature aren’t going to be held in the hotel, anyway–I’m not bringing people all the way to Costa Rica to hang out in a hotel all day. So, ultimately, it doesn’t matter where people stay. We’ll have an itinerary and they’ll know where they need to be each morning or afternoon, and it’ll be easy to figure out.

I’m looking at some numbers right now, and it’s looking like the cost of the retreat itself is going to end up around $1800 or so, which I like to think should be pretty do-able for people. I’d even like to extend the option to pay in thirds–1/3 in Dec, 1/3 in Jan and 1/3 in February when we have it. Since I won’t have to be in charge of putting a huge deposit down on a hotel to keep the rooms, I won’t need all of their money up front..or even a large portion.

From there, I’m planning on the best retreat the world has ever seen. It helps me immensely that I’ve lived in this particular place in Costa Rica for years, so I’m well-acquainted with the area, and I have a lot of contacts who can help. I already have a guy who is arranging some excursions for us (ziplining!)…accompanied by a typical Costa Rican lunch on a ranch….and then I want to have a workshop there in the rainforest in the afternoon, for example. Things like that. I want us to really experience the place while learning. A big advantage for going on the retreat is the opportunity to get away from everyday responsibilities and routine, and be able to focus exclusively on themselves and their businesses in a new place that will foster fresh perspective and ideas and a renewal. And I’m really, really excited to be able to offer it! It’s going to be GREAT. The welcome dinner and cocktail hour that I’m orchestrating will be top notch with views to die for. Oh, I’m getting excited just talking about it! Now I just need to get some details organized and then present the retreat to see how many we’ve got with a deposit–even though there’s 50 people who have shown strong interest, there will be far less who actually act. So, we’ll see! I hope it’s great! I’m absolutely capping at 20, though, because I want it to be intimate and I’m also building in private consults with me throughout the week. Oh, it’s going to be great!

But I’m waiting for Monday’s sale to pass, first, and then I’ll make the announcement regarding the retreat. Also, as a part of my work with GlobalMojo and Adrian Peterson and Demi and Ashton for Football for Good (I’m their copywriter), I’ve agreed to ask my audience to download the Football for Good app when they launch, which will be happening December 2nd. So that’s something else I need to build in.

ANYWAY.

I’m going to spend the afternoon finishing up some copy for a client, finishing the sales page for Clients + Cash, and then working on the exact details of the retreat. Oh, the retreat! I’ve already started hitting the gym hard so I don’t feel like a huge whale the entire time. Ha.

Will be reporting after the sale to let you know how it goes! I’ll take a look at end of year numbers at that point and see how much farther we have to go to hit the goal. We. Shall. See.

Excitement abounds!

And now, for the song of the week.

Well, it’s actually not a song. It’s a performance.  It’s my favorite Latin dance (bachata) being performed by my favorite dancer (La Alemana). But I promise I won’t make participants do this when we get to Costa Rica! Mostly.

Watch it! It’s hot!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xag5a4_bachata-show-by-tanja-la-alemana-an_music

Until next time -

Ash