Caitlin Bacher:
My name is Caitlin Bacher, founder and CEO of Scale with Success®. And I’m on a mission to help course creators all over the world grow their business in a way that is profitable and scalable. We are sharing revealing conversations about what it really takes to scale an online course business to millions of dollars per year. Join us here to discover the tough decisions we’ve had to make, the biggest failures we’ve had to bounce back from, and the learnings that emerged every step of the way. We are so grateful that we have the chance to share it all with you right here on Scale with Success®: The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. Let’s get started.
How do I know when it is time to let go of extra offers and go all in with my evergreen course? So this is a really interesting topic. And I feel like sometimes when people first come to us for help, they have so many different offers. And I don’t mean just offers in terms of paid courses and things like that. But also they have paid e-books and one-on-one consulting and also maybe a mastermind and they do these one off projects, it’s so many things. This is a really important topic to talk about because I think a lot of times we let our emotions take over and we make decisions that are hard to recover from. So it’s really important that when we’re considering something like this, that we’re making the best decision that’s possible for us and where we are now.
So this is what I like to call champagne problems, the evergreen edition. So when you start implementing all the evergreen marketing tactics that we are teaching you, you’re likely going to see an increase in demand for your other offers. And that’s great news if you love delivering those extra offers, but what if you would prefer to streamline things? And before we dig in, quick reminder, there’s two trainings in the portal that are going to help you. One is The Product Vision Map™, which is how to plan a profitable product suite that is aligned with your vision. And number two is The Perfect Package™, which is how to determine the right price, promise, and deliverables for your online course.
So number one, know where you’re going. Stay accountable for making decisions that move you closer to your destination. Here’s what I mean, a lot of times if we’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the things that we’re selling, we just want to start cutting things right away because we’re in that moment of pain, we’re like, “I’ll stop doing the one-on-ones, I’ll stop doing the this, that, the other, whatever it is.” And what you really want to do is before you start making those decisions, what do you want your product suite to look like three years from now? What is the goal? Where is the end destination?
And it’s important to keep in mind that you only need one evergreen course or membership to get to the million dollar mark. So if your three year revenue goal is $1 million and your ideal scenario is only selling one course, that’s fine, but it’s also okay if you have a different vision in mind. And people seem to think that there’s only one way to do it. And there’s so many different ways. So some of our clients really love the idea of selling one course, but they also want to have an intimate mastermind that maybe they only offer once a year to their top clients. Or maybe someone else’s three year vision is that they love the idea of selling their one course, but they also want to have a really high ticket VIP day for clients that they love to work with.
So this is a hundred percent your vision and you get to choose. You are in the driver’s seat. I want to share a quick little story. So when I was in the fifth grade, we were at a lake, I think it was like a work barbecue or something, I don’t know. And someone had some jet skis and I had never been on a jet ski before. So they asked my parents, “Hey, does she want to get on the jet ski?” And my parents were like, “Oh, yeah, sure.” So anyway, so I went on the jet ski and I was starting to, it was really fun, I was starting to go out to the middle of the lake and before I knew it, I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t see the shore anymore. And I must have taken a turn so I was at a different angle of the lake, and I just panicked.
I was like, “I don’t know where I am and I don’t know where I’m going.” And as I began to panic, I started to clench onto the handles tighter and tighter. And the problem with that is that’s actually how you made the jet ski go faster. And I forgot that one of the tips of they gave me at the beginning was, “If you want it to stop, just let go.” You have to let go of the handles to make it stop. And so I started to turn it and I was panicking and so I was like, “I got to get to shore. I got to get to shore.” So I ended up at full speed just plowing straight into the rocky shore. And it wasn’t even the shore where my family was at.
And so I was catapulted off of the jet ski, landed on some rocks. Some random guy found me laying there and so ended up having to walk all around the lake holding me, being like “Who’s kid is this,” or whatever. But long story short, it’s important for us all to remember that we are in the driver’s seat. We get to determine what we are letting go of. We get to determine how fast we go. We are in charge. And sometimes it can feel, if we’re not careful, our thoughts can get away from us and create this feeling that we are just a kite in the wind or whatever. So we’re just, depending on which way the wind blows, that’s where we have to move. And it’s just not true. This is our vision and we get to choose what we’re going to do.
The second step is to know where you are now. This is super important. Do not make an emotional decision that is hard to recover from. If you start slashing programs, you might inadvertently end up making a decision that is actually going to cause you a ton of financial stress. So it’s important to know what percentage of revenue that each product generates. And it’s also important to know how much of your time is required to market, sell and deliver that product. Because some of us might have programs that, yes, the marketing perhaps is automated, but maybe if we’re selling it, it takes sales calls. And maybe we’re the ones doing sales calls. And we haven’t hired a team to do the sales calls for us. Maybe for the delivery of the product, maybe it’s something that we are very active in. Maybe if we’re selling a $997 course, and we are super active in the community answering questions, that’s actually very expensive for your company to deliver on because out of everyone on your team, your time is the most valuable.
And so we want to think about not just what percentage of revenue does each product generate, but also how much time is it really taking you to market, sell and deliver each of those products. Be on the lookout for those that take up a lot of time because that can get away from us. So the other question to think about is, how can you raise prices on offers that you want to keep because you enjoy delivering in order to make up for the products that you want to cut? So it doesn’t have to be an either or thing. If there’s things that you want to start to cut or streamline, that’s fine. But then on the other side, you might have products that you’re like, “Oh, well, I would like to cut this, but here’s what it would look like if I increased the price of this other thing.”
And the other question is, how can you restructure delivery on products to make them more profitable? So something that is like a mind shift is it is more profitable for you to pay someone to run your coaching calls and your community because you can spend your time on new things that are going to move the business forward. Now here’s what happens. Some people think, “Oh, okay, now I’m going to hire someone to do my coaching calls and to run my student community for me, so now I’m going to have more free time.” It’s only profitable if you spend that free time in the right way. And there’s always trade offs. Sometimes we’re in a season of, I need to really work less, right? Maybe you have something going on in your family or your relationships or wherever where you’re like, “You know what? I actually like, I’m looking to work a 20 hour week here. So I’m good with taking that profit cut if it means that I’m not going to have to fulfill on this.”
However, if you’re not in that situation, once that part is taken over, you have to be very judicious about how you choose to spend that time. Are you spending your time doing something, whether it’s brainstorming or engaging in some of the work even that we talked about the product position framework. That’s an excellent use of your time because it’s being able to effectively position yourself in the marketplace. That’s going to catapult your business forward. And so it’s really important that once you’re free up your time that you’re spending it in the right way. One of the really cool things about selling an evergreen course is that you have your IP, your knowledge framework right there.
So a lot of times we think that when we’re selling our courses we need to hire knowledge experts, people with specific expertise or experience to come coach in our student communities. And perhaps that makes sense if you’re selling a high ticket coaching program. It does not make sense if you’re selling a program that is 1K, 2K, $500. What you need there is a community manager, someone who can go through all of the training, because they’re a super fast learner, super smart and they can direct people to the right places. They can help explain where clarity is needed. But it doesn’t have to be someone that you’re paying loads of money to. So number three is after you plan where you’re going and you know where you are now, then you can create a plan to get from where you are now to where you want to go.
And you need to release yourself from the belief that everything has to be completed immediately. So sometimes we create our three year vision, what our product suite, what we want it to look like. And then the anxiety sets in, and then the overwhelm sets in like, “Oh my gosh, this is so big. I have a lot.” It’s like, okay, this is three years from now. And so it’s important that we really let go of this idea that everything is urgent and has to be done immediately right away. So set deadlines for when each existing product will dissolve, disappear, stop being sold. Set a date in mind. Don’t think about everything you need to do to get to that point. First, just set the dates. What gets you excited about when are you going to let go of this product? The other thing to think about is when will each new product come to fruition?
So in your three year vision map for your company, you might have a product in there that you have not created yet. So it doesn’t mean that you have to create that product this year, but set firm deadlines of when you want each thing to happen.
And so then the next piece, and this one is super, super important. This is where the magic is. What milestones need to be completed in order for you to feel confident to add or delete each product? So the first step is you’re setting the dates. You’re like, “Well, I want this new product to be completed 2023. And I want to dissolve this product by 2024,” or whatever the thing is, what is the milestone that needs to happen? What are things, it could be a revenue milestone. So you might say I’m only going to feel comfortable dissolving this product until this product is at 80% of my revenue.
It also might be a hiring milestone. So you might feel like, “You know what, I’m not going to release this product until this product over here is fully automated and I am a hundred percent out of delivery of that.” So be really clear about what those milestones are and put that in a place and then you got to let go, because over three years, lots of things change and the milestones might look a little bit different, but in doing that, it really takes a lot of the confusion and overwhelm and it helps making decisions easier because every decision that you’re presented with, you’re like, “Well, is this an alignment with where I want to be?” I have here that my milestone is that 80% of my revenue is coming from blah blah over the next year. So if I’m doing this other thing, that’s not going to contribute to that. So that’s an easy, no.
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