Denise Duffield-Thomas's Blog, page 13

How launching a course can help you move from 6 to 7 figures

 

If your business turnover is 6-figures, you may be wondering how you could possibly work harder so you can break the illusive $1 million mark. 

Well, you probably can’t. Moving from 6 to 7 figures, takes a mindset shift and embracing leveraged income and not just simply doubling or tripling your effort. 

It’s time to leverage your time and expertise into a course and get it launched. 

And there’s a way for it to be easy and profitable. 

What if you could make a million dollars next year just because you added a course?

No one knows how long our apprenticeship is when we are self-employed. We have to decide when we are ready to take the next step.

What are you waiting for? 

You could have your course created and launched before the end of the year. 

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be done. Then it will be an asset which you can launch and improve multiple times. 

Check out my video above on how launching a course is allowed to be easy and could be the best next step for you.

Then, to learn more about planning and executing your first launch, join the waitlist below for a free masterclass training from my launch mentor, Jeff Walker all about how and why to launch.

Launch Masterclass waitlist > denisedt.com/plf

Where to start in creating your first course

 

When you are starting out, chances are you have lots of ideas and you want to create a course but don’t have the money for the set design, recording or production. There is a simpler way!

Your first course doesn’t need to be perfect or highly produced, but getting it done is like planting a seed that could grow into millions of dollars.

Thankfully there are so many ways to now create and record your product or course easily and quickly. 

It’s never been easier to get your magic out to the world and get it launched so you can help people and make money. 

Watch this video to see how really simple it is to start a course or create a product.

To learn more about planning and executing your first launch, join the waitlist below for a free masterclass training from my launch mentor, Jeff Walker all about how and why to launch.

Launch Masterclass waitlist > denisedt.com/plf

How to finally get your course done

EPISODE 174
How to finally get your course done
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Let’s roll up our sleeves and talk about how to finally get your course done.

I get so frustrated and annoyed by people who are procrastinating on launching their online course, not because it’s easy, but because it’s something you have to just get it done. 

It doesn’t have to be perfect and I promise it will be worth it. 

So listen to today’s podcast episode for my tips and wisdom on getting your course out into the world.

You’ll learn: 

Why courses are still relevant to you and your audience 
Navigating a crowded market and all the free info available 
How it’s easier and cheaper to create a launch today 
The mindset blocks holding you from creating and launching
How to sell a course before it’s complete

The biggest thing you need to get over the resistance of creating your course is just a desire to contribute. A desire to help. 

Don’t try and be a guru or put yourself under pressure to be a guru. 

Be a contributor. Offer something to the conversation - don’t feel you have to be the expert of all experts.

What you know can help people and is of value. 

Now you just need to get it done - book that videographer. 

It’s your time. 

xx Denise 

What are you really selling?

EPISODE 173
What are you really selling?
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When people are looking at their budgets or feeling a little more stretched, you need to be crystal clear on what you’re offering and how you can help.

If you’re in a service based business like a VA, designer or photographer you might be seeing clients say “I’ll just do it myself” or delaying purchases.

So, when times are a little tougher, get clear on the real benefit of your offer. Like a personal trainer, maybe it’s accountability rather than the actual workout routine. 

Your prospects are likely busy, and there may never be an ideal time for them, but when you know what you offer and can communicate it in their language, you’re more likely to get them off the fence.

Listen to today’s podcast episode for more on: 

Working out what business you’re in
How to market your years of experience and skills
New ideas for packaging your services and products 
How to communicate the real value of working with you
And much MORE.

Telling people what you’re selling and how you help is step one.

For example, if you didn’t already know, I’m a money mindset coach and mentor. I offer an online course, community, and monthly coaching to help you overcome money blocks and earn more. Money Bootcamp gives you three things: practical training, support, and accountability. 

We’ve helped over 10,000 people like you, and if you know you have blocks and fears around money, you can come join anytime at denisedt.com/bootcamp  

But remember, the fortune is in the follow-up.

If you’re looking at your calendar right now and you don’t have a lot of clients booked in, send an email to previous clients and inquiries.

Let them know that you’ve got availability and give them dates and a link. 

Make it super clear and simple to buy and give you money. 

Often, people are thinking, “I really should do that thing,” and they’re just waiting for someone like you to say, “Let’s do it!"

So listen to this week’s episode, take that action, and let me know how it goes.

Message me, or tag me - I’d love to celebrate your wins with you. 

xx Denise 

P.S. Want more? It can take a while and a couple of tries to get really clear on the breakthrough that you’re selling.

But when you can tell a compelling story why your experience can help someone achieve a transformation in their life or business, then your marketing is so much more effective. 

This is one of the things that has really made a difference for me over the last few years.

Check out this article about improvements I’ve made to my messaging and content to grow my launches. 

The truth about bouncing back from a failed launch

Chances are, if you’ve been in business a while, you’ve had a failed launch. 

This could be anything;

You released your book to crickets.

You launched your first program, and it was a dud.

You put out an offer, and nobody bought.

I’ve been there, and it can be devastating. 

If this is you, I want you to know that you are absolutely in the right place. It's totally okay for you to feel sad about it. 

And if that's not you, I want you to ponder where you’ve hit a speed bump in business and what you can actually learn from it.

I’m in a lot of business groups, and I’ve got a lot of business friends - actually, most of my friends are entrepreneurs now. 

So occasionally I’ll get a friend saying “Oh my God, we had such a bad launch and it was horrible”, and they’re really defeated about it. 

After telling them I’m sorry, I always ask the same question. 

Over the years I’ve learned how to decipher launch results and I’ve learned a lot about bouncing back and improving launches. 

So l want to share more about my failed (and successful) launches.

Because you know what? Having a successful launch isn’t about branding, or colors or pretty ads. It isn’t even (gasp!) about pricing! 

I’m gonna share with you my ultimate successful launch secrets!

The single most important launch question

In the 50s and 60s, when advertisers used to do campaigns in newspapers or direct mail. They would only ever expect to get 1 to 2% conversion, if that! 

If you're a friend of mine, you know, you can't come to me just for like, "Oh babe, I'm so sorry. That sucks." 

This is how a conversation normally goes when someone tells me they’ve had a failed launch:

"Yeah, that sucks. Okay. So what are your sales page conversion stats?" 

"Oh"

"Well, go find out, get some information, babe."

 "Ok so 200 people saw it and X amount of people bought." 

"Babe, it's right on track because, here's the thing. If you are selling something online, like a course where you just send people to a sales page and they buy it, one to 2% of people will actually purchase that thing. That’s a widely accepted good conversion rate and a great place for you to start. 

This might sound horrible and make you think "What's the freaking point?". But I actually see this as really empowering information, because if you don't have that information, you are going to sit there and go, "People don't like me. Nobody wants my thing." And you'll make up stories about your ability or you'll go in the wrong direction. 

Without knowing your real numbers you’ll doubt yourself, your offer or your branding. 

I've launched with very simple branding and very fancy branding. And to be honest, their conversion rates are the same. 

You might think, "Oh, it was the price because people said, 'I can't afford it.'", but you are going to get that response no matter what the price is. 

If you were charging $5 or $500 or $5,000, you'll get the same amount of people saying that they can't afford it. It'll be different people for sure. Different price points, attract different people, but it’s not necessarily the price that makes a launch underperform. 

So if you want 20 sales for your next launch, you can work back and reverse engineer the numbers to get a target for the number of people to see your sales page and the number of leads you need. 

This will then inform whether you need to invest in ads or bring on JV partners to help increase your reach. 

It’s just a normal marketing reality that not every single person is going to buy from you. The one to two stat is for mass marketing campaigns, if you are getting on the phone and talking to people about what you do, you can have 50% conversion. You could have 90% conversion depending on who you are, but you are never going to get a 100% conversion on most of your offers. 

Ninety-nine or ninety-eight percent of people will not buy. 

That can be really hard to deal with. But if you realize that it's not personal and you don't make up a story about it, then you have more information next time. 

When you see people having big launches, six-figure launches, million-dollar launches, it is a numbers game. 

Now, each sale is someone that you can transform their lives and help them. But it is also just a reality that, even though people say that they're going to buy, life happens and they don't. Even though people really need what you have to offer, they just might not have seen the offer.

So next time focus on your reach, leads and following through with your marketing so as many people see your offer as possible.

You failed, now what?

There’s no doubt that a failed or underperforming launch can be vey disheartening. 

Instead of sitting around and making up stories that "people don't like me, people don't want my thing. It's not the right thing." here’s what not to do:

1. Don’t scrap everything

Don't chuck everything out. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Most of the time, it's not about your thing. It's just that not enough people saw it. 

2. Don’t assume everyone knows about your offer so you can’t do it again

Maybe you only got one or two people join your coaching program and you feel like, "Oh, I can't launch it again because people will think it didn't go well or people will think I'm a loser for asking them."

Here's the thing: sometimes what you have to offer is really great, but it's just not the right time for people, or they didn't see it, or they didn't have the money at that particular time. It's absolutely not personal. 

So, look at what you can improve - send out a questionnaire and ask people why they didn’t buy. You’ll always get responses about the price or not being able to afford the investment, but it will also highlight areas where you can reduce friction or confusion. 

It's just a reality that it will just not be right for some people at the time. People won't always be able to afford you and that's fine. 

3. Don’t start from scratch.

Yes, make some tweaks to your marketing for next time, but don’t start from scratch. Don't get bored and just launch something else because you feel like nobody wants it. Like so many other leaders in our industry, you can launch again - the exact same thing in the exact same way, but at a better time and you may see much better results. 

So many people who were a “maybe” during your failed launch, could be ready next time. I see it all the time when I launch my Money Bootcamp. 

4. Don’t take it personally.

People have to get over a lot of blocks to take action in their business and buy a course. It’s easy for your potential customers to get derailed. They get embarrassed, they get tired, or they just forget to join - it’s not about you.  

Dust yourself off and go again

The great thing about relaunching is that you'll have less to do every single time. 

If you launch something and nobody bought, I'm still really freaking proud of you because you got through your resistance and did SO MUCH work to create all the moving pieces of a launch. Filming the videos, doing the sales page, getting out of your comfort zone, setting up those payment systems, writing those emails. There's so much work involved in that. 

They are real assets that you’ve created for your business forever more. You’ve planted a seed in the ground that could bear fruit forever.

Now think about if you got one person. I've seen people get one person and they refund them thinking they can’t run a program for one. 

No - that person is faith. That is proof that someone needs what you’re offering. And that person, has paid you to plant the seed, that could grow into a million dollars.

You might have wanted a hundred people and you got 10. That's so valuable. It's going to help you iron out the kinks in the program. Those early people are going to find your broken links. They're going to find your spelling mistakes and they're going to tell you which bits are confusing. 

Do you want 10,000 people joining in your first course when you haven't figured out those systems? 

Every time someone joins Money Bootcamp, we learn something new. I don't reinvent the wheel and or I’d break it. I take a note, and then the next time we do new videos or redo stuff, then that's when I make changes. 

Ok, hopefully, this helps you reframe that failure for you. 

I want to hear from you. I want to celebrate you. 

Tell me whenever you launch something. Tag me or DM me to tell me about your launches. It’s amazing to hear of people like us breaking through your resistance and making money. 

If you’re considering launching or relaunching I have one big recommendation - You can improve your next launch by investing in extra training or support. You can take the stress and uncertainty away from launching by following a proven system and learning from the mistakes that other launchers have made. 

And the BEST person to follow to learn what’s working in launching right now is my launch mentor, Jeff Walker. 

Each year Jeff shares his launch formula (the one I use) and the latest launch trends in a free workshop. Spending time to learn from Jeff is an incredible investment that will deliver an immediate return in your next launch.

Get on the waitlist for access to the 2024 Launch Masterclass here - I’ll see you there. 

xx Denise

Affiliate Disclaimer: I’m proud to be an affiliate partner for Jeff Walker. If you invest in his Product Launch Formula Coaching Program in the future, I may receive a commission but at no extra cost to you.

Setting better money boundaries

EPISODE 172
Setting better money boundaries
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Ok, let’s check in - How are you going with your money boundaries?

If you’re like me, you may need to regularly check where you’ve got good, bad, or ugly boundaries to find areas that need tightening up.

Uncovering these areas of your life and business where there has been boundary creep often reveals some underlying money lessons that you can work on. 

In today’s podcast, I’ve got a checklist for us to go through and some simple actions you can take to set better boundaries around time and money. 

Trust me, you’re not alone if you’re struggling with boundaries; it’s human. 

I’ve had some really big money boundary issues recently, and they’ve been hard to work through. 

We’re all in business to help people, and this desire to help can often push us to bend or soften our boundaries. 

This doesn’t mean you’re bad at business, but it also doesn’t help, so it might be time to pull on your big-girl adult pants.

I hope today’s tips help you spot some boundaries that need setting or tightening.

xx Denise

P.S. Setting a boundary with money can bring up your money blocks and trigger money blocks in other people - your partner, family, or clients.

If you need some help with this, join Money Bootcamp today. 

Other people’s money blocks

EPISODE 171
Other people's money blocks
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Ooohh! Such a juicy one for you today - Other people's money blocks.  

As you go through your money journey, you may have started to work on your money mindset and money blocks, but other people's money stuff could be derailing you. 

Most of your money blocks revolve around made-up stories and old beliefs about what you can be, do, and have.

You also have stories about how your income affects your friends, family, and community. 

If you've been stuck at the same income level for a while, it's worthwhile to see if you're unconsciously holding yourself back for other people in your life. 

Listen along today for more on:

Dealing with your partner's negativity or fears about money
Creating business friendships for support and validation
Spotting entrenched blocks in your industry or niche 
Outgrowing friendships as your business grows 
The impact of family beliefs and mottos can have on your business  

Whether it's a parent, partner, or best friend, this is a common money challenge I help people with. We have an entire module in the Money Bootcamp course on this topic, and it's the theme of this month's live coaching calls. 

So, if today's episode hits a nerve and you know this is an area where you need extra support, then it's time to join Bootcamp. 

Always seek out people who can grow with you and support your vision for your life and business.

When you're ready we'd love to cheer you on in Bootcamp!

xx Denise

What to say when you have nothing to say

EPISODE 170
What to say when you have nothing to say
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Today's podcast episode is about what to say when you have nothing to say. 

I know a lot of people in this space right now. 

For whatever reason, whether it be the aftermath of the pandemic, the economy, or the state of global politics, it can be hard to know what to say or whether to say anything at all. 

We're living in a time when it's never been easier to start and grow an online business. Still, it's also impossible to ignore the atrocities and inequity happening every day. 

When you consider what's happening in the world, it might feel trite to talk about your business or market yourself.

This feels like a lot, so it's understandable if you're unsure what to say online.

I wish we could solve all of the world's problems. But one thing I know is that not doing your business is probably not going to help. 

So, if you feel like you have nothing to say or are just tired and overwhelmed, this episode is for you. 

It's no wonder you're feeling this now. The first step is to acknowledge what's real for you and where you're at. 

Despite the not-so-cheery topic, I have some practical tips and advice to help you navigate putting yourself out there, so listen along today. 

This episode will help you look deeper and perhaps glimpse where you feel unworthy or have imposter syndrome. 

I'd love to hear your takeaways from this episode and what it brings up for you?

xx Denise

How to win affiliate competitions!

It's time to take another look beneath the hood of my business and share some successes and lessons. 

Affiliate marketing makes up 10-30% of my annual revenue, depending on who we partner with each year. 

And the beauty of this is that I don't have to deliver those programs! 

We partner with a small number of people who we have learned from and really admire. But more importantly, who fit out audience and can help you grow your business. 

Over the years, we, and particularly Mark, my husband and Launch Manager have become really good at authentically and successfully running Joint Venture promotions. 

If you're interested in learning more about how to be a winning affiliate and how earn some extra commission or prizes, then today is your lucky day. 

Mark just recorded a super detailed interview with Jeff Walker, sharing our approach to affiliate promotions and everything we've learned from the last decade: 

Here's what Jeff Walker said: 

"I think we have one of the industry's most challenging and competitive affiliate leaderboards, but Mark and Denise are the all-time champions.

They are the GOATs - the greatest of all time - and have won our affiliate promotion six consecutive times.

We've only had one other repeat winner, Brendon Burchard, so six times in a row is unheard of." 

Whether you're an experienced affiliate partner or just starting out, Mark shares how we got started and how we have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions and prizes by sharing our story and introducing you to people we believe in. 

These partnerships are win-win - a great way to help your audience and complement your income. 

I'm biased, but I think Mark is pretty cool and has a lot of great gems to share. Partnerships like this have been so valuable for our business, so take a listen to find out more: 

Creating Impactful Affiliate Marketing Campaigns w/ Mark Duffield-Thomas
On the Dare To Launch Podcast 
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

We can't wait to hear more about your launch and affiliate success. Maybe we'll see you on a leaderboard soon!

xx Denise

P.S. Coming up in August, we’ll be sharing more about how to run an online launch and Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula. 

This is the step-by-step process we use in every one of our launches that was vital in helping us jump from 6 to 7 figures. Click here to join the waitlist and find out more next month.

Ask Me Anything: Daily Routines, AI, and more

EPISODE 169
Ask Me Anything: Daily Routines, AI and more
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I’ve got a juicy new Ask Me Anything podcast episode for you.

Today, we’re covering:

How is my “slow” business year going and what’s next? 
Am I writing another book?
My approach to experimenting with AI
How to tell the difference between resistance and the Universe saying no
What’s my daily routine, and what’s a typical Monday morning?
Am I in a mastermind? 

There’s even a funny personal question at the end of this ep that you may have been wondering about. 

I hope you enjoy these questions and please message me or hit reply if you have a question for the next AMA episode.

It’s your time and you’re ready for the next step. 

xx Denise