How To Use The "Pay-To-Play" Launch Strategy To Have Your Biggest Launch Yet with Jill and Josh Stanton: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to use the pay-to-play launch strategy to have your biggest launch yet. To drop these value bombs, I brought Jill and Josh Stanson into EO Fire Studios. Jill and Josh are the co-founders of Wealthy Course Creator. They're slice of the internet where they help digital course creators and coaches have bigger launches, change more lives, and make more money than they know what to do with.

0:32And today we talk about how having paid bootcamps get you more quality leads. And don't just sell courses, sell the outcome and make sure that your pitch is in line with what you are teaching in the program and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jill, Josh, and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.

1:10Fire Nation, as I mentioned in the introduction, I have brought my dear, dear friends back onto Entrepreneurs on Fire to talk about how to use the pay-to-play launch strategy to have not your smallest, but your biggest launch yet. And before we get into the amazing stuff that I've already teased in that introduction. I want to ask Jill and Josh to just take a couple minutes and talk a little bit about their rebranding because they had an amazing brand, which is still an amazing brand, and they did a little bit of a shift. I would love to hear the two of you talk through it. Jill, Josh, what's up?

1:46Welcome, Anne. Talk us through it. So stoked to be back. We're like the most popular guests, aren't we? Other than Kate. EO5 history? I think every time you guys are on, I hear nothing about why are they not regulars, like weekly. We wonder the same thing. You should think about that after this interview. I'll talk about that later. So it's a really good question. Why did we rebrand? So just give a little bit of context. Keep this story nice and short. So it was Screw the 9 to 5. It was a brand we started back in 2012. And so, 2012. Okay. Anyway, agree to disagree. So we started this thing quite a while ago now.

2:30And at that time, we didn't even really, we just kind of started as like a blog and we were like traveling the world and we were like, you know, running affiliate sites and things like that. And then over that time, we've really evolved. And what we generally focus on now is like our passion, which is essentially helping coaches and course creators in all these different niches package and sell their knowledge. Like that's what we love doing. And so what we just realized was that, you know, screw that under five, it doesn't specifically speak to those individuals who are looking to do that. And so we said, Hey, why don't we just rebrand or at least let's just start a new brand called wealthy course creator, which speaks directly to those people that we really hear to serve and what their ideal outcome is to what their ideal outcome is.

3:13Yeah. And I don't think it's a, if you're like thinking, if you've got a brand right now and you're just like, this feels kind of stale. It feels like I want to move, I'm moving in a different direction. There's nothing wrong with changing. You know, this happens all the time in other industries, like restaurants, rebrand, uh, fashion labels, rebrand, like this stuff happens. Softwares. Softwares. Like these things happen on a pretty frequent basis and there's nothing wrong with changing. Um, if you feel like you're just hit a bit of a brick wall and maybe you're just making some, some changes in general in your business.

3:41Yeah. I'm a firm believer that alignment is velocity. And if you are feeling unaligned or stuck with your, the current iteration of your business, like no one ever said that the business you started has to be the one that you end up with. There's power in growth and evolution. And if you are feeling unaligned, I swear to God, it's slowing you down. And the best thing you can do is get clear on really where you want to go, what you want to be known for, who you want to serve and how you want to serve them. So real quick, Jill, before we move on, what was again, the year that you launched screw the nine-to-five josh likes to think it was 2000 we came up with the name in 2012 we registered the domain in 2012 yeah but we sat on it until 2013 it doesn't matter like the moment you register a domain name it's we'll take this to couples therapy for sure um i don't know you know i'm actually side with jill on this and i think it's once you actually take action and start creating content around that brand that's when the brand is birthed because a lot of people they come up with great ideas all the time and guess what they take those ideas to the graveyard fire nation don't be one of those individuals.

4:42And personally, back when you guys had the idea 2012, 2013, and same exact, well, the idea was 2012, the business was 2013. I actually launched my business in 2012, I will say. So I'm a little bit older than you. And I, like you guys, launched at a timeframe where you could be a little broad and a little vague with the online entrepreneurial world because there wasn't that many people doing it. It was still a little bit new, a little bit nascent. There's a lot of opportunities. So you could launch a podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. You could launch a business about everybody that wants to screw the nine to five, but guess what?

5:19It's 2021. And I tell people this all the time. If I launch Entrepreneurs on Fire with my skillset of 2012 and 2021, it fails miserably because it does not have a niche. And you two, and I've seen you do this over the years, you have evolved into really identifying and honing in onto a fantastic niche that you want and can go all in on and serve people at an unbelievably deep level. And now every single person that hears the words, wealthy course creator, says, yes, that's for me, if it is, in fact, for them. And if it's not for them, you are then repelling those individuals, which you should be, because you don't want to serve everybody.

5:58And pretty much everybody in the world wants to screw the nine to five, Let's be honest. So you had to deal with a lot of that stuff. Now, wealthy course creator, you're able to magnetize and draw in who you want to serve. So when you're doing your own research and thought process, but maybe a rebrands, be clear and clever. But of the two, always be clear. Now, we're focused, as I mentioned already twice now in the introduction and just a second ago, we're talking about the pay-to-play launch strategy. And I want to dive into this launch model because a lot of people may not even know exactly what pay to play means on an actual level.

6:35So take that away. What happens generally speaking, if you go to sell an online course, one of the best ways of doing that is to essentially bring in like normally the traditional way is to bring in free leads. So capture people's email address, that kind of stuff, bring them in and then, and then you might do something. So you might like run a webinar and then off the webinar, you'll sell people into a course, or you might do like a five day challenge, uh, and then you'll sell people into your course. or you might do Jeff Walker style, which is like product launch formula, which is three videos, like three free videos they sign up for.

7:07Then off the back of that, you sell them into your online course or coaching program. And so what we did is we kind of looked at that and that was working pretty well for quite some time because what we're doing is we're essentially spending money on advertising to get those free leads coming in. And what we just, what happened was is that leads were really cheap for quite some time. And I don't know if anyone's running ads right now, you're probably noticing that lead costs are really starting to go up. And so we actually saw this as an opportunity. We said, hey, maybe the best way of doing this isn't to, how do we get tens of thousands of people into a free challenge and then convert like one to 3 % of those people?

7:43How do we just focus on maybe running more of a lean type promotion where we charge a little bit of money on the front, say like$27,$37,$47 to bring them into some type of paid virtual events and we call them boot camps. And then that way, a couple of things happen. One, we bring people in who are a little bit more committed because they paid an USA giant, like when people pay, they pay attention. So people have paid, they've come there, they're more likely to show up and consume the content and therefore more likely to go and upgrade into your programs after that. But it does one other really important thing too, is when you're spending money on ads, if you're just getting leads coming in, free leads, you're not getting a direct return on your investment straight away.

8:26But when you do it in this way, you charge a little bit of money on the front end, you actually make back all or most of your ad spend if you do it correctly. So when you go to actually run your promotion and sell people in, you're not out of pocket too much money or any money at all. And so you're recovering your investment straight away in your ads. And then that gives you the confidence to then really show up when you go to pitch your other offers off the back. And before Jill jumps in, Jill's got a ton of stuff to say in this one as well, because we've both done this many, many times before.

8:55So what we actually noticed a lot of our clients is they would spend, say, you know, $5 ,000 and invest$5 ,000 in ads to get people get a bunch of leads onto a webinar. But then they're put under all this pressure where it's like, I have to convert this webinar has to do well in order for me to pay back all the investment that I just spent. And then we've heard these stories, people being like, oh, like my, my power went down that day and I couldn't run the webinar and it really screwed things up. And, and so this really show up, barely anyone showed up and like, I didn't make back all that money.

9:26And the cost of the leads is keeps going up, blah, blah, blah. So what we've found is that this process right here is what we like to call like a lean launch. So you're getting the right people in, you're recovering most or all of your ad spend. And then when you go to promote the conversion rates are three to five times higher than if you were getting people, just getting people's email addresses, because they're actual customers that you're pitching to. And just to play off that, like how you were saying, it's important to repel the people who aren't right for you, this helps you do that in such a huge way, right?

9:55Because like Josh said, we've all been taught that, you know, free on the front is the best way to go. But John, you and I and Josh and Kate obviously did a promotion together in February, 2020, right? What was the biggest thing that drove that promotion forward? Our paid challenge, right? Because the three of the four of us, excuse me, we had a paid challenge, which we had 920 people into. And then we also split our ad spend and drove free leads to the webinar. Well, what was the thing that converted the highest for us in that promotion? It was our paid challenge. It essentially saved our entire promotion when our free leads didn't really convert the way we were expecting them to.

10:37And the key here is that all of us have been taught that free on the front is the way to go, you know, give away 90 % of your best stuff for free. But what that does is it causes you to blend into the sea of free that is so prevalent online right now, which is why your ad costs go up. People don't really pay attention because you're doing the same thing as your competitors. So this strategy allows you to stand out, get attention, and you really sit in the 1 % because most people are scared to do this. Most people are like, oh, but I've been told I'm supposed to give away 90 % of my best stuff for free.

11:08And we're saying, okay, cool. What happens though, if you showed up and gave it a hundred percent of your time and attention to customers versus needy freebie seekers who do nothing but, you know, complain, don't show up, steal all your energy and don't convert. Beware of the sea of free. I love that phrase, Jill. That was awesome. And I love, Josh, you actually mentioned when people pay, they pay attention. It is so true on so many levels because Fire Nation, there's only so much time, so much energy, so much effort that you can give when you're running these launches. I mean, Jill and Josh, they're amazing people, but they're just two people.

11:43They have a team, yes, but their team's only so big. Don't let 10 ,000 people clog up all of your goodness when 100 people or a couple hundred people could be there in this thriving, energized, amazing community, And that's such a better trade-off. Now, where do we even start? I mean, how can we identify the right topic for our launch events if we literally don't have a clue? Just let me quickly break down what an event is for anyone who's like, what is this event you're talking about? So the idea of it is essentially our recommendation is you run an online event that is anywhere from three to five days.

12:20And then each day you do one hour of training each day for those five days. And on the last day, that's when you pitch in to a next steps program, like an online course or a coaching program or something like that. So that's just want to give people a bit of context with that. So then what's really critical then is what we do is with the event, the three to five day event, we need to focus on a topic that is going to be perfect for building momentum for people and also overcoming like some type of challenge that then makes joining your program the next obvious step. So that's why getting the topic is really critical.

12:53So the best way of doing it is to kind of think about there's a full customer journey that someone's going to go on. You have to understand we're not selling people courses or coaching programs. We're selling an outcome. Like what is the outcome that they're looking to achieve? And so the best way to kind of explain how to determine good topics is actually give some examples. So one example, a ukulele instructor who came into our program. so for him it was like okay you want to take someone who maybe has never played the ukulele before to becoming like an intermediate level ukulele instructor player uh inside of your coaching program like that was the the outcome that he's looking to sell and so we said what if the first thing that you do in that in that boot camp you're going to do a three-day boot camp essentially is you're going to show them how to play like the most simple beginner song and so by the time they get to the end, they know how to play like Bob Marley, Three Little Birds.

13:49I think it was something like that. It was really like the easiest ukulele song that you could play. And so what that's, what's so good about that is they've come in, they learned a song and they've built momentum moving forward. And so for them, it's like, okay, the next obvious step is to join this program. Cause in this program, I'm going to show you how to play these more intermediate level songs and you become a more intermediate level ukulele player. So it's like overcoming one thing and then it's just setting them up for the next stage, which is inside of your program. So is that gonna help, John?

14:18That helps so much. And I kind of want to talk through something quickly before I pass it over to Jill here, which is I love how you shared that phrase, the next logical step. So you need to be thinking about that, Fire Nation, because that is gonna be what your pitch ends up being, is that next logical step. And a quick example is, at the end of Entrepreneurs on Fire, I have a rotational outro call to action One of them is, hey, some of you listening right now might want to start your own podcast. Check out freepodcastcourse.com. You'll be able to learn how to create and launch your podcast for free.

14:53Kind of an irresistible offer for people that want to learn how to create and launch your podcast. So guess what? They do that. And then what's the next logical step? Well, people want to grow and monetize their podcast after they've launched it. They're like, woohoo, I've launched it. This is fun. Yay, I'm playing three little birds with my ukulele. This is fun. What's next? Well, people, after they launch a podcast, want to get more listeners. They want to make money doing that podcast now. That's when I offer them Podcaster's Paradise, the next logical step. So Jill, before we move on, what do you want to add?

15:26Well, I was just going to say, some people might be listening to Josh's example and being like, ukulele courses. How much can you possibly make with a ukulele course using this model? they made$40 ,000 on their first launch or wait, 30, 33 ,000 on their first launch, 41 or something on their second launch using this process. So it can work in almost any niche out there. The, the real point, like to Josh's point is to nail that launch event topic. So then it's just congruent all the way. There's no disruption and it's just, you know, it agitates the gap from where they are to where they want to be.

16:02And it makes joining such a no-brainer for them. Yeah. And the real critical thing too, is to keep it really simple. Uh, the mistakes we've seen people make is they try to teach too much in that event. And it's like, look, someone's only paid, you know, 37 bucks to be there. Um, you know, you don't want to overwhelm them. You don't want to start teaching them really crazy songs on the ukulele. They're like, Oh, this is too much for me. Like you want to make it doable. You want to make it achievable. So they get to the end. There's like, Hey, I achieved something. I feel good about myself. I paid that money to be there.

16:29And I learned this song. Like I want to keep going. I'm ready for the next thing. And so really, it's just like, it's kind of like meeting, learning how to meet people where they're at right now, help them overcome one roadblock, build some momentum. And then the next thing is, hey, if you want to go further, come and join my program. It's like $1 ,000. It's six weeks of training. And we're really going to focus on more intermediate level stuff here, if that makes sense. Fire Nation, we'll be getting into the nuts and bolts of hosting a paid launch. We'll be talking about making it financially worthwhile and so much more, including a really exciting call to action from Jill and Josh when we get back from thinking our sponsors.

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20:52Because technology has really made it so easy for us to do this, when you get into it, you realize it's actually more simple. And you think, should it be this simple? And the answer is yes. So as I said before, three to five day event, you go live once a day for less than an hour. And what we recommend is when you're going live, you're going to be using something like Zoom webinars, Zoom webinars, and you're going to be bringing people into a Zoom webinar. And that's where you'll be teaching that each day. The other component that you offer as well is you have a Facebook group that goes along with it.

21:29And so let's say you have a five day event that you're hosting. So the group is going to open maybe the day before the event starts. You open up a Facebook group, you bring everyone into that. And then at the end of the five days, when you pitch into your program, you then have about a four or five day period where you were enrolling people into your main program off the back of that. And then at the end of that enrollment stage, that's when you close down the Facebook group and the event is over at that point in time. So that's basically the environment that you're going to be running this stuff in.

22:01So we go live in the training and then afterwards we say, Hey, go in the Facebook group and submit your homework in the Facebook group, whatever that is. And that's where we can kind of communicate. Um, that we, we kind of think about that is like, if, if you were doing an in-person conference, the, the actual zoom webinar, the training, that's like your talks at the conference. And then the Facebook group is like the, the hallway essentially where people are having discussions, they're connecting, they're forming, you know, relationships, community, that kind of stuff there. So that's the actual running of the event side of things.

22:34Very, very simple. I don't know. Did you want to talk about the whole getting people to sign up or register for the event? Did you want to talk about that? Well, can I just before John answers, I think we left out a critical piece, which is every day we give them an action item to do so that they are taking action on what they just learned. They are posting it in the group. We run an action thread every single day of the event. And so that they are taking action. They are seeing their own progress and they're staying accountable. and just that like visual proof to them, oh my gosh, I'm following through on something, I'm doing this, I'm making progress is so big for them.

23:11Yeah, and just to Josh's point about not overteaching Fire Nation, we're not gonna overteach you on this podcast, but of course we're gonna have more opportunities for you if you keep on listening. So let's keep on moving to talking about how these launches are a lot of time. They're a lot of energy and in some cases they can cost some money to put on for sure. So how do we make this financially worthwhile? Take us through that pitch. So the pitch at the end, what you want to do is you want to make sure that the pitch is in line with what it is that you're teaching in your program that you're selling off the back of it.

23:44Does that make sense? So say, for example, let's say that the program was just keeping the ukulele. Let's keep the ukulele. We're on that. We're on that train. Let's keep it going. So let's say that you are the outcome you're selling in that program is you'll become an intermediate level player. Well, what you do is inside of that pitch is you teach more intermediate level strategies for playing the ukulele, right? So it's just a little bit of teaching, a little bit of training. And then at the end of that, the pitch is really simple because you've literally spent the last three to five days providing so much value for people at such a low price that by the time you get to the end, they already feel like they know you and they trust you enough.