We all have habits, things we do in the same way so much that it’s automatic. We don’t have to think about it; we just do it.
Business habits are the same way.
It’s really a way to put structure around good habits that are going to help things run smoothly. When these things are getting done regularly with your systems, then you can put your time an energy into the things that only you can do.
Listen for the details of the 11 Ways to Automate Your Business
Today’s podcast is incredible! I promise you’re going to find this helpful. Guest Greg McKeown the author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. I have read this book 3 times and when I surveyed my business peers asking which book they found most helpful, Greg’s book was mentioned more than any other. In case you haven’t read the book, I want to explain what essentialism is in the context of our conversation and all of Greg’s work. Essentialism defined: The disciplined pursuit of less, but better. It’s the pursuit of what is essential, the elimination of what is not.
Every day I see business owners and entrepreneurs rewriting the rules. They are blazing their path in new ways and seeing success. Today’s episode is with Patty Lennon who has redesigned her entire business in the last 12 months. You’ll love her story and I hope this inspires you to rewrite the rules and find success your way, on your terms. We cover sales in depth. I promise you’ll come away with new insights and some ideas about how you can rewrite your own sales rules.
This podcast is with one of my favorite people Sandra Scaiano. She’s a branding, PR, Kajabi, and digital marketing expert. I wanted to get her insights on identifying and creating your brand voice. Sandra has a great method for helping her clients do this and she shared it all. You’re going to love how easy she makes it to understand and implement your own brand voice.
In this episode, my friend Mel Pharr joined me to talk all about launching
Particularly launching online group programs and/or courses. She didn’t hold back. Listen for the absolute gold from a 7-figure business owner.
She outlines the two big mistakes entrepreneurs make which keeps their launch from being successful. This is so important.
Do the math. Mel shares her formula and it’s eye-opening.
List-building is important but it’s not everything. Understanding who is responding is the metric that matters. Her advice to clean up your list might make you nervous, but what if it’s the step that gets you better results?
What is the launch runway and how can you build one that works? (This is sooo good!)
Mel explains how she gets close to her audience just before cart open. This is a super smart strategy you can make your own.
We discuss evergreen funnels, how they can work and how to get paid to build it! This one strategy is worth $$$!
Mel has a genius concept around her Client Pathway. This is a game-changer and hearing how it can work will help you see launching in a new way.
What works does change. It’s always been that way and Mel explains how she continues to see great results. I loved her comment on fewer launches and I know you will too.
Don’t miss Mel’s story. She started by moving to NYC to start up a personal training business. She didn’t know what she didn’t know but she learned quickly to survive!
The willingness to buckle down and get really good at one thing was the difference maker for Mel, but it didn’t happen overnight. She’s very upfront about her struggle and how she got past it.
Finally, are you doing lots of 1:1 work and wondering how you can ever make more since you’re booked all day every day? Mel had the same issue working with 25 people at once. She explains how she got there (25 is a lot of 1:1 clients) and how she learned to leverage her time. You’re going to love how simple she makes this transition.
Thanks to Mel for sharing so much great information. Want more? Check out the page link below to connect with her.
Gary Vee: 00:03
Hey guys, it's Gary Vaynerchuk and you're listening to the Front Row Entrepreneur Podcast with our girl, Jen.
Jen Lehner: 00:14
Our guest today is an online business coach for female entrepreneurs who are so ready to scale their businesses beyond six figures by growing their online, following positioning themselves as a go to expert in creating a global online business that helps them make a conscious and heartfelt impact that fulfills and motivates them. She lives in New York city with her partner and loves anything business and online marketing related, especially launches sales and funnels, and is honored to be serving in guiding female online, entrees Norris from all over the world. Welcome to the front row entrepreneur podcast, Mel Pharr.
Mel Pharr: 00:52
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Jen Lehner: 00:56
I am so glad you're here because I have a lot of questions for you. And as far as I'm concerned, you know, everything about everything as it relates to online business and marketing and I bow down at your feet, but today you, you totally could live up to this because, because I know all the genius that is inside that nugget of yours, but today what I really want to zoom in on launching if that's okay with you.
Mel Pharr: 01:23
Yeah. I could talk about launching forever.
Jen Lehner: 01:26
Okay. All right. What is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when they go to launch an online group program, or course, do you think,
Mel Pharr: 01:34
I actually think there are two, the first one is kind of like a meta level mistake. It's just the approach. And that is that I see a lot of online entrepreneurs decide spontaneously because we all are creative beings that they're gonna launch next week. Have you ever seen this? Oh, Oh yeah. And so they they're like, you know what? I got this idea after I meditated, I'm putting this out next week and it's, you know, it may even be an offer that when they speak about it is very conceptual. And so we're not really clear on what the value prop is and the specific benefits, or even exactly who this is for. And I've even seen advanced entrepreneurs try to pull something off like this back in the days of like, I mean, you're going to know I'm a young, I'm a baby entrepreneurs still in the grand scheme of things, but I'm going to take us all the way back to 2015, which is not that long ago.
Mel Pharr: 02:36
Right. And even then they're, they're entrepreneurs have been along a lot longer than I have, who are starting to say, you know, launching online is different than it was before, but even in 2015, you could probably slap something together a week before. And maybe you could pull off a six figure, multi six figure launch, you know, people were doing it. But that's the biggest mistake I see is just not understanding when you see entrepreneurs out here who are doing multi six figure or seven figure launches, they have a runway and they are prepping before that launch and my team. And I, if I do say so are fantastic at this, we lean back during launches. We don't have a lot of urgent things going on. We have planned in advance and we know how the campaign is rolling out. In fact, we have most our materials done so that we have bandwidth to go ahead and pivot is something needs to change.
Mel Pharr: 03:33
So that's one thing. And the second thing is they just don't build their audience. I always tell people before launches, you have to reverse engineer the outcome you want to arrive at when your cart closes. And so if you're trying to draw blood from a stone by saying, I want a hundred people in this program and you're like, well, you know, I've got about a thousand people on my list. I am plus I have a Facebook group and there's a couple of people following me on Instagram. So surely, you know, I can arrive at this. And then I'm like, well, it depends, you know, maybe you can pull the outreach lever and you have quite a few relationships with people who are sitting there ready to go from your past life or your past career, or even your current career. Nothing's impossible. But I like to keep it really real.
Mel Pharr: 04:18
And I do some math that sometimes causes my clients to feel almost a little deflated. So I'm not for everyone, but I would rather be conservative at the beginning and have my clients walk away and say, wow, I hit my goal or came very close or even exceeded it. Then set them up and said, yeah, you know, get a hundred people into a five K program with a thousand people on your list. But most of the time you really have to say, okay, if I want to build my list to 2,500 people, cause I want to get, you know, 20 or 25 people into my mid level program, then that means, you know, I need to build it by this many per month, this many per week, this many per day, if I'm going to use ad spend, I'm going to spend about this, which means my budget is this with, leave me at a profit margin of this and people get overwhelmed quickly, but it's not hard and it's not rocket science. It's just do the math first. And then all the work that everyone puts into a launch anyway, will actually pay off.
Jen Lehner: 05:16
Do you have a formula that you use just sort of a basic formula where you're like people who, who sign up for the launch and then how many you need to, how many you need to. Okay. Could you share that formula with us?
Mel Pharr: 05:28
Here's the thing I will say back in the olden days, which are not that old. And for me, you know, a lot of people would tote around the stat that about 1% of your list would enroll into a high level program. Something that's probably over 1000, $2,000. Right? And then let's say, if it's more in like the four 97 to nine 97 range, maybe you're looking at two to 3% of your list. You know, in 2015, I first learned, launched my signature group program. I actually, by the end of the year, launching it three times converted 1.1, 2% of my list, which was fantastic. Cause it was $3,000. The first time I launched it in 2015, in five grand when I launched it the last time. So those are great numbers for really high level investment for a group program as the years went on. There's a couple of things that happen as your list gets bigger in the thousands upon thousands of people.
Mel Pharr: 06:24
I find that those numbers don't always hold quite as well. And the other big change we've seen is email deliverability because of things like GDPR and privacy laws, which I'm actually, you know, really in line with, I think privacy is important. And sometimes it's online entrepreneurs. We get roped into some of the things that email service providers put in place to protect against spam when we're not really spam. And so as the years have gone on in email marketing and more people have been used to being sold to in their inboxes. All these email providers like Gmail, they want to protect their user base. So they're stricter on privacy. That means that your email could be marked as spam and not even get to the inbox and know it's not the fault of your CRM like Infusionsoft or anything else. The point of this being that these numbers have changed, what I look for because I have a larger list.
Mel Pharr: 07:18
I'm not looking at my overall list size anymore. And there's a lot of gurus who are still doing this. It's kind of like the bigger the list, the better, but this is really old thinking today. What I would say is you look at maybe only emailing people who've engaged in 90 days. So I may have 45,000 people on my list that are technically marketable, but the people who are engaging may only be like 19,000. So I'm not looking for 1% from 42,000, I'm looking for 1% from 19,000, right? So what I'm getting at is you need to understand if you have a healthy list and make your numbers off that. And even with that, I start to be really conservative because I like to hit my goals, which means I'll go for half a percent of those, those people, right. That I want to convert to a high level offer.
Mel Pharr: 08:03
And then all I do is do the math backward. Okay. Well, if I want a hundred people in the program, then you know, half a percent of that is going to be, you know, however many people. And then you say, okay, how long is it going to take me to get my list to that size? And you do the math on how much you would have to spend. And you know, maybe some of you listening have like a kickass SEO going on, or maybe you have a great YouTube channel that gets you organic leads. And that's fantastic as well. I kind of use organic strategies and paid spend, but obviously paid spin is a hell of a lot faster. So in 90 days, you know, if I need to build my list by 10, 15,000 people, I can spend the money and do it. I have a validated offer. I know I'm going to crush it. I don't know if that was a perfect formula, but, or if I,
Jen Lehner: 08:44
No, no, we got it. Nope, Nope, Nope. That was, that was good. And especially I love the conservative part. I'm the same way I would much rather like I would much rather be conservative. So I hit my goal as opposed making some ridiculous claim, you know, based on nothing or based on unrealistic numbers. But here's the question. So with your list of 45,000 or a list of 45,000, and let's say you do a lot of list building prior to the launch and you do it with one of the things you do is maybe a PDF and you grow the list, you grow the list, you grow the list as the days go by still, let's say you only have like those 19,000 that are clicking. Do you throw out your launch segment out and only focus on those 19,000 at that point? Are you still emailing to the whole list?
Mel Pharr: 09:29
Good question. You know, it's true when you go to List-Build it's we always don't know what we don't know. And sometimes when you build your list, the numbers don't hold you in your CRM, according to like a pixel, because you know, people use different email addresses, so they may continue to opt in. It's not perfect science about excluding your list when you're trying to get new cold leads, right. And then people opt out. So the whole thing about me, emailing only people who have opened the last 90 days. This actually is something we started in the last quarter. I think it was of 2018. Oh no, maybe it was, it was maybe it's halfway through 2019 when we started to get a lot stricter. Cause we noticed our open rates going down, you would be shocked people with lists of like 250,000 or 300,000, they get like 4%, 3% open rates. If they're not doing what we're doing, but they won't cut their lists. It's insanity.
Jen Lehner: 10:21
Because there's that sunk cost mentality. It's like, Oh my God, I spent $3 a lead, you know, multiply that by 200,000. Yeah.
Mel Pharr: 10:29
Yeah. But the problem is I don't worry too much if my list is still at 19,000, because the point is, if I hadn't taken this approach, it would be maybe at 12 or 15. I mean, I'm throwing out kind of random numbers. But my point being that if I hadn't been strict like this, then I would have a smaller list that was a lot less healthy or a bigger list with a fraction of the open rate. And what's happening today is that carrying that dead weight around. If, listen, if people are not opening your emails in 90 days, they're not going to buy from you. There is no chance virtually no chance. And I know this because we send re-engagement email sequences to our list and we get a 2% open rate and we've never had a sale go through this. And we've tested it for the last 18 months, which has plenty of time in the online world to know that they're never going to open, but you know what they do.
Mel Pharr: 11:22
The email service providers like Gmail and outlook and Yahoo, they look at how many people are reading those emails from your CRM. And they say, huh, not very many people are interested in this. I don't want people to hate opening up Yahoo or Gmail. I'm not going to let their emails get through even to the people who have been opening. So that dead weight, not only low, was it? What was your open rate? Even from the people who want to be getting your emails? So this is what's interesting. Our open rate had fallen to 11% in 2019. Now we're in 2020, I've got a 26% open rate again during a campaign I'm doing right now. And I never would have probably gotten over 12. Wow. And that's because we've done the last four months.
Jen Lehner: 12:08
Okay. So let me get this straight. You're you're looking and you're saying, okay, every 90 days you're going to go in and scrub your list. And like, do you, you, I mean, are you deleting?
Mel Pharr: 12:20
I deleted for six months. If people, I only email people, like let's say I'm in the middle of a campaign right now. Our current campaign for the most part is going to people who have engaged in the last 90 days. Right? Because those are the only people who are going to buy. When you look at that small percentage of 1%, do you think that those one percenters are the people who aren't opening? Never. They never are. But in that percentage of people, that 1% they are openers, but if dead weight doesn't let the emails get through to the, the 1%, then you're in trouble. Right? So I only send the campaigns for the most part to the 90 day openers. I hack after six months, because what we will do in a six months in the second 90 days is we might send two of our most important emails with our best subject lines to the whole list, just to see are these people gonna open?
Mel Pharr: 13:09
And what we found is for the most part, they don't, but we hack after six months. Because every once in a while you get a few people who do open, you know, who have just been doing whatever life has happened. Right. So that's really how we go about it. And then I don't stress too much. I mean, I do my numbers more than most people anyway. So I know that technically I want to go for adding, you know, this many thousands of people I understand I'm going to, you know, it's not going to be, it's not going to net those new subscribers because others are going to opt out. I'm fine with that. Actually don't stress that much because I only like to look at a couple KPIs, key performance indicators at a time that let me know whether something's working or not. And if it, if my big KPIs are working, like if I'm getting a good ROI on this launch, why would I go and look at more details if I'm happy. I don't like getting bogged down in details. Cause solopreneurs do that already. And they look at all the wrong things. So if my list is growing, if my open rates are good, if, if I'm looking at the percentage of engaged and I'm thinking, yep, I can hit my goal and I'm getting a good ROI. I don't really care about anything else. Cause I know my practices are already really smart.
Jen Lehner: 14:16
Okay. That makes total sense. All right. Let's get back to this runaway situation. So if, if one of the biggest mistakes that people make is just jumping out unprepared, what would you say are the top three things that you do to prep for a successful online launch?
Mel Pharr: 14:30
Exactly. Okay. So the first thing is I need to make sure that I'm putting out a must have offer. I know that marketing is all about testing and seeing what works. I totally get that. But if I'm going to launch, I make sure that I have an offer where people are saying, Oh my God, I need that. When I tell them what it is or when I even say the title, it is all in the title. It really is a lot of the time for people. So if I don't have a validated offer already, then I pull my audience. You know, I go talk to the people on my list or on social media, I can even go do some really quick market research by following another influencer who has my same target market. And just seeing what people are saying they want. I mean, it's not that hard, but you can get out there and you can start to hear their language about like, this is what people are talking about all the time.
Mel Pharr: 15:17
This is what they need. And if you know your target audience. Great. So before I launched my flagship program at Udu, I talked to 30 women. I surveyed 15 in an order in like a form. And I talked to 15 women on the phone and I never did that again because I got a 10 out of 10 on what people wanted. Cause I'm always putting my ear to the ground and I'm really big on the language I speak. So that's number one, make sure you have a must have offer. Otherwise this is not worth putting the work in to do a launch. The second thing, reverse engineer, those numbers. And then the other big thing I would say is have some kind of launch trigger. Now this has done a lot of different ways. You know, there's a lot of people who have their own original launch plans and mine is something I kind of made up.
Mel Pharr: 15:56
I don't have something that's like a Jeff Walker approach or anything else. What I do is write like three weeks out from when my car is going to open, I do one challenge. It's usually like a five day challenge. Then I take a week off. Then I do it. I do one more five day challenge. And then the next week I opened my cart. You don't have to do it this way, but I have some kind of prelaunch content that clocks a lot of time with my audience to turn them into raving fans who really see the value. And trust me, before I open that cart while seeding what's coming up, I don't offer on any of those challenges, not anything, but I funnel them from one thing to the next. So by the time the cart opens, no one is surprised this offer is coming, but the trust is gigantically built. So I'd say those are the three things.
Jen Lehner: 16:48
Are you, do you, when you do those challenges, do you typically have a
Mel Pharr: 16:51
Accompanying pop-up pop-up group or is it, or is it just all I'm not, I'm like kind of lazy. I'm not a perfectionist about that. I actually, actually, no, this is strategic. I don't do a popup group, even though I don't think those are a bad idea at all. Some of my clients that I, that use my launch strategy, they do pop up groups, which, which can be great. There's pros and cons to both. I have a really large Facebook group it's coming up on about 30,000, 31,000 women right now. So when I do any kind of launch or content, it's really cool because if they're not really engaged with me from my list and if Facebook ad retargeting is not getting them engaged in the challenge, then they may stumble upon it in the group. So I have a few different ways that people can stumble into the challenge. And to be honest, I don't really care how they come in because it's just about building trust and spreading the word that this offer is coming up. Awesome.
Jen Lehner: 17:43
Okay. Well, you've talked a lot about funnels as well and how creating a launch is a great way of creating for a future funnel. Can you tell us what you mean by that?
Mel Pharr: 17:52
Totally. So I have a sales course called master your money conversations and back in April of 2015, that was its birth. That's his birthday. I launched that live once now in order to have a good launch, I created a few things. I created a webinar, I created a sales page. I had sales emails. I had some ad copy. And then when I ran that program live, I created modules and I had teachings that I recorded. Now think about that. I ran that live and in the process I profited and I validated an offer that to be honest has, I mean, I I'm sure. I think at this point, you know, without working that hard on selling that offer is probably brought in a half a million in revenue for me over the last few years. And that's just one offer that I have, but just by validating that offer once and launching it live, then when the time came, I realized, gosh, look at all the stuff I have.
Mel Pharr: 18:52
I have the modules. I have the trainings actually have a host on my membership site already. I've already got a sales page. I have a ton of testimonials I've collected. I have a webinar that I can spruce up and I even have sales emails. I can go back to it just is really nice that when you launch live, if you can pull off a good launch live, you can pull off a good evergreen funnel. And it's not that you can't create a great evergreen funnel without having launched live. But the thing about the way I do business is I like, you know, to be conservative and to be able to say with a lot of confidence, I know that this is a good offer and I know that this works. It doesn't mean it can't be optimized or improved, but I have proven that people want this.
Mel Pharr: 19:38
Now over time, this program was born back in 2015, right? And now we're in 2020. And so consumers demands do change, no funnel know escapes. The shelf life issue, no offer is in demand always. But I tend to know the offers I make that are pretty timeless. And I will tell you that most entrepreneurs will always and forever want to be better at sales. Right? And so now I have all these assets built for my live launch when it was time to create my evergreen funnel, I kind of put it all together, but I didn't have to start from scratch.
Jen Lehner: 20:11
Does that play into what you call your client pathway? Capital C capital P.
Mel Pharr: 20:16
Sure. So client pathway is my word for business model. Just so anyone listening knows, but I like to call my business model client pathway because I literally think about my clients coming into, you know, like my lane, my, you know, my path and then continuing to walk that path with me as our trust builds and as their needs continue to arise, I'm there to answer the next thing. So for example, when you talk about client pathway, how does this funnel for my sales course or this launch for master your money conversations? How does it play in my pathway? Well, it's one of my lower level offers, which means that it comes early, along earlier along the pathway, then perhaps a higher level offer like one-on-one or a high level mastermind or my group program that was five grand, right? It doesn't mean that people have to take that course before they're ready to go into a higher level offer, but it means they can.
Mel Pharr: 21:13
And I know the different offers that are possible for my clients along the pathway, whether they jump from one level to the next or they go straight through. So think about it this way. I have an automated webinar for that master your money conversations course. Now that's like one of my easiest offers it's free. Just come listen to a webinar. If they jumped to my next level, they could say yes to master your money conversations the course. And when people said yes to the course of my evergreen funnel, even bonus them a ticket to my live event, which I saw as a higher level commitment up on the pyramid, beyond on the pathway. So they'd come to my event and then I'd offer my 5k program or my $18,000 mastermind. And they'd say yes to this. I have so many clients that literally were like I said yes, to your challenge.
Mel Pharr: 21:59
I said, yes, to your webinar. I said, yes, to one of your courses. Now I'm in your life program. Now I'm in your mastermind. Now I renewed your mastermind. So that literally is understanding that I'm not just throwing out any offer or any funnel to be a standalone thing. It is strategically tied into the pathway. Any client who is ideal for me can continue to walk along. And that gives me, you know, a lifetime value for a customer that is much larger than maybe the average entrepreneur. Who's kind of not integrating all of their offers into one thing. And thinking of them as different things people can say yes to along a pathway. And if you're really, really good at knowing who your people are, then you're fantastic at continuing to say, Oh, I know what they're going to want next. And here's the offer for that along the pathway,
Jen Lehner: 22:45
But for the pathway to work, at least as far as the way you've done it so far launching is essential, right? But a lot of people are really like these days, there's this whole movement of like stop launching, launching is launching doesn't work, launching. Isn't the way that it used to be. What do you, or it's saturated? What do you say to those, those people?
Mel Pharr: 23:05
I mean, there's no denying that there's the, the, the launching has changed and there's no denying that there's more people who are trying to run online businesses, right. Or even what we spoke about earlier in online marketing. There's no denying that there's more sales emails that everybody gets that is true. So, you know, I am not going to be that person. Who's like, nothing's changed. It still works, you know, and like kinda hammer ahead. But I think that the fact is that, you know, if there's less people who are wanting to launch, that's great for me, I'm happy to do that. The cream will rise to the top. That's what will happen. But the fact is hasn't that always been true about business and marketing. You know, every strategy works until it gets trickier, but people who are innovators and knew how to solve problems, they know how to keep doing something better and better and better and better.
Mel Pharr: 23:57
So you could say the same thing about anything you could say. The same thing about funnels and automation that people think are really sexy. You could say the same thing about launches. You could say the same thing about one on one coaching. I mean, business goes through cycles and it's not about one single strategy. It's about becoming a strategist. So I can tell you right now that in 2018 and 2019, you know, let's look at 2017, right? Where people were starting to say, launching doesn't work anymore. I had 73 women who signed up for my flagship 5k program in 2018. I had 130 and in 2019 I had 120 pretty comparable numbers, which means that the last two years I've had the best launches in the last six years of being an online business owner using a launch. Now, do I innovate my strategies? Oh, hell yes.
Mel Pharr: 24:46
One of the reasons I can still keep launching is I, you know, I also integrated a live event. So I had a live event that then went into an online launch. So that is a different strategy. But guess what? I used to launch three times a year, and now I do the double, the amount of enrollments in one launch. So you just can't sit there and be complacent and say like, Oh, well, this doesn't work anymore because maybe the way you were launching doesn't work anymore. But you're an entrepreneur and you're creative, which means do everything a little bit better every time until you don't want to launch an offer anymore. And totally transparent. After five years, I've launched my YouTube program. Eight times I've had almost 500 women go through it. I've worked with beginners for a lot of years and now I'm over it. I now, as you said, in my bio, I love to work on scaling. So I'm launching something different. But my campaign right now is working. I have sales coming in just today, before this offer and it's a live launch. So it's more about you saying like, how do you like to enroll clients? Because there's not just one right strategy, but there may be a few right. Ones for you.
Jen Lehner: 25:49
I love it. I am curious. And I'm sure our listeners are curious that people who aren't already familiar with you about your journey. I want to know like how, how quickly were you able to get to a a hundred thousand dollar launch? And how did you like get started?
Mel Pharr: 26:08
Sure. The online, it was fast and not fast at all when I was 25. I'm 36 now. Oh, wait, no shoot. I'm turning 36 in a week. Sorry. I have like, literally can't remember how old I am at 25. I think that was 2009. I moved to New York city. My mother was terrified. I was like, I'm going to start my own business mom. And she was like, what are you doing? So I had been, I graduated college like two years before I lived in Boston for two years. And I was a personal trainer at a club and I up to a management position pretty quickly. And then, you know, me being who I was was like, I'm going to go start my own personal training business. I've always wanted to live in New York city. I'll just go do it. And I did, you know, I kind of like hauled my buns around Manhattan and managed to get clients like all in the same high rise building.
Mel Pharr: 27:00
And I mean, I don't know how I supported myself because I made $33,000. My first year in New York, I had a lot of credit cards and I put a lot of groceries back on the shelf. It was very stressful, but probably still pretty privileged in the grand scheme of things. So I spent the first five years Mandering from one thing to another personal trainer in person, personal trainer, online, virtually via Skype life, coach health, coach, sex coach, business coach. I know you're probably like what is happening. I'm not a perfectionist. I just decide what I want to help people do. And then I start doing it and no, I don't have any certifications. And yes, I've been criticized for claiming to be an expert too soon. And to be honest, I don't really care because my clients have always gotten great results and I just don't hem and haw, which is why I make money no matter what I do.
Mel Pharr: 27:50
So when I decided to be a sex coach at my first five figure months, four months in, because I just was like, okay, I want to do this now. And this is something important to me. And when I kind of healed some of my own personal wounds, what happened at September of 2014 is that a ton of women were coming to me and they were like, what are you doing? How are you making money, no matter what you do and what's going on. And the one skill that I had managed to really master throughout all those different businesses with sales is that I could speak to the value of what, of the knowledge that I had in any one particular thing. And so I also realized that I have always been obsessed with strategy. That's why I like launches and funnels and business. I w I could strategize all day long.
Mel Pharr: 28:35
And so I was like, Oh, I'm good at sales, I'm good as strategy. Like, okay, well, I'm going to start teaching other women about businesses, because even though I'm kind of a bizarre person, who's meandered like a weirdo, I clearly can help other women speak to the value and really own the fact that we have gifts and we can own our worth. And so that is still to this day, like my biggest mission about women feeling financially empowered and not feeling ashamed for asking for payment, when you make an offer. That was my first, I would say five years from 2009 to 2014. And I had a very piecemeal, like I made $103,000 in September in 2014, but it was from like all those different things mixed together. And I was miserable if I didn't have personal training clients in person than I, and I tried to go on vacation.
Mel Pharr: 29:26
I wasn't making money and I wasn't fully online. And I was working with like life coaching, sex coach, and like all these different things at once. So I was like, it was kind of miserable. And then September of 2014. And when I, when I was like, I'm going to do the business coaching thing. My dream for years has been, has been to move completely online. And that is when I went for it. And I was like, sales is my thing. And I'm a business coach. I'm going to differentiate myself by being like a specialist in this sales category, even though I can do other things so that I don't look like everybody else. And it didn't work for about five months. I only booked one sales call a month. One was even with an aerial trapeze artist, which I think is amazing. Although I was like, why am I attracting an aerial trapeze artists?
Mel Pharr: 30:09
I don't know how to help this person. So clearly I was doing things wrong. And then finally in March, I had my first $20,000 a month. April was zero. Oh no, yeah. May was, I can't remember June 31, July 41, August 68. And then I did my first group program launch September of 2015. It was 147 and I finished 2015 at $311,000 in the next year. I did seven figures. I remember all those numbers because it was one of the craziest years of my life, where I finally had to buckle down, do one thing and finally get really good at it. And I was in the struggle bus from September of 2014 to February of 2015. It was probably the hardest time I've ever had as an entrepreneur. But then the second year you hit seven figures. Yeah, because I did that. Yes, because this is what's crazy.
Mel Pharr: 30:57
I was on struggle bus couldn't book sales calls when I did, they were both aerial trapeze artists. And so finally, you know, I like, I that's when I started to realize, like I have to differentiate yourself myself. And so I offered assessments, master your money conversation assessments, I'm like, get on the phone with me for 20 minutes, the first 10 minutes you tell me exactly what you're doing to try to make the sale on the call. And I will tell you in the next 10 minutes exactly what you're missing. And I converted 90% of people who did that assessment into a sales conversation and not all my sales conversations converted, but basically I made that offer in March and booked over 20 of them in March. And then four of them converted into a $5,000 coaching program. And that was my first 20 K month.
Mel Pharr: 31:42
And what happened is that by the time we got to September, when I had my $147,000 a month, I had raised my prices up to I think, $12,000 for the same package, no changes, just the price. And so in combination of one-on-one and my first launch of my UTU signature program, that was my one 47 K launch, but I had 25 one on one clients cause I've gotten so good at just that one Oh one revenue stream, which was my goal. I'm very good at being a horse with blinders and doing one thing well, and then adding on. But I had to start launching earlier because I couldn't take more one on one clients. So then in 2016, the way I got to seven figures, I did that September launch that I'd done three times, January, may and September of next year. And then of course I had other one Oh one clients and I did like little launches. So there were a few different things that made up that seven figures the next year. But how did you handle 25 on one clients?
Jen Lehner: 32:39
Like how,
Mel Pharr: 32:41
I mean, the part, I guess I was like really fiery and young because I had been poor for so long. I was like, this is great until it's not great. I mean, I basically would start sessions from nine until five with like little 15 minute breaks. Cause I do 45 minute sessions. And I did that like Tuesday through Thursday and not every client scheduled every week, but I was so you have to, you know, we all understand this as entrepreneurs. How exciting is it when you've been making no money in a new business? And then all of a sudden it works and it works better than you even expected. It's really exciting. And then after a few months go by, you're like, Oh shit, all I was thinking about was making money. And now that I have now I have to start thinking about my quality of life and how I run my business in my systems.
Mel Pharr: 33:29
And I'm good at focusing on one thing and mastering it. And so I kind of got to this point where I was like, Oh my God, I'm so exhausted. I'm so tired. And that's when I did the launch and, and you know, I stopped taking, I think in 2016, I still had a handful of one on one clients, but by 2017 I only worked with two, one on one clients that whole year. And I was like, this is amazing because I had leveraged. I learned how to master my, my Udu flagship launch. So it sucked for a little while, but did it suck that I had a multi six figure business with a 47% profit margin in 2017? No, it did not suck. Yeah. That's my favorite kind of sucking. Yeah, me too.
Jen Lehner: 34:12
So, okay. This was great. I know that every one of our listeners are like, okay, I want more of her. I want more of her. So you guys, I asked smell before we started. And she said the best place for us to get more of her trainings, all her best stuff is to go to Melissa Pharr and that's spelled P H A R R. So melissapharr.com forward/instagram. Also of course, I'm going to put all, all the stuff on the show notes page at jenlehner.com/050 If that doesn't work, try jenlehner.com/050. Anyway, Mel, thank you so much for sharing your brilliance with us. And I'm going to run over to this, to this link right away cause I got to get some more, I've got to get some more
Mel Pharr: 34:57
Totally. And yeah, definitely enjoy that link. If you follow me on Instagram, like at Melissa underscore far, it is just the link in my bio is the same page, melissapharr.com forward slash Instagram. And you're just going to find like all of my trainings to kind of go into my nerd dumb. So yeah, enjoy any of that stuff. I try to make all my free content as juicy as possible. So yeah, I'm really honored to be here by the way, Jen, thank you so much. It's like nerding out about anything. Strategy is always my favorite.
Jen Lehner: 35:26
Well, I loved it. Thanks Mel. I'll see you soon.
In the world of blogging, content marketing, and online entrepreneurship, sometimes one of the biggest challenges we face is trying to figure out WHAT TO TALK ABOUT.
I know I’m not the only one who has spent the better part of a morning staring at a blinking cursor on a computer screen and feeling discouraged. It happens.
When I’m really stuck, I have a go-to list of exercises and resources and I’m going to share those with you today.
💡 Go to Amazon bestsellers section and look in the comments for questions that might help you.
💡 Type on any search query in Answer the Public and discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas.
💡 Enter your subject in Portent Idea Generator and it will give you clickable headlines.
💡 Take a peek at what’s trending on YouTube and Google Trends.
💡 Go see what topics Dummies Research have published books on.
💡 Search through Alexa Flash Briefings top sites by category
💡 Use Social Bearing a search engine powered by tweets.
💡 Explicit searches in Google.
e.g. [topic/niche] + forum
[topic/niche] + discussion
[topic/niche] + community
[topic/niche] + blog
💡Leverage Twitter Advanced Search. Even if you are not a big Twitter user, when it comes to looking for ideas, it’s a gold mine and worth having an account if only for that purpose.
💡Pick up the phone and call a customer or client and ask them what they want to know.
💡Work on something completely different: catch up on that online course you never finished, read a book (fiction, even!), listen to music, organize your workspace and go for a walk and listen to a podcast that is outside of your niche.
💡Use the Voice Typing feature in Google Docs and just start talking about something. Something is bound to come out of that.
💡Write morning pages.
💡Create 3 months of consistent, compelling and strategic content in a few hours with the Front Row CEO Content Planning System.
💡Go into a Facebook group that is filled with your ideal customers, click on the search bar and type in "I'm struggling with" or "I need help with". (Be sure to use quotation marks.) See what pops up and let that guide you in your content creation.
If you aren’t feeling motivated, you might be a little burned out and/or this pandemic might be zapping all of your umph. On days like this, acknowledge what is happening and trust that the fire in your belly will return. In the interim, try some of the stuff I mentioned, or just WALK AWAY for a little bit.
Amazon bestsellers section
Alexa Flash Briefings top sites by category
Also search on Google:
I know many people are looking for ways to supplement (or replace) income lost due to the pandemic.
We're not talking about creating a big course or a membership site here. This is a practical list for quick ways to generate extra cash, right now.
A few of the ideas mentioned in the episode:
💵 Transcription work – Rev and others have real people transcribing audio info.
💵 Micro actions with Appen.
💵 Become a Fiverr expert.
💵 Be a website tester.
💵 Freelancing – what skills do you have that you can market?
💵 Put your skills to work as a virtual assistant.
💵 Take surveys for market research firms.
💵 Add Qmee to your search bar.
💵 Set up a drop-ship business.
💵 Design T shirts based on trending topics or nostalgia.
💵 What can you teach? Become a tutor.
💵 Teach English as a second language classes via Skype.
💵 Share your expertise on Just Answer.
💵 Use your skills to coach others.
Bonus: In addition to this list of ideas, I break down 3 easy ways you can find people who are looking to hire for a variety of tasks and projects. These will help anyone looking for clients and they are really easy to do.
We all know something that others want to learn or outsource to an expert. Use one or two of these ideas to earn what you need to take care of yourself and your family. And remember that these crazy times aren’t going to last forever.
I invited Christa Biegler to talk to us about stress and how to combat it. She breaks down the science behind the way our body reacts so we can better understand what to do.
She explains that there are good and bad types of stress. Like so many things in life, the first step is acknowledging it and how it shows up. Changes in appetite and my (not normal) craving for sugar is not my fault. Seriously, Christa said so.
Other things that can show up:
Random body aches (it’s not just from sitting all the time)
Headaches
Brain fog and forgetfulness (like looking for the glasses that are on my head)
Changes in sleep cycles or insomnia (she shared tons of info on the best way to get to sleep easily and the ability to wake up refreshed)
She breaks down what happens in our bodies when we’re under (significant or unusual) stress and what will help.
Cortisol: it’s not always bad and she shares a great strategy to help you wake up feeling great (I’m trying this!)
4 Easy to change habits that will lead to better sleep
How to recognize the emotional impacts of stress (it’s not always what you think)
Christa walked me through 2 practices to increase our stress resilience. 2 or 3 minutes a day for a week can bring you moments of zen. Anyone can do these. Your body will thank you (and so will the other people in your house!)
We also talk about immunity. With a global pandemic it’s never been more important to understand what impacts our immune system. Christa addresses 7 specific things you can do to help support your immunity.
She gives a final piece of advice; start with the easiest piece first. Stress is part of life, but it doesn’t have to wreck your health or your peace of mind.
Twice a year, we have an accountability challenge in the Front Row VIP community.
I wanted our members to connect and support each other while also achieving some slam dunks in their businesses.
The members embraced the challenge and I was amazed with our results that first year... we had an 80% completion rate.
And it's been that way every time.
We launch it in the fall and in the spring and each time, we end up with a minimum of an 80% completion rate.
And by "completion", I mean that 80% of the people who sign up for this four week challenge end up completing it.
In this podcast I outline why this works so well, and how you can make your challenge a success as well. It is one of the best things for creating loyal, raving fans and it’s one of the most popular things we do in Front Row VIP.
Here is how it works:
We start with setting a 4-week goal. Only rule: it must be measurable.
Identify a good, better, best scenario.
We have a points system where members “earn” as they progress through the challenge.
We have teams (randomly chosen) and we offer juicy rewards for the team members.
Tasking and Basking (the only 2 things required)
My team and I follow up with those who miss a check in. We are truly supporting them and encourage everyone along the way.
We use the challenge to bring in new members. It’s one of the best ways to show the value of being part of VIP.
There is an opportunity for bonus points, and a way to make up points in case someone misses a check-in.
Celebrate! At the end, everyone participates in our group celebration and prizes are awarded.
Want to host your own accountability challenge and see your membership or community grow? We created a resource for you to make it super simple.
