From a BETA Group Coaching Program to an Official Launch!

Hey Friend!

In today’s quick tip Tuesday episode, we are digging into group coaching program launches! My sweet client and P2P Grad Heidi Bramm asks, “Stef, how do I market my program when I’m transitioning from a BETA group to a real live launch?!” She asks some great follow-up questions that pertain to this too…

If you have a group coaching program on your heart, this one is a must-listen. Hop on in and find out how to successfully launch when it’s still NEW. How to effectively get people to trust you and join your program when you’re still building it and feeling unsure of all the details.

If you want to be featured on a Quick Tip Tuesday episode, head on over to www.stefaniegass.com/contact and leave us a Speakpipe question or testimony!

I pray this blesses you!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):
What’s up, sister-friends? Today, we have a quick tip Tuesday for you coming from my friend, my dear prior client and Podcast to Profit graduate, Heidi Bramm from the Covered Beloved Podcast. And she has a great question around how to take her program from beta to live and thrive in.

(00:23):
So I go through four key criteria for her today, and I hope that this podcast episode helps you have the belief and the know-how of getting out there and doing hard things, cuz if Heidi can do it so can you.

(01:37):
Hey Stef! This is Heidi from the Covered Beloved Podcast. I just launched my first program this January. Yay. It’s a 12-week program and I’m doing it as a beta group. So I’m actually recording as I go each week. And I’m looking ahead to start promoting my next round, which would be April 1st.

(01:56):
I know that it takes a few months to get all of this out there and plan ahead. And so since this is my beta group, I’m still trying to figure things out. I’m feeling a little bit disconnected, maybe even a little bit of pressure that I need to start promoting the next round, even though I’m not quite sure what I’m doing yet and I’m still figuring things out.

(02:14):
So if you have any advice or anything for those of us just starting out and still trying to figure out a program and how to best serve our Lola or the person that we’re trying to connect with, I’m just struggling between, should I be promoting it quite yet or should I have some more testimonials and things just more in place before I actually promote the next round? Thank you so much for everything. Love everything you do. Bye.

(02:41):
Hey, Heidi. What’s up, girlfriend? I am so excited about your first beta program. Congratulations, friend! Man. It’s been so cool watching you go from I have this idea and can I really do this to fully blossomed podcaster and everything is growing and you’re just so clear and it’s just been so fun to watch your growth over the past year, year and a half.

(03:06):
So I’m cheering for you. I’m so excited for you. Now, as far as your question goes, when should you start promoting program one really in essence, cuz this past one has been a beta program, and those of you who dunno what that means, it’s kind of like your trial run of your group coaching program. It’s typically of a live program and Heidi just is in the middle of hers right now. And it sounds like it’s going really well.

(03:32):
She’s creating it as she goes, which is really the way to do it, especially if it’s a beta group. And her question is how then market the actual program in April, you know, how do I transition from beta to legit program? And so Heidi, the first thing I wanna say, just gives you some parameters around this.

(03:51):
I have four things for you to note down today. One is that you really only need to market for 30 days. And that’s a lot of marketing time. I run Podcast to Profit three times a year and I really only go heavy on the marketing for that program about 30 days before I wanna close down the registrations for the program.

(04:16):
Why is that? Well, because people are so highly distracted, they’re really not paying attention. And if it doesn’t impact me soon, then you’ve lost my attention.

(04:26):
So, 30 days is plenty of time for people to save money and decide to make this big thing, this big decision, and commit the time to do so. I really think that that’s adequate. So that would put you at a March 1st promotion start date.

(04:43):
Now, your second, the second portion is what the heck do I market? How do I sell this thing when I’m still creating it? Yeah, that’s totally cool. What you wanna do is just take an outline and make sure that your sales page is fully optimized based on the outline of what you’re doing in the program.

(05:01):
Based on what you know, it doesn’t need a sales page and marketing does not need to be extraordinarily detailed as far as what you’re doing every week and every single thing that’s happening. It more so needs to just tell them what they’re getting.

(05:15):
What is the end result? What is the promise? And as long as you can articulate that on a sales page and in your marketing and messaging, you’re totally good to go. So that next one is to optimize your sales page based on an outline of where you are at with your curriculum.

(05:32):
Number three, as far as your messaging goes and your podcast and wherever you’re marketing your program and your launch is to start with what you have done.

(05:42):
So if you bring students on the show, Heidi, to kind of do like a success story or share about what has happened for them in the program, just have them share a win that’s happened thus far. You know, even if they’re not done, even if the program’s not over, you can still start sharing wins from where you are.

(06:00):
You can still talk about like, oh man, in week two, we’re doing this thing inside of this amazing program that I’m running. So there are wins that are happening all throughout the program. You don’t need to wait until something’s fully done to start showing people that it’s for them.

(06:16):
Now, the fourth thing I want you to consider is you can start marketing as soon as you want and you don’t have to have everything a hundred percent set up. You can just drive people to a waitlist, in the meantime, just talking about it casually or an application process, which is what we use for Podcast to Profit.

(06:36):
And it works really well because it drives a lot of urgency for people knowing that, oh man, there’s not that many spots, so I better hurry and get my application in.

(06:47):
But if you’re not ready, basically what I’m saying is like permission for it not all to be perfect, for it not all to be 100%, to start with what you have and start with what you know, then shoot people to a waitlist while you figure out all the little pieces.

(07:01):
So that’s what I have for you. One, you really only need 30 days to market your group coaching program. Number two, optimize a sales page just based on the outline, as long as you know what the takeaway is for your people and the promise and the amazing transformation they’re going to get. That is enough.

(07:22):
Number three, start marketing with what you have done. What have the beta people experienced? What are the wins that they’ve had so far? Start there and then number four, you can utilize a waitlist or an application process while you figure all the pieces out.

(07:36):
Again, it does need to be perfect. You just need to speak from your heart and share from your heart. And, the other thing you asked about was should I have more testimonials? No. I think whoever the beta people are in the program with you right now would be more than willing to share how the program has been so far, the wins they’ve experienced so far to even come share where they were at before they joined.

(08:02):
And then why they joined that is truly a starting place for other people to hear that, man, maybe this could work for me too. Even if the full outcome hasn’t been realized, which it will in a very short amount of time. And then you can pop those up on your podcast and in your marketing as well and on your sales page when you’re there.

(08:20):
So all that being said, I wouldn’t wait. I would go for it. I think you have enough super fans. Your podcast is big enough now, you know what you’re doing. You know what you’re marketing. And I think that waiting simply just keeps you from learning and what’s the worst that can happen. You don’t sell any.

(08:41):
So then you waited another month and you do it again. I think one of the coolest lessons I’m learning in this business is there is no such thing as failure. There’s only growth. There is no such thing as something flopping, there’s only getting better. There’s only learning more.

(08:58):
There’s only, nicheing in further, there’s only pivoting in and, and locking it in tighter. There’s only getting to know your avatar more. This entire process is about trial, error, failure, perceived failure, getting up dusting off, and doing it again and again and again until that’s it.

(09:15):
So kind of living in that journey, Heidi and leaning into it and knowing that there is no perfection, there’s only progress. So cheering for your love bug, go get ’em. And friends, do you have a quick tip Tuesday question for me, head to stefaniegass.com/contact.

(09:32):
Leave a SpeakPipe question right on over there or if this show has blessed you, transformed you, changed you, touched your heart in some way. I would love to hear your testimony. I would love to feature it on the show. And friends, if I have not yet answered your SpeakPipe question and you have submitted one, just send it on over again or email us, let me know.

(09:52):
There’s quite a few in there and I have no idea what I’ve posted and what I haven’t. So just follow up with us and we’ll be sure to get your question answered. You can always email us at support@stefaniegass.com and last but not least friends, I wanted to let you know that we have a Facebook community.

(10:11):
We have a group of amazing kingdom women business owner, just like you, 7,000 of us right now, which is so fun hanging out over on Facebook. And, you guys, we’d love to have you join us. It’s a fun community. We truly only have value over there.

(10:28):
There’s no spam. We run a tight ship. It’s truly about community growth, helping each other, answering questions about starting or scaling a business. And everybody is a Christian entrepreneur just like you.

(10:40):
So come on over and hang out with us. www.stefgasscommunity.com. We’ll meet you there. God bless you.