Bryan McAnulty [00:00:00]:

If you're a creative entrepreneur, you probably have lots of exciting ideas and you love building and creating. But when it comes to marketing and selling your products, it can feel boring and overwhelming. That's where Today's guest, Kelsey McCormick comes in. Kelsey is the founder of Coming Up Roses, a platform that helps creative entrepreneurs turn their skills into consistent sales through marketing that is strategic, fun, and authentic. Before mentoring hundreds of creatives through her course Launch youh Own Way, Kelsey built a multi six figure creative studio and collaborated with brands like Coachella, Tony Robbins, Katy Perry and Girlboss. But after hitting burnout, Kelse decided to build something different. A community and program to support creatives launching and scaling their dream online businesses. Today, she's here to show us how to craft offers that actually sell, warm up our audiences without burning out, and launch digital product businesses that help others.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:47]:

So if you're a creative, a service provider, or a digital product creator who wants a launch strategy that finally works, this episode is for you.

Kelsey McCormick [00:00:54]:

So if you're looking for that perfect formula, that stuff might have worked for someone else, and that's amazing, but it's not necessarily going to work for you.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:02]:

So.

Kelsey McCormick [00:01:02]:

So I am giving people some structure how to actually market in their business. There's like just so much permission and so much room to do it in a way that works for you because that's ultimately what's going to make you successful in your business.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:13]:

Welcome to the Creator's Adventure, where we interview creators from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McEnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, Kelsey, welcome to the show.

Kelsey McCormick [00:01:31]:

Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here, Brian.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:35]:

Yeah, I'm glad to have you on. So what's the biggest thing that you would say you either did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Kelsey McCormick [00:01:45]:

That's such a good question. I have thought about this question because I know that you sometimes start with that question. I feel like the biggest thing I've done recently is move to more of a scalable business model. And the process of that was actually the opposite of freedom. It was so much work, so many hours, and, you know, growing up, growing a community online, it just, it takes a lot of time. But if you stick with it and get through it, I think on the other side of that, that business model is just like so much freedom. You know, having courses and programs and things that actually aren't super tied to your time the way that services. And I think most creators do start out with services because they're obviously a lot easier to sell and they tend to, you know, just help you figure out even what you want to do in the beginning.

Kelsey McCormick [00:02:41]:

But I've really unlocked that's how it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:43]:

Was for me as well.

Kelsey McCormick [00:02:44]:

Yeah. That creator business where it's a one to many model that just has a lot of time freedom built in.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:52]:

Yeah. So your background is you've worked with these massive clients like Tony Robbins, Katy Perry, Coachella. What have you learned from these experiences that you feel kind of shaped the way you help creators today?

Kelsey McCormick [00:03:05]:

Oh, that's such a good question. I think, I think growing a brand around like a person, kind of like the personal brand thing, that's what I really learned in the music industry is the artists that really understood their audience that knew that they kind of had to build a brand around their music. Not just put out music. Right. But actually build a whole world around, around what they created. And I think obviously Tony Robbins is great for that too. I did more like graphic design work for him, for his team. But yeah, it's like that world building personal branding thing that is so intrinsic to being a creator.

Kelsey McCormick [00:03:46]:

I think that I learned finding niche audiences as well, especially in the music industry. It's just like there's so many different genres and finding the people who really relate to that and creating a sense of like hype and FOMO around their shows and their concerts to sell tickets. Which is in a way, in a weird way, kind of what I do now in my business. I help people. I help creators create hype and build worlds around their offers so that they can sell more spots and get more clients.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:22]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting comparison, I feel, to the music industry especially because I feel that some creators are like worried that their idea is like too niche, that they're not going to be able to build a business around that. And usually that's not true because usually there is, there is demand for what they have to share. But I think it's interesting to compare that to the music industry because like there are these artists that like, are not super popular. They're not obviously like not mainstream artists, but they're making a living doing what they love. And there might be some people who would listen to their music and would say, this is the worst thing that I've ever heard in my life. I can't believe somebody would listen to this.

Bryan McAnulty [00:05:03]:

But there's a group of people who love it and it might be their favorite artist of all time. And so they found their niche and they're. I think musicians and artists like that are more willing maybe to be like, unapologetically, like, this is my niche and who I'm going to serve with that, even whether they realize it or not. But I think there's a lesson there for creators as well.

Kelsey McCormick [00:05:28]:

Yeah, I find it really inspiring, musicians, because they really are, like, putting themselves out there in such a vulnerable way and really owning who they are and. Yeah, like kind of choosing a lane and. Well, they don't have to stay there either. I mean, I've worked with so many artists that kind of shift and change. And I think that's a beautiful thing about growing a brand actually around you, because you can change and bring your audience along with you. So in the beginning, like I said, I was doing services, you were as well. When I switched to a more scalable business model, so many people still follow me from then because I haven't changed, even though my services have changed, which is kind of cool as well.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:13]:

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. So for somebody who's listening and who's maybe sitting on the idea for this great digital product launch, but they're kind of scared to put it out there, what would you say is maybe the first mindset shift that you would want them to make today?

Kelsey McCormick [00:06:31]:

I think identifying what they're scared about. There's so many things that could hold you back from going for it. It could be a weird relationship with sales, which is something you need to sort out because you have a business, and that is kind of the basis having a business is having to sell. It could be a fear of being seen and getting visible. And again, if you want to grow creator, brand, unfortunately, that's par for the course of being visible and growing community. So I think just identifying what are the things that are holding me back from actually shipping this and then also trying to take the pressure off. So I always recommend doing a beta first or doing some sort of less pressurized version of a launch, not only to, like, take the pressure off, but also to test the demand, because you make a lot of assumptions before you actually put something out there and get it in someone's hands and get the feedback about what they desire, what the transformation is, if it's even going to work. So I'd say a combination of those two.

Kelsey McCormick [00:07:42]:

Work on your sales mindset, visibility mindset, and also take the pressure off. Yeah, take the pressure off by doing something maybe a little bit smaller to test it out.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:53]:

Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think course creators get nervous when they see some really, really successful creator out there who they happen to have heard of that's having this like big launch and they hear people talking about it and everything. That's not the first thing that that creator has ever done. And so they, they've already built up an audience, they've already tested this offer and now they know that there is demand. They know that people will be signing up, but when they started, they might have done exactly what you're talking about of having these beta launches and getting a couple people in there figuring out what is it that people really want and figuring out how they can really position their product correctly.

Kelsey McCormick [00:08:29]:

And it's like a ongoing, living, breathing thing. I'm having a really massive launch right now for my course, launch your own way. But I built the course two and a half years ago and it was so different. Like I delivered it live. It was more workshop style, it was way, way, way, way, way cheaper. And it's gone through so many iterations. And I'm sure it'll change more in the future because consumer habits change and technology changes and AI has been introduced since I started it and there's so many things that change. So I think there's like an adaptability necessary when you do move into a course type model, knowing that nothing that you do is set in stone.

Kelsey McCormick [00:09:09]:

Even the most established people are going to have their businesses evolve over time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:15]:

Yeah, that's something I love about this model as well. Not just the being able to separate your time from your income and your impact, but that it can grow with you. As you were saying that you can decide. You know what, I don't want to be the traditional course creator, actually like parts of coaching or I really like the community idea or I want to sell just these digital downloads. Like however you want to shift it is completely up to you.

Kelsey McCormick [00:09:41]:

Totally. And I think with the introduction of AI, not that this is like, this is like a bit of an aside, but it's really important to have like some community element or like something that really makes it you. Otherwise you could just Google or not Google, Sorry, I'm clearly a millennial chatgpt. Like help me launch my digital product offer. Right. And then you could get like a pretty decent launch plan from that. But you know, being part of a course, like launch your own way, there's so many tools, so many frameworks, so many things that you get. And there's a community element that that is worth actually paying for.

Kelsey McCormick [00:10:25]:

So I think that's something to think about as well. Making sure that whatever you're launching has you in it enough you in it that it isn't something that someone could just get from or chatgpt Googling again.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:39]:

Yeah, yeah. What I've said to creators is like making sure that it's about your unique message and experience because that's what people value and that's what they can only get from you and so not from your competitors, not from ChatGPT. And so that's where the value is in what you have to offer. Plus the idea of the community. And I completely agree with that. And like in our product Heights platform we've been like really thinking about we're all in on AI definitely. And how it can help creators, but also thinking about, well how can we help creators with their community because people are more than ever I think going to want to be connected to like minded real people. Especially if there's going to be what is predicted that there will be these AI agents you'll be talking to more and more online that you won't even know.

Bryan McAnulty [00:11:30]:

It's nice to have a community of real people really going through the same things that you're trying to accomplish.

Kelsey McCormick [00:11:35]:

Exactly. Yeah. I think the community based offers is the way to go. If you're good at managing community, obviously you don't have to do that and it does tie you back into the business in a way. I think that's the one thing I struggle with creator business sometimes is that it is so tied to me. I'm about to have a second baby in a month literally and I've just been thinking a lot about that. It's so tied to me still. Even though yes it is.

Kelsey McCormick [00:12:04]:

A lot more freedom in the sense of like time and scalability. Do you ever think about that? Not to turn the tables on you, but that's just something I've been on my mind a lot is like, because you are essentially building it around yourself. Even though your product is almost more of a SaaS product, it's still like around your personal brand in a way.

Bryan McAnulty [00:12:24]:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, definitely. Like we're. I'm more focused spending most of my time on the Software for Heights platform than the courses and content that we have. But definitely like there is this back and forth that having a kind of business like this where it's not tied to your time, you do have more flexibility. So you can say, oh, I'm going to go out in the middle of the afternoon and like that's fine. But yes, there definitely are these things that keep kind of pulling you back of like, wow, this would be a great idea. I think I really want to do this.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:02]:

But at the same time, I think it's not a bad thing because a lot of those things that like, pull you back into it and then you spend more time in it, in the business, at least for me, those are things that I find very fulfilling and those are things that I'm like, I'm very interested in wanting to do and improve for the business.

Kelsey McCormick [00:13:19]:

That's a good point. Like, it is actually quite creative and it's cool to have that community element because you just get to connect with people all over the world and make sure that your products are as great as possible. And. Yeah, but sometimes I think like, the, the not freedom side of the creator business is that I'm having to build a community. I'm having to show up online and as I'm approaching this, like, season of business where I'll probably want to be offline a little bit more, I've been think lot about that. Like, ooh, that's like the kind of flip side of the freedom business coin is that if it's tied to you, I think like the ultimate freedom business is when you maybe don't have to be online as much.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:03]:

Yeah, yeah, that. It is an interesting point. I think it applies even more to community than to, like, courses or the software side. Yeah. Because like I would say, and I'll readily admit that like my own community and creator client, we've got over 10,000 people in there, but I don't feel that I'm giving it the attention that it deserves. It's like definitely not. I very rarely post in there and I should be doing more. And because it's kind of.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:30]:

It's not an afterthought, but it's not the main product that we have. We're not selling it, we're selling our first platform. And so it's something that we're thinking about, though, because I do think it's really important and I do think that because we have the members, there's so much more value that we could be providing if I was spending more time with the community. And so far, because I mentioned we've been thinking about this with our software, one of the things that we've come up with for a solution to this is we've actually just released this community algorithm. And so just like social media, you've got the TikTok algorithm and YouTube algorithm. We now have The HEIGHTS platform algorithm in our community, and the purpose of that is meant to help ensure that your members are going to see the right members are going to see the right posts. Because from the experience as a community creator myself, where I was left feeling is my community's not quite there in engagement, and I'm not spending enough time into it. So I got to this point, which I wouldn't want any other creators working with me to get to where they feel, okay, well, now the community's not really engaged.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:37]:

Now I have to put in all this work to revive it. But if I'm going to do that, how do I even know that members are going to see the posts? And so basically what we came up with in our platform now is we have this algorithm that's scoring the posts and scoring the different students as far as, like, their author reputation. And then it's going to go out and also, like, score an engagement of members, then take all that data and then figure out who should get notification emails about new posts. And then as certain posts get more attention or more reactions, more comments, then it's going to, like, spread out the reach of that. Just like if you made a post on X or YouTube or TikTok, and then if it got more popular, it starts reaching a wider audience, that notification will reach a wider audience of your own community. And so that way you're not bothering the people that are super dormant with just every random kind of post that somebody makes.

Kelsey McCormick [00:16:31]:

Right?

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:31]:

Yeah, but at the same time, it's.

Kelsey McCormick [00:16:32]:

Like a Facebook group where you're like, there's so many posts in there and you're just like, it's hard to even find yours. But yeah. Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:39]:

Well, the problem with the Facebook group is, like, you might try to say something and you can't reach your own community because Facebook decides, like, we're going to show stuff to other people. And so everybody can see all of your posts, but if they're not logging in, you still need a way to, like, notify them. And that's what we're hoping to solve with this algorithm here. But not trying to make this about me and my.

Kelsey McCormick [00:17:00]:

That's interesting. I like that. That's really cool. Yeah, yeah, I like that. It's just, like, always tweaking things. Like, even you're saying, like, you've launched this, you have 10,000 people in it, and you're still looking at ways to, like, improve it and make it better. And I think that's really cool. It's a good example of the way that your Offer is going to evolve and shift over time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:20]:

Thanks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So with your online course launch youh own Way, we saw you mention that it's for squiggly creatives. What do you mean by squiggly? And how can that trait be potentially an advantage for creator?

Kelsey McCormick [00:17:36]:

Yeah, I guess it's my euphemism for people who have adhd or like, when I was little, I was just always getting moved in class for talking too much. I would always lose my homework. I was just like a disorganized person and still am, to be honest. I'm just not a very linear thinker. So that's kind of how I would describe my brain, is that it just felt squiggly all the time. Like I was doing one thing and the other thing, and it really did not serve me well in my corporate job. It was really difficult for me to, like, function really. But in my own business, I actually started to see it as a superpower because it just allowed me to have really amazing ideas juggle multiple things at once.

Kelsey McCormick [00:18:20]:

I think it's actually a really great thing if you're an entrepreneur to have that kind of brain. Obviously, the system side of my business is not as good, so I have someone who helps me with that side of my business. But I really wanted to build this community of people who felt the same way and were like, I'm not going to be successful because I'm not organized, because I'm messy, because I have ADHD or, you know, might have adhd. I know not everyone's diagnosed and just make this really inclusive community where it's like, okay, yes, we're disorganized, yes, we're messy, but that's actually a good thing. How do we actually use that to our advantage? How do I create a course that, like, helps people like that really learn and not just get stuck in this, like, minutia of, oh, you know, you don't have the right systems or you don't have. I really want to give permission for people to do things in a way that works for them, them and their brain. Because a lot of the systems that I've been given, I'm just like, this looks like Swahili to me. Like, I don't know how to, like, actually do this.

Kelsey McCormick [00:19:23]:

You know what I mean? So I think that that's. That's kind of the crux of the squiggly conversation.

Bryan McAnulty [00:19:30]:

Got it. Yeah. I think it. It can be really powerful as an entrepreneur to actually embrace that. Like, definitely don't try to work against the ways that you can think creatively. Because like things I've noticed, my world is half in course, is half in software because I enjoy building the software, but thinking about like all the things we're doing around AI development. And I guess an example whether this hopefully is somewhat relatable to everyone listening is people talk about building these AI agents nowadays and I see so many software developers and people who are building these kind of tools kind of talk about like, oh, I have this AI tool and then I'll give it access to these other tools it can use. But like they're thinking so strictly about how it has to work.

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:24]:

But my way of thinking about this is like, no one's done this before. You can just have it do anything. And so I feel I have an approach to it where I'm much, much less like constrained by how people are saying that it has to be. And I'm definitely not going to try to do it the way that they say that it has to be. I think that it's an advantage that I'm thinking more openly about it and I think for creators as well. If you're, if you're like you said, messy about some things, but you, you have this process, it is helpful sometimes to like lean into that process because some of that may be what makes you unique and what makes your product unique.

Kelsey McCormick [00:21:02]:

In the end, that's exactly it. It's like those are the things that are going to, especially in an AI world, help you stand apart. So if you're looking for that perfect formula, that stuff might have worked for someone else and that's amazing, but it's not necessarily going to work for you. And I've just seen so many courses where it's like, follow my exact formula, follow my exact method, and it's, it really is not. And then people leave really feeling defeated because it didn't work for them. It didn't make them the million dollars that it made someone else. So even though I am teaching what I call flexible frameworks and launch your own way, where, you know, I am giving people some structure how to actually market in their business, there's like just so much permission and so room to do it in a way that works for you because that's ultimately what's going to make you successful in your business.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:53]:

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think that's a great approach. So we also saw that you mentioned building like a life first launch plan. Can you explain what does that actually look like in practice? And why do you think that that matters so much for creatives today.

Kelsey McCormick [00:22:09]:

I always just say your energy sells your offers. Not to be like, woo woo about it, but if you are below the line, if you're stressed, if you're have like frenetic, your audience, your community, they're going to feel that and you're going to just feel really crappy when you're trying to sell. So it's really about just getting yourself in a good mental space and a good, you know. Yeah, just like a good space in general before and during the launch. And to me, that just looks like. Planning things that you like during it, making sure that your cup is full, whether it's. I mean, this week I've started my launch and I got a facial and I went to first swim. I'm lucky to live right by the beach in Australia.

Kelsey McCormick [00:22:55]:

I went out with my son and husband for lunch one day. It's just those things to kind of take the pressure off and make sure that you're in a good. Yeah. In a good space while you're. While you're selling. And I think that's just super important because we've all experienced being sold to like, really aggressively and frenetically and I just don't think that that's the way. And that's not sustainable.

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:19]:

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think that. I think it's important. And this is a business where like, without a doubt, it's possible to. To build it with life first like this. And for me, I think also that's something that, like, I put a lot of effort into and I'm glad that I did and I'm glad that I had that focus because I see a lot of people and like, anybody can probably relate that. You've probably seen these people that seem really successful, but they talk about how they're not happy or they talk about how they're so busy they don't have time for their family or their friends or hobbies and things like that. And so I think that's a good strategy, how you describe it as well, to try to set up things so your launch is not this moment of every stressful thing possible, but actually some things that you enjoy leading up to it.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:14]:

And like actually when. When I first launched Tights Platform, we purposely made it like a very soft launch. Like, we didn't really tell anybody. It was just kind of okay, the site is live here. Here it is. And I remember me and my wife, we just like, we went out for lunch and then. So I left everything and just went out. Whereas I could see like the opposite approach to that would be okay, I'm launching today means like I am not going to leave this computer like for 24 hours and it's going to be stressful and I really hope that somebody comes and signs up and there, there could be ways that that can be beneficial.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:53]:

There could be ways that what you do actually impacts that launch and helps it. But there's also ways that by going and taking that approach so strictly you end up like stressed out and actually not really making much of a difference in the impact except for that you're stressed about the whole thing.

Kelsey McCormick [00:25:13]:

Agreed. Yeah. And a lot of the work should already be done. Right? Like a lot of what I teach is the kind of the warm up process and making sure that the emails are scheduled, the social posts are ready to go. So there really isn't too much to do once you actually launch. Obviously there's levers that you can pull to get more sales and there's conversations that you can be having and there's data to be looking at, of course. But hopefully a lot of the prep work and the stressful stuff has been front loaded so that when you're actually in the selling mode, that's all you have to focus on that and obviously making sure that you're in a good energy. And I'd also say like, launching is such a mirror.

Kelsey McCormick [00:25:55]:

If you already have a business where it feels dysregulated, it feels stressful, you're always worried about money. Launching is just going to amplify that because it's like this concentrated strike period where you're like showing up a lot and having a lot of conversations. Whereas if you do have a regulated business, your launching should just feel more regulated and awesome and great. So launching is never the problem. People are always like, oh, I find marketing campaigns launching so stressful. In my business, if it's stressful, that just means that it's amplifying the stress that's already there. So that's just like a great invitation for you to work out why your business feels so up and down. So roller coaster why you're so emotionally attached to it.

Kelsey McCormick [00:26:44]:

Because yeah, I think that that's, it's just interesting. I hear all the time launching is so stressful. And I'm like, no, it's your business that's stressful. Launching is just amplifying that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:56]:

Yeah, I really, really like that approach because I've had guests on the show who have kind of been on both sides of this and said, oh, Evergreen, Only I'm never launching again. It's way too much. Or oh, like, I only do the launches. We make a huge thing out of it. We put everything into it. And yeah, it's a lot, but like, this is the way that we do it. And they were successful on both sides. But I think that you've proposed something really interesting, that it's possible to have the big launch and there's things that you can do in order to not have it be this thing that's also the big stressful launch.

Kelsey McCormick [00:27:37]:

Exactly, exactly. It's all about that prep and that mindset stuff and. Excuse me, just making sure that you are running a regulated business in general. And I have a hybrid model. I don't launch all the time. I have maybe two or three big launches a year. And then in between I have Evergreen or I launch smaller digital products. Things that kind of warm up my audience.

Kelsey McCormick [00:28:04]:

And I think that's like a real sweet spot with profitability and also not putting so much pressure on every launch to make or break your business because you have that recurring revenue still happening, not only from your big launches, but from the Evergreens in between.

Bryan McAnulty [00:28:23]:

Yeah, I like that as well. And I think probably if the software side of what we're doing had to, like, be one way or the other, it kind of fits into the way that you're describing it, where we have obviously Evergreen sequence of emails and things like that for anybody who signs up for it. But then we'll also have these big announcements of new features and things like that. So like, that's like our launches and that kind of represents like, hey, here's what we're doing now. Here's the big thing now. But that's also independent of everything that our. All of our products already are, that you can just go sign up for anytime.

Kelsey McCormick [00:29:05]:

Yeah, I love that. So you basically do like, big marketing pushes marketing campaigns around, new features that you release a couple times a year. And then in between there's just. It's on Evergreen kind of always open.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:20]:

Yep, I think so. We do it more than a couple times a year. We do it almost monthly. Probably like in between monthly and every other month, but. But most of those are not that big. So, like, they don't necessarily have ad budgets behind them or things like that. It's sometimes maybe an email sequence and things like this, but some things will be bigger than others. So like, at the end of last year, we launched Heights AI2.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:47]:

And that was like something that we put definitely more effort into and was more of like A bigger launch, but other things are more of just like, hey, here's a feature announcement and there's maybe some emails, maybe a video. But yeah, it's not, it's definitely not like a massive, massive, massive thing. It's more so just like, yeah, separating the, like, what we're doing now is like the launches and then everything we've built is like the ongoing evergreen side. And I think for course creators it can really work the same way.

Kelsey McCormick [00:30:17]:

Yeah, I think it's a good model to have a mix of both for sure.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:22]:

So I'm curious, with the course that you have now, can you share a story or an example of a creator who came in maybe like without a clear offer and then was able to leave with something powerful that now can sell consistently?

Kelsey McCormick [00:30:38]:

Yeah, the best thing about it is whatever you learn in the course is applicable across offers. So I have people still in there selling one on one services. I have people selling courses, programs, digital products, podcasts, literally everything. So it's kind of cool that it's so adaptable to any offer. I'd say one of my favorite stories is someone who's now kind of a friend through the program, which is another great thing about running a community program is my friend Xanthi. She did have a really busy agency, but the profit margins of agencies, as you probably know are, are pretty terrible. You have a lot of overhead, you're working all the time. And it just became super out of alignment for her.

Kelsey McCormick [00:31:27]:

So she took launch her own way, hoping to move into a more creator model business where she would teach social media because that was kind of her USP within the agency space. And she developed an offer called Life of the Party. It was the kind of like a coaching course hybrid offer. And she developed it, she launched it pretty much right after the course, sold it out, had since sold it out probably like 10 times using the same methods and launch her own way. And it became like her signature offer. It's what helped her transition out of the agency. She now has a completely different business all through what she learned in the program and there's so many stories like that obviously, but I think she's someone who just really stands out because of how quickly she, she did it and how well known the program is now. Yeah, and she's, she's awesome.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:23]:

Yeah, that's great. And I think that's a great example of another reason of why it's great to build a community. Because like here you are talking about a client that you have, but talking about how they became a Friend, because you had a community that you basically get to have this place of people that you like to be around, but they're also paying you to be a part of this thing that you created, so.

Kelsey McCormick [00:32:44]:

Exactly. And I learned so much from her as well because her business is social media and that's not my expertise. I am fine with social media. I'm not someone who gets annoyed by having to be on it. I think it's a fun thing. But I've hired her for stuff before because she's helped me. So it becomes this really nice ecosystem of expertise that, you know, people within the program collaborate all the time and become friends. And it's a really special thing.

Kelsey McCormick [00:33:14]:

I was in Sweden about a year ago and just met up with like four people from the community for drinks, you know, and it's like I have friends literally all over the world because of my business and how I've shown up online, which is really special.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:31]:

Yeah, yeah. That's really awesome. So let's say maybe this is the tough question. If there was one, let's say somebody has tried to launch their course or the digital product and nobody bought it. How do you help a student figure out like what went wrong and how to fix that?

Kelsey McCormick [00:33:49]:

Ooh. I always say launching is never a failure because even if you don't sell one, it gives you all of the information that you need as to why you didn't sell it. Right. Because without launching, you're not really getting that concentrated feedback. You're just kind of waiting for people to come to you and find you and inquire. It's almost more of like a freelance style business. Whereas once you're launching actively, even if you don't sell one, you're getting the feedback you need about why. So I'll give you a recent example actually of someone who was in launch her own way.

Kelsey McCormick [00:34:23]:

She's a brand web designer for stylists and she didn't sell anything in her launch. When we looked at the data, it turned out that she hadn't warmed up her audience enough. Right. Because you actually need the people in your audience to create that demand. She created a wait list. She had a really great offer, she had built all the stuff out, but she hadn't really done the work to actually grow the warm audience to that desire to buy it. Everyone had pricing objections, everyone who was interested just wasn't quite the right fit for it. So what she did was she started to offer one to one calls with a couple people who were buzzing around and potentially offer them extended Payment plans or an alternate service that still got them part of the result, but not the whole result.

Kelsey McCormick [00:35:17]:

So she still started to develop client relationships. She got feedback that maybe her offer wasn't quite the right fit for her current audience and ways that she could pivot. And she established new relationships with people who otherwise she wouldn't have even been talking to. Plus she built all this infrastructure out in business sales pages, copy content that she can, you know, now reuse into the future. So I think even though on paper it's like, okay, she didn't sell any of her high ticket branded web design spots, she got so much valuable feedback of how to move forward in her business and the things that she needs to do to actually have the business that she desires. And she can just take that launch formula and do it again like she, she can, she now knows how to launch in a way that works for her and she has the feedback that she needs. She's already kind of warmed up an audience a bit through launching because that's like the thing about launching is it actually helps warm up an audience. So if they're not ready to buy in this round, maybe they'll be warm and trust you enough in the next one.

Kelsey McCormick [00:36:21]:

And she's just going to begin again with, with a slightly different approach with knowing that she needs to do more to, to warm up her audience. So I, that's always my answer is like, look at the data. Launching is never a failure. It's just going to give you the next step in your business.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:41]:

Yeah, I think that's a great answer. And that, yeah, you don't have to, it's not like you have to do everything all over again because now you have the product, you've got the, as you said, the sales pages, email sequences, things like that. And sometimes you, you find out that like, like the product is not the problem, it's just you're not communicating about it in the right way. And like you said with just in this case, not warming up the audience the right way. I've seen that be a mistake as well. Like most creators are afraid to email their audience. They think, oh, they don't want to get spammed by me. And then they send like one email and no one buys it and it's like, well no, basically no one saw it even.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:22]:

And like you have to send multiple emails. They have to remember who you are and they have to start getting this value from you.

Kelsey McCormick [00:37:29]:

And way before you go on sale too.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:31]:

Like way before understanding what they can get from you. And so if you just do like launch email and that's it, and then say, oh, well, now what? I can't do that again. If you do it again, you have to think of, like, from the perspective of if you just got some random email in your inbox, you know, you might have not even remembered what that was. But now if you go and try it again and do it the right way and start to warm up the audience, some of those people might say, I think I saw something from them before. I don't know, I wasn't ready then. But now what they're telling me, that kind of makes sense. And they're not going to think bad about whatever they saw from you before. So it's not like because you launched that you can't try again continuously iterate totally.

Kelsey McCormick [00:38:17]:

And you have to build trust before people are going to invest money into you, whether it's $27 or $10,000, you know, and I've had launches that have run the gamut and launch your own way from that price range, and they've been super successful. But that's because of everything that happened before the launch. Making sure that you're having the right conversations, warming people up to the offer, answering objections, talking to people. And my favorite method, if people are like listening to this, being like, how do I do that? Like, where do I start? Is actually working in public something Nathan Barry talks about a lot, who is the founder of. Well, now it's called Kit to Convertkit formerly. And it's just taking people along for the offer. So the old way of launching is just like, it's launch day, go buy. That doesn't work anymore.

Kelsey McCormick [00:39:09]:

If you're a creator, you need to actually take people through the entire process of like, building the offer, testing out the offer, building out the sales page. Like, people actually want to see the process, and that's how you actually build people who are invested in it and eventually will want to be part of it. So anything that you're doing behind the scenes right now, document it, share it, take people along for the ride, tell people what the goals are that you're working toward as well. People love to kind of be part of that story and you'll be able to warm up your audience. If you're just like starting from posting that it's on sale, you've already lost the sale because you haven't developed that trust.

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:51]:

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And. And people will want to hear that from you because they will want to, like, even if they're not, you're not sharing things that directly give value to these people, then at the very least it's showing them that, like, you really care about what you're doing and it's showing them who you are and what you're going through in creating the whole thing. So. So, yeah, absolutely. Great to do that.

Kelsey McCormick [00:40:13]:

Yeah. Work in public as much as possible. That's a great way to warm up your audience. Obviously, building your email list and your socials are great as well. But there's also this idea of like, oh, I have to have a massive audience to be able to launch some of the most successful people out of launcher and way have like less than 500 followers. It's really not about volume at all. It's about audience heat level. Obviously, if you have more of a scalable offer, you will need more volume because that's that you will need to convert more people.

Kelsey McCormick [00:40:41]:

But I've had people with a 1 to many offer with less than a thousand followers fill all the spots. So it's not about follower number necessarily as it is about audience heat.

Bryan McAnulty [00:40:56]:

Yeah, that's a great point. All right, so one of the things I'd like to do on the show is have every guest ask a question to our audience. So. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether something you're curious about or just kind of want to get everybody thinking about, what would that be?

Kelsey McCormick [00:41:12]:

Ooh, I might go back to the beginning and, and ask them about their sales mindset. What is holding you back right now? What is your biggest fear when it comes to selling in your business, when it comes to showing up and actually asking people to purchase what you have on offer?

Bryan McAnulty [00:41:33]:

Yeah, good question. All right, well, Kelsey, thanks so much for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Kelsey McCormick [00:41:40]:

Thanks so much for having me. It was so fun to chat. Coming uproses co is my website and also my Instagram. That's usually where I'm hanging out. I'm very millennial. That's my social media of choice. And if you want to hear my podcast, I have a podcast called the Warm Up Up. It's actually a paid podcast, but it is a couple episodes are available for free.

Kelsey McCormick [00:42:05]:

So if you just look up the warmup preview on Spotify or whatever your podcast app is, you can hear a couple of episodes for free and get a bit of a taste of what I teach and how to warm up your. Your audience.

Bryan McAnulty [00:42:20]:

Awesome. Thanks so much, Kelsey.

Kelsey McCormick [00:42:22]:

Yay. Thank you for having me.