$48,000 Launch with an email list of 530!
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I' am legit SO THRILLED to have caught up with Tiffany from Burgeon Design & Editorial recently!
A past student of all of my courses - we go way back… I was so particularly stoked to celebrate her incredible success in her recent course and mastermind launches - having gone from a launch where she “sold 3 x $47 products” after launching a low-priced product to a list of 250 Tiffany hit $48K in her recent Mastermind enrollment, over $10K in her first major course launch and is set for some serious growth in those numbers in the next month…
Let’s hand the mic to Tiffany where she’ll chat through the whollleee back story!
Oh, and if you see she mentions “Paige’s course” she’s chatting about the Content + List Academy (formerly known as Scale with Content Strategy) You can find out more about it here!
Okay, Tiffany, can you tell me what you do in your business and who you serve in your business?
Yeah, so I am a book editor and book coach. And I also design author websites and like small like coach is things like that nothing that involves like a huge massive website or anything like that. So like little websites!
Okay, so you're assisting authors to build their website, then also like actually write their book as well, which is very intelligent. What was your business model when you started the business?
Yeah, it was just one-to-one services. I basically looked at every other book editor out there and I was like, I'm gonna do what they're doing because that's what you do when you start a business and you don't know what you're doing.
So it was a lot. It was pretty stressful.
In the last few years, so much has changed in like the publishing industry and whatnot.
But back then, nobody was charging their worth. It was like a one-cent-a-word kind of thing we were charging per word to edit books!
So yeah, just one-to-one and just developmental editing and like copy editing and proofreading, which … I don't like proofreading. I learned that really fast!
OK so you're doing the one-to-one services and you had a dream of something else. Can you tell me what that like dream scenario looked like exactly?
Yeah, so I have always dreamed kind of big. My idea was that I wanted to have a team of editors and whatnot.
I have a little team now. It's so exciting!
But yeah, I just kind of had this like “nobody else is doing this. I don't know how I'm going to get there” thought…
But I want to have like a team of editors.
And I don't want to be the one who is like, the only person working like one on one with people!
But I started really small, my little tiny mailing list and my Instagram.
I started doing kind of courses, but I wouldn't even call them a course now!
But I started doing these like live course type things for four people at a time and then slowly they’ve grown a little bit every time! And it's really exciting.
So from that point how did you scale it?
I feel like I did what everybody does. And I'm like, I'm gonna just like make this as perfect as possible, you know, that build it and they will come kind of mentality.
And then I learned from Paige that that’s not how it works!
Yes, like nobody was seeing it!
And like you said, my mailing list was small, and I was only sending out like one sales email, and I felt like it wasn’t working but actually once I like looked at the number i realized I actually had a really good conversion rate, it was like 4% or something like that!
And even now, I think I have like, still less than 600 people on my mailing list, and so many of these people have like been in my workshops, and they've already worked with me and things like that.
And so my conversion rate is actually really good - it’s just that my list wasn’t big enough to start with.
Okay, so you realized need to do some list-building. What was your game plan?
I was blogging and nobody was coming to it, and then I took Paige’s course and I realized that my blogs were way too short, and didn't have any SEO at all!
And so I literally used your template and …
put keywords in the right places
made them 2000 words long,
did all of the things you said!
And I do not know what the numbers are exactly, but I had an over 100% increase in traffic to my blog!
I was like, Whoa, that's so cool!
What are you typically blogging about and how are you attracting your ideal clients specifically?
I'm talking about very specific things about writing a book and editing a book and the publishing industry.
One of my most popular blog posts is like writing people of color as a white author. And I got so much traffic with that. And my niche is helping marginalized writers. So that's huge!
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I remember you said you did like a $10,000 launch or something off an email list of like a couple hundred people. Tell me what that new thing was that you decided to sell and how that went.
Yeah, so I launched a course of DIY developmental editing, to help writers edit their own book with developmental edits.
That's like the really big picture stuff like plot and character and things like that.
And I launched it to my list, I think at the time, I probably had like 200 to 400 people on my list. First time around I wasn't selling it for that much. I think I was selling it for like $600 or something like that. Cause it was the first round I was doing it.
And I got in like quite a few people and hit $10K the first time around so that was great!
Looking back I can say, apart from having worked on building my list through super specific blogs, I did it by
Nurturing my list
Announcing it on Instagram, like all the time until I was sick of hearing myself talk about it.
And then I personally invited past clients and people who had kind of been talking to me a little bit about working with me in the future!
I was like, “Hey, do you want to do this first step and really get your book shaped up on your own before you work one on one with an editor?”
And I feel like a combination of those things really were helpful.
Have you launched this thing again and again? And are you finding, are you able to like still enroll people like second and third time?
I had a second launch and I like doubled the amount of people in it, which was really good!
And then I was kind of in this weird space where I was waiting to like see the results before I launched it again. And then I was focused on my mastermind. So it's evergreen right now and I'm not launching it, but I'm preparing for another launch, in the next like month or so!
So now you're not just doing one-on-one services. You have this course, you have the mastermind you just mentioned too. Can you tell me about the mastermind?
So last year was the first time I did this six months writing mastermind, and last year I charged around like 2,400 for six months and I got five people in it.
It was a very small group, but it was like a really intimate group and it was really great, so we got to see a lot of growth in that six months and it was really personalized!
This year since I had a little bit of proof and testimonials and stuff from last year, I got 10 people and I charged double.
So it was $4,800 this time!
And we have an in-person retreat this weekend, like tomorrow as part of it. So I'm really excited about that.
I will probably be doubling it again for next year because this year we've added so much stuff to it and have the proof now and the success stories and whatnot.
I feel like FOMO was a really good way to get people interested because last year I had so many people being like, “Oh, I wish I was in this” And I was able to be like, “hop on the waiting list for next year”.
And this year I have that same vibe going and we've got our waiting list going for next year!
So what do you think you're going to put up the price to next year?
I feel like the past two times I've been like, we're going to go with my gut and change the number every five seconds!
And I think next year I'm going to literally look at how much this year costs because I brought in guest speakers and literary agents and things like that. But I feel like it has to be more than like $7,500.
It can't be too expensive, but it's also six months and there's a one-on-one coaching element still to it and whatnot.
So you said you got 10 people last time. Is that right?
Yeah. This January through June.
Amazing!
So a $48,000 launch. And again, remind me your email list is 500 people and you did a $48,000 launch off that. That's awesome. Good job, Tiffany!
It's weird because I haven't looked at the numbers because they're all on payment plans and stuff, but I'm like, wow, that is $48,000!
You also mentioned you started hiring a team. When did you realize, okay, I need help and assistance and what are they doing for you right now?
I kept getting advice to like literally talk to your audience and see what they need. I don't like to use the word pain-points and twisting them and whatnot, but like figure out what they actually need help with because I feel like I was creating stuff for like what I would want, not thinking about like the audience.
So I asked 10 people to hop on a call with me and just talk to me for 20 minutes.
And then I created three ideas from that.
One of them was the mastermind.
One of them was DIY developmental edit.
And then the third one is what I've been calling like my mini mastermind.
It's like a six week, very low price point group coaching kind of program that I do in the fall.
And then I was like, okay, we've got these three things and that's what we're going to focus on!
And then we're going to like have the higher level coaching and that's what we, that's what our business does.
And once I had that, I was like, okay, we feel focused now.
Now we need to actually make this happen and I started hiring!
So I mentioned earlier that I don't like proofreading.
So my first teammate is a copy editor and proofreader. And so she does that for the business. And then I don't have to do something that I am really not passionate about at all. And she's really good at it. She has like a degree in it and just really loved that nitty gritty getting in there and tell her people when their consistency is off and whatnot.
So love that for her.
And then I wanted an assistant to kind of help me keep track of all the moving parts and like do little tasks that were just taking up too much of my time.
And when I interviewed them, there were two people who were just really great and they had different skills.
And so I hired them both!
And so now I have two assistants and they work really well together and they are both coming on my retreat this weekend!
I think it's so interesting to see what you can achieve if you build a hyper-specific list from hyper-specific content!
You’ve built team of three now, and you’re doing these launches of like $10k, $48k and if you can do the same number of people next time it’d be $75,000!
And I feel like people definitely underestimate and I feel like that's so important for people to hear and to see is like, doesn't need to be an insanely massive list.
It just needs to be like, like 500 people who are like hella interested in this topic.
And it's so cool because they hop on the list and then they stay on it for a really long time!
Like I remember getting on your list, like right when I started my business, but I wasn't anywhere in a space where I could take your course.
Every time the launch would go by, I'd be like “next time”.
And then one time I was like, I'm going to save up and I'm going to have the money for this next time.
And I did!
So I joined your course about a year after I originally saw it.
And now I have clients doing that to me.
They're like…
Oh, I got your workbook two years ago, and I used it to edit my book on my own. And now I'm ready to work with you!
And so yes, there are 400-500 people on my list. They're not already right now but I keep nurturing them over time and not forget about them and not assume that "well, they're not paying so they'll never pay” because they're going to all be at different price points and different stages of readiness and whatnot. So I think it's really cool!
It’s just really helpful to keep reminding yourself that maybe they buy in the future, maybe they'll refer someone else or talk about you somewhere who knows?
And that happens all the time!
If someone's on the fence about building an email list right now and creating content. You've done it. Is it worth it? What do you think?
I think it's definitely worth it.
Even as a buyer, I go to someone's blog and I see what they're talking about and what they care about and who they are as a person.
And so that kind of helps me because like, that's the kind of buyer I am I have to like read every single thing on someone's website.
And then I also ask myself
“Do I like this person as a human?”
“Do I want to give them money?
Cause money is a valuable resource!
So you can tell a lot about someone by their copy on their website, by their blog posts, by their newsletters and things like that.
So I think it's hella worth it!
And also one of the biggest hurdles is being out there and having people judge you!
I literally just got an email this morning trying to shame me for like my pricing and stuff like that.
And now I’m OK with that - I know you're going to get that. And it's okay, I've done a lot of work. And I've had a lot of conversations about these things, so that when I got that email, I was like,
Oh, I see where this is coming from for you. And you're not my ideal client. And I'm not your ideal person to work with either!
Tell me about your experience of going through The Content + List Academy. What was the most valuable or interesting bit to you?
At the time I was really struggling with the consistency thing and you had said, just send your blog posts to your mailing list.
I was like, Oh my God, that's so smart! Like I could just do that.
So I started doing that for a long time. And it really helped!
I've since then changed it. And so now my newsletter is my freebie. And I give really hyper-focused advice - so right now I'm doing a query letter series where they can send in their query letter and I'm editing them in the newsletter.
I've only been doing this hyper-focused freebie thing for a while, so I'm gonna look at the data and see if it's working well in like a month or two. But I think that I've really noticed people are starting to comment more and email me back from the newsletter and tell me how valuable it is and things like that, so now I wonder if I can turn these into a blog post. Like tweak them a little bit and like, make them blog posts too!
If someone is on the fence about taking the Content + List Academy course, what would your advice to them be? Or what would your advice be to like yourself back in the day?
I feel like you should definitely do it.
Not because I bought every single one of Paige’s courses and they're all super gold.
But because she gives such like specific action and advice, and she brings in different people to have different angles on things.
Also all of spreadsheets and the list on topic ideas and headline ideas, all of that stuff is just like such gold and so helpful!
And you don't just have to sit there spinning your wheels figuring out what you need to do!
You have direction and can just get on and do this stuff. And it's great! And it works!
$48K launches sound good to you, but not sure what to sell?
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