“Surely there’s a better way…”, thought Circuit Sales System student Emma Kate, after yet another exhausting live webinar.
Live launching her web design e-course for—wait for it—four times a year for over four years, drove web designer Emma Kate to the brink of burnout. It’s no wonder she began looking for different ways to sell her course.
There’s no doubt live launching *can* feel energizing (ahem, when it goes well…) but for a self-confessed “stress head” like Emma Kate, the unpredictability and rollercoaster of emotions felt unsustainable. With ambitions to start a family, she knew she couldn’t keep putting herself under so much pressure.
Grateful to be able to leave behind the inconsistency of live launching, Emma Kate switched on her Circuit less than a year ago and has already seen fantastic results:
I used to stress seeing the money in my business account going down month after month as I waited to do another exhausting live launch and top it back up. Now I feel like I’m literally just sitting back and watching another $1000 come in week after week. And I haven’t even entirely finished the course yet!
It took her less than six weeks to cover the cost of the course with her sales from the Circuit, which have grown month on month ever since.
But, as we’ll learn from her story today, the rewards have not just been financial; she now enjoys more freedom and less stress to run her business.
Leaving Behind the Chaos of Live Launching
“It’s great when a launch goes well, but when you’ve got all of your eggs in one basket and something happens, it’s not as good, and you’re like, ‘Oh, now I have no money for Christmas.’ It was just really up and down.”
In the digital course industry, we’re so used to live launching being “the way that you have to do it”. It’s no surprise then that Emma Kate started selling her course this way, enduring year after year of launches with live webinars and challenges. But alongside the moments of excitement from live launching also came a lot of exhaustion, stress, and emotional turmoil.
Emma Kate knew she couldn’t put up with that lack of predictability much longer. And when you think about it, there’s really no other industry that gambles all its revenue on something coming in once a quarter. All the digital marketing “gurus” out there make us believe that’s just the way it is, when in reality, what works for them won’t necessarily work for you.
Unable to deal with the rollercoaster ride of emotions, Emma Kate turned to evergreen, but quickly discovered its limitations, especially when it came to conversions.
New Year, New Approach
A few days before New Year, Emma Kate discovered the CSS from an Instagram ad. She loved how structured the course seemed—especially after just wasting money on a different course she couldn’t even finish because of its disorganized content! She was also attracted to Nicki’s background in copywriting as she knew that would be a major support with her messaging.
Financially, it was a big commitment for Emma Kate, but that spurred her on to make it work. Buying the course on New Year’s Day was also a good incentive to make building out her Circuit her goal for the year!
Growing Month on Month
Emma Kate switched her Circuit on at the beginning of April and made her first sale within the week from a warm lead on her list. Within five to six weeks, she’d paid back the cost of the CSS course.
“My sales have increased month after month. Last month, my Circuit sold five courses, totalling just over $6000 AUD ($3951 USD). The course has been a total game-changer!”
Even more impressive? The sales she’s making are just organic sales, through just mentioning it to her list and on social media!
“I’m yet to implement any FB ads or paid promotion, these are all just sales from people seeing the CTA on my website or when I share on social media or in my weekly newsletter.”
We always recommend to our CSS students to test your Circuit organically first. Once you know it works, you can focus on making the ads work, versus thinking, “oh my gosh, I have to blow up my whole offer and do something completely different.”
Emma Kate has the proof that it works with her target audience and can feel confident knowing that when she does decide to put money into paid advertising, she will get more people into her program.
Trusting the System
One of the scariest parts of launching her Circuit was not allowing people to buy on her sales page. Emma Kate thought people would just want to buy and not go through the Lightbulb video.
But after listening to Nicki’s encouragement to stick with it, she soon realized why. Emma Kate has two main courses on her website and she’s only built the Circuit for one of them. The non-Circuit course just doesn’t sell—even though it’s probably the most popular one.
Yet thanks to the other course’s Circuit, she makes five or six sales of those a month versus none for the other. So it definitely works!
Goals for the Future
Emma Kate would like to double what she currently has coming in with her Circuit. At the moment she’s selling five a month, so 10 seems like a very attainable target, considering everything is so organic right now.
She’s also selling her course for hundreds of dollars more than what she’d sold it for previously. The emphasis on the value breakdown in the course enabled her to confidently raise her prices and realize just how much people are getting when they buy from her.
Once she finishes her current Circuit—she is yet to get her second sales sequence up and running—she then has plans to put her membership program on a Circuit, too.
More Time, More Profit, More freedom
Now that Emma Kate no longer has to stress about mentally preparing for launches, she can use the gained time and energy to make all sorts of improvements to her course, like adding new elements and doing more coaching.
Without having to constantly try to market her course and worry about the next marketing tactic to follow, she has more time working on her business, rather than in her business. And the effect this has on Emma Kate’s confidence is huge:
“Because then I believe in the course even more and then it’s easier to sell. Feeling less stressed about where my next dollar is coming from and feeling like I’m just working a bit less too, is awesome.”
We’re so pleased to hear about Emma Kate’s newfound freedom, especially as so many of us get into business because we want more freedom but end up with desk jobs working 10 or 12 hours a day.
Instead, Emma Kate says, “I feel calmer and focus on the things that I want to focus on, rather than thinking, ‘oh, what’s my next social media post going to be?’ All those things that just seem to take up so much time and not actually move the needle forward.”
Automating her sales is allowing Emma Kate to work less, earn more, and have more time to spend improving her offerings and helping out her students with more 1:1 mentoring, which she previously struggled to find the time for.
For someone who has yet to even finish the course, Emma Kate’s results—and not just the financial ones—are seriously impressive. We have a feeling she might just be hitting her goals faster than she thinks…
Read More
Emma Kate tried both live launching and evergreen marketing tactics before discovering the CSS. Here’s why neither are perfect options to market your course.
Watch More
Before finding the CSS, Emma Kate did live launches year after year but found it exhausting, stressful, and unpredictable. And when she turned to evergreen, her conversions dropped.
In this episode of the Energize Your Online Business podcast, we find out how automating her sales has enabled her to work less, earn more, and have more time to spend improving her offerings and helping out her students.
Your Turn!
Have you experienced the same problems with traditional marketing tactics like Emma Kate? We’d love to hear from you if you have. Leave us a comment below!