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Social Sessions
Brought to you by TJ Creative Agency, a social media marketing agency, this podcast that will take you behind the scenes of the world of social media. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, a content creator or just an overall creative person we will teach you how to create the perfect social media strategy and build your brand online.
Social Sessions
Shannon Lutz on How to Make Passive Income, Tips for Expanding Your Business and How to Create a Successful Marketing Calendar
Unlock the blueprint of a marketing funnel that doesn't just work—it thrives. Shannon Lutz, the mastermind behind The Social Bungalow, sits down with us to transform your understanding of passive income streams and client conversion. Listen closely as we unpack how to craft your message with the precision of a seasoned marketer, ensuring your voice not only reaches but resonates with your audience. From leveraging the goldmine of your current clientele for inspiration to the strategic use of automation and personalization, these are the insights that could redefine the trajectory of your online venture.
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Have you ever wondered what goes into your favorite brand's digital marketing strategy?
Speaker 2:I'm Tara, the founder of TJ Creative Agency and I'm Audrey, the creative marketing director of TJ Creative Agency. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, a content creator or just an overall creative person, we'll teach you how to create the perfect social media strategy and build your brand online. Hi guys, welcome back to social sessions. It is Audrey here. We're just popping in for a quick introduction because we have another guest episode that I am so excited for you guys to hear. We have Shannon Lutz on the podcast this week. She is the owner and founder of the social bungalow, which is an online education and consulting company committed to making infinitely capable entrepreneurs become deeply profitable CEOs.
Speaker 2:Shannon is one of my personal favorite follows on social media. I know Tara would say the same. I know we look to her content for inspiration and education and I think you guys are really going to love this episode. We talk all about marketing funnels and where your content comes into play and how you can build out a marketing funnel or how you can determine, you know, what's missing from your funnel and how you can really start to make passive income. So this is very much an entrepreneurial type of episode, but I think you guys are going to learn so much from it. I know we learned so much just from chatting with Shannon, so I'm so excited for you guys to hear this episode and, without further ado, please welcome Shannon to the social sessions podcast. Well, thank you so much for being on. Shannon, Welcome to social sessions. I would love if you kind of just gave everybody a little rundown who you are, a little bit about your business, how you got started, your little pitch if you will.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, thanks for having me. I'm stoked to be here. I am the owner creator of the social bungalow, which is an online education platform for mostly female entrepreneurs who are monetizing their expertise, so we help them structure that expertise into offers and then market that through launches, cell panels, et cetera. From there we ended up seeing a lot of success and we're able to build out bungalow coffee, which is our brick and mortar coffee shop and cafe, which is now expanded into a third arm of catering, which has been great. So I am the owner of the bungalow empire universe, but mostly in the online space. That's so fun.
Speaker 2:I didn't know you had a coffee shop to where are you?
Speaker 3:located in Vegas, yeah, so the coffee shops downtown and the arts district super fun and cool.
Speaker 1:That's very cool.
Speaker 3:Great concept, right? Thanks, yeah, it's really rooted for the work from home individual. We got like the highest speed of wifi, the larger tables, the deeper boots. The wifi password is stay awhile. We're like we don't care if you can come and work and like make this your third space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. How did you end up kind of as a as a coach, kind of as a mentor for entrepreneurs? Like what was your background like before you started the social bungalow?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was in corporate marketing. I worked for a fitness franchise for a publishing house, helping authors market themselves, retail different worlds, and just kind of did two to four years at different companies, kind of hopping around when opportunities would arise. And then I got that quiet whisper of like I think you could do this on your own. So I started freelancing, which then was a lot of like outsource director of marketing work for local Las Vegas businesses. And then I got one client who was an online fitness expert and I saw this shiny corner of the internet and was like that's, it went full force that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I love your content so much because I think you really break down like just the insider business things really well, like very, in a very understandable and digestible way. Like I think there's a lot of people who, when they think about starting their own business there's all these like words and jargon and things where you're like I have no idea what you're talking about and you do such a good job at explaining it and, like I said, making it very digestible, so for people who are opening their business and becoming an entrepreneur and kind of on that first time journey, like it's not as daunting.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Yeah, I think my brain works in a way where I'm like I cannot comprehend this until you synthesize it into exactly what I need to understand and break it down a certain way, and I learned that about myself in the corporate world. Somebody would explain a project to me and I'd be like what, why, how, where?
Speaker 3:And just every little detail, and so knowing how I learn and then how I think it's best to teach is how I try to break marketing down, because funnels like we could talk about that today, and they can be so techy and complicated and they can have all these differing terms to mean the same thing, and when you finally get down to the brass tacks of it, you're like, oh, a freebie and some emails to sell my offer, got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is something that I really want to talk to you about, because I've seen a lot of your content about it, about evergreen funnels. Can you kind of break down what that is like just to a normal person who's maybe never heard that term before? What exactly is an evergreen funnel?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:If you are in, you know, being a consumer and you opt in to even a beauty brand's 10% off coupon, you enter your name and email and then they email you an exchange and say here's your coupon, and then typically they load you up with a bunch of emails from there trying to get you to buy their product.
Speaker 3:That is a sales funnel, and so the ability to utilize that for an online based business where you have coaching packages or service packages, courses, is I'm, instead of giving you a coupon, going to give you a free resource to kind of flex my expertise and give you value, and then I'll email that over to you once you give me your address and from there we'll start to have a conversation via email. That's very nurture forward, and then it pivots to be more sales forward, giving an opportunity to click to the sales page and buy the offer. It's just operating more from empathy and more of an educational value driven journey to do it in that way. But it's the same in any industry and if you call it a sales funnel or an evergreen funnel, it's just an ever enrolling automated system that has your back as a little sales foot soldier that anytime somebody opts in for your freebie. You know there's going to be a communication happening on the flip side that you don't have to manually do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you say evergreen funnel, is that like, are you still heavily involved or is it a mostly automated process?
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally automated. So you utilize your email marketing software, active campaign flow, desk, convert kit whichever one you have, they all do it. And when somebody gives you their name and their email on this opt-in form that you built through your email marketing software, I always call it a hello my name is sticker that gets attached to them as a little subscriber and it starts to list out everything that they have with your business. So hello, my name is Samantha and I've opted in for your newsletter, and now I've opted in for your freebie, and now I've purchased your offer, and so we've got these little tags attached to them, so we know who our people are and what to send to them, and we don't need to do that manually because the system says, oh so, and so Samantha has had this tag attached. Send her this series of emails that's already preset up to detonate once this tag is attached.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you think in order for this to work like so many for us, for example we have to do, we do like discovery calls and things like that where it is still heavily on us to, you know, have that conversation and be involved? Do you think in order for a funnel like this to work, you have to have some sort of a package or a service where you can remove yourself, or do you think it can still work when there does need to be like some sort of a consultation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's to introduce the terms tofu, mofu, bofu, tofu is top of funnel, so that's the freebie. Middle of funnel, mofu is your email nurture sequence and then bofu bottom of funnel is your sales sequence into your sales mechanism. And so if your tofu and your mofu are the same, or you had some sort of free resource and nurture emails, we can kind of slice off the butt of the funnel and attach different butts, basically, and so you can say all right, instead of me sending you straight to a sales page for you to buy, now I'm going to send you to an application, I'm going to send you to a Calendly to book a call. So you can swap out the different sales opportunity based off the offer type depending on how you want to close that sale.
Speaker 3:And a lot of people start with calls and they are able to more manually control the communication to close the sale and after a while, or they're getting close to capacity, they swap that out and they put a wait list in, or they swap that out and they do an application, or they swap that out and they make it buy more Because they're like it's $5,000 minimum. If you want to buy, you can go ahead and buy, I'm at capacity. I don't need to work as hard for this sale, so you can swap out your bottom of funnel. Call to action.
Speaker 1:For businesses. I know you mentioned you work with different types of businesses. Is it? Does it apply to mostly patients, like educational content, or is it? Do you do product based companies? Do you do other companies?
Speaker 3:I do. If I'm building out a funnel for a client, I'm doing all online based businesses that can be service and coaching as well, but all of this is relevant to any industry, all businesses. Yeah, I mean, you could have, like, a printer company who wants to sell, the ability to send you a quote, and so their whole evergreen funnel is fill out this form and we're going to send your business a quote about our printers.
Speaker 2:If you are going about setting up a funnel let's say you're working with a business or someone listening doesn't really have anything like that in place. How are you going about starting it?
Speaker 3:First we're going to understand your client and then what the journey is for them to be ready. And so the biggest conversation is what's their current awareness level and what's that dire need that's on their mind related to the offer. I find a lot of times people talk a little too close to the solution because they have the curse of competency. You're an expert and you know what they need to do, but that might not be in their terms yet. And so let's say, somebody needs to upgrade their social media and you're saying, hey, your social is struggling because, ultimately, you're not utilizing these viral hooks and staying consistent. But in their mind it's oh, I just don't have enough people following me, and if I just had more people than I'd be able to do this. And this is could be completely the opposite.
Speaker 3:But, for example, and so you having a free resource that says, hey, here's how to grow your social media following, you, give them some tips and then from there, in the middle of funnel nurture sequence, you say so, now that you've, I've solved that for you and you can actually give me some time and attention on the real conversation we need to have, because I close that loop If you have more people.
Speaker 3:What happens then? Are you consistent? Do you have the viral hooks? Do you actually have a strong strategy? And if you don't, here's what you would do about that and here's how we can help you. And if you started just from, you don't have a strategy, here's how I can help. They might say I think I'm okay, I've got a lot of courses and templates and stuff I've done before. If I just have more people, that's my problem. So when we figure out where their heads at, we can cater the journey to take them on that kind of emotional journey of building a bridge of demand that you're walking them across in a way that makes sense to them.
Speaker 2:So how do you recommend people figuring out their audience's issues? So I totally agree with you when you are so in your business and in your offer, it's really hard to pull away, especially, like you said, when you're the expert, everything kind of feels like common sense within your industry that you're like I don't understand why you don't understand this. But how do you, how do business owners like put themselves into the mindset of their clients and how, like, just how do you recommend them getting, like taking that step back?
Speaker 3:If you currently have clients, you're looking at them. I always say use your clients as your muses. Go back to their intake form. What did they say at the time of them being at that point of prior to working with you? Do market research into your audience through surveys, through polls on social media. Test out different subject lines in your email, see what's getting opened more.
Speaker 3:And if you don't yet have an audience and clients and you're trying to figure this out, then go into the Facebook groups where your people are hanging out the forums, see what words they're saying, what questions they're asking. And you can do, even if you do have clients, all of it, so you're able to get this messaging bank or this dossier of what it is they're saying and when you've got this, to kind of pull from and test out in your content your ability to see what they're responding to very quickly. It's your own rapid testing process on your organic content. You might know that you're saying the same thing three different ways, but the different hook you attached to it is the one that's really going to be the most resonant for them. And then there's potentially your freebie that kicks off the funnel, because that's the one that's gone over best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that there's so many different ways that you can pull that information, but I'm glad you went over that. I do want to talk about how content plays a part into this funnel. That feels very like top of the top of it, right. That's how you're really gathering the people that you want to talk to. How do you go about like, what is your content creation kind of strategy? Is it something that you it's kind of like last on the list or do you prioritize it, like for your business or even for your clients? How do you, where do you put you know content in your, in your prioritization?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a top priority but in function of creation, I do it last within the marketing plan, and I think something that trips business owners up is that they try to do it first and then they are shoehorning the rest of the marketing strategy into this content plan they've already made, versus letting the marketing strategy live and then the content is then a reinforcement of that strategy. So I usually start in this online space with making their annual sales plan and so we know when we're live launching versus when we're just driving towards that funnel. So different spikes and focuses of ways we're selling the offer. And if we are ramping up, doing a campaign for a live launch of one of the products, then we're going to be centralizing the content towards that ramp up. The ramp up might have a free resource, so we're list building and we're warming them up. It might have a live masterclass so we can get our expertise out there and open up cart with bonuses, and so I want the content to not just prime, announce and then remind people to grab those freebies along the way to the open cart. I want it to also have these different thought reversal conversations so that we are continually showing them what's possible when they do things a different way.
Speaker 3:Ie the solution of the offer and I might attach a call to action to the back of that piece of content that's related to freebie number one for list building.
Speaker 3:And then, when I'm moving into the masterclass era three weeks later, the call to action on the back of this value piece of content is for the masterclass. And then we move into open cart and the call to action is for the offer itself. So I'm going to base it off of what are we selling and how are we using our content to drive sales. But I need to know the sales plan first. And when you're not doing a live campaign where there's a timed expiry and you're just consistently driving towards your funnel, that's where we can get a little bit more liberal and play with content pillars or, you know, getting more of the personality of the business owner or the attractive character or the brand into it. But my main goal is I want you to opt in for the freebie that detonates the funnel, because if I can get you to do that, I know it's all automated for you to buy something from me from there.
Speaker 2:We kind of covered that like top of the funnel right. You get them to, let's say, you get them to download the freebie and, like you said, it's automated. But how are you kind of nurturing that lead through automation? Because I think sometimes people are also nervous about just the term automation, where it's like, oh no, they need to get to know me. That's where that personal connection comes into play. So how do you kind of avoid that and nurture while still automating? Does that make sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's just mindset, because it's the same copy that you would send out if you did it and typed it in real time, or if you did it and it was scheduled. So automation isn't that we're pulling in a ton of AI, chat, gpt, automated bots to answer questions. It's still your great quality email from you. It could have a picture inside of it, it could have a video inside of it, whatever you want. But the email that you might manually type and send on a Tuesday as you're rushing around to get it done, versus the one that you thoughtfully curate and then schedule in this automated series. It's the same content, so it's still going to have your flair in it.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's talk a little bit about expanding your business, because I think there's a lot of people who have started their business and they feel maybe a little bit stuck right. They want to expand, but they don't really know how to. So what are some things that you think people definitely need to have in place before they think about expanding?
Speaker 3:Expansion is typically I want to expand my revenue, of course, but I think the other thing that needs to be in the mix is I want to expand my freedom, and the reason why we got into business most times is we wanted freedom and not to say we didn't want to work hard, but we wanted schedule autonomy. We didn't want to have to be in somebody else's office every day doing it their way. And a lot of times we get into business, we experience that freedom. It's a lot of work, but then we try to scale and we scale ourselves right on. Out of that. We also scale ourselves into work that we don't love doing, such as now I've become a people manager and I'm just constantly editing and curating their work and I'm not even doing some of the work that I love and or working with the clients that I love, if that's the goal, and so I would say it is one part where we going and why are we going there. It's another part what's your power zone and what do you want to be working on and what do you want your schedule to look like, and making sure that we're building an infrastructure that supports that, instead of trying to rigidly follow some business in a box schedule that somebody else put together for you.
Speaker 3:So if you're somebody with, let's say, an expertise where you're a service provider and you want to scale with more autonomy to where you're just increasing revenue and you're not increasing workload IE you don't want to scale to an agency you might maintain done for you copywriting or done for you design in your highest level, add on some VIP days. Then you add on a group program where you're helping designers better curate their experience. Then you add on a course where you're helping people learn how to define their brand. You add on templates that are done for you brands in a box or canva templates. So you've got all these choices to where you are selling something that's upfront work for you to create but once you sell it passively you don't need to fulfill. Then you've got the group program, so you're helping many more people making more money. It's in a pop up capacity group style, in a cohort, so that's on and off.
Speaker 3:And then you look at yourself in your service providing and you say, wow, I got to the point where I'm making double the amount, I'm working less and I get to work with maybe five aligned clients per quarter in the way that feels better to me versus the other service provider, might say no, I want the agency, I want to be the art director, I want to have people underneath me, I want to go be prospecting for clientele, building out some of the marketing, working with a larger scale team, and in that instance does it make sense for them to have these small fry offers that they need to dual wield in the marketing and have their clientele confused of like, do I do it myself or do you do it for me? Maybe not? Yeah, so it's scaled up in a different way. So anything that they need to have foundationally would be a well structured offer that gets results. I would say back end systems that support them and then an audience of people that they know they can continually tap into their warm audience and continue to scale from there.
Speaker 2:I think, when people like this I'm going to be honest, I feel like this is something that we struggle with sometimes too is you'll get people to like sign up for your freebie, or you'll get that top of the funnel type of situation, but then they struggle with the nurturing part. What are some, maybe? What are some things that you see going wrong there, like common issues and kind of how to fix that?
Speaker 3:I would say the first thing that we look at is all of that email open rate data and we see if any of them are dripping down. So it could be on average. You're seeing a 40% open rate and then one of them is at, you know, 1520%. I would start with the triage of that one piece and you just kind of start with your blind spots and then see how that optimizes it across the board. And typically the reason why something can be lower is everybody's first guess is that it's the subject line.
Speaker 3:But a lot of times it's coming too close on the heels of the previous email and they just didn't have a chance to open it because it was coming too fast.
Speaker 3:And if things come at them that are valuable too quickly and they have too many things that have backstopped they know they have stuff to read they're feeling behind, they're not feeling good and like they're on top of it and it makes them feel like you have fed me and I am full, I'm not hungry.
Speaker 3:So by the time you present your offer I don't have anything else we need to invest in just yet. So sometimes it's more spaciousness, sometimes it's updating the subject line and other times it's just taking a look at the journey we picked and the social media example I gave earlier, where we revealed to them slowly that their strategy is struggling through the guys of their follower growth. Maybe that through line isn't us puppeteering or orchestrating that journey of discovery isn't working. It's not coming across, they're not having the breakthrough, they're not opening the one email where the breakthrough is explained, and so we need to curate some of that copy. I think a lot of times people try to look at their offer and they think my offer is broken and that's the reason why nobody's buying it. But it's typically just a little something in the messaging and the timing that needs tweaked.
Speaker 2:Sorry, that was a bit of a sidebar from I know we were talking about scaling your business, but it was just an idea, the thought that I had.
Speaker 2:Okay, so scaling, you said, have everyone needs to have kind of a different foundation in place in order to scale? How do you kind of recommend I guess this is almost more of a time management question but how do you recommend that business owners would maybe go about working their way into scaling without feeling overwhelmed? Because I think sometimes they have these big goals or these big dreams and maybe they have the foundation in place but they don't know how to take that next step, whether it's a new offer or it's hiring a new person or whatever it is. How do you think they can go about that without just essentially overwhelming themselves to the point of not doing anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah, overwhelm is so interesting because we all experience it and we will continue to experience it. And people ask me that let's say I'm selling one of my courses and they're like, okay, this is sounding great, I need to go through, consume it, create it, see the result from it. I have work to do now. How do I stop myself from being overwhelmed? I'm like you just get in and do it, and I think all of us know that too. I don't really have like the magical answer to overwhelm. It's like you got to get in and you got to do it.
Speaker 3:I think the best way to set yourself up for success is looking at your most leveraged order of operations, so you're getting yourself a little win like gamify the process, for you Say, all right, if I do these six things in this order, I'll get this thing done and then I can see something live and that's going to clear some things up for me, versus building it in a different way, just making up an arbitrary project, and when I can see this and I have something I could either show my audience, get feedback on, prove to my investors, whatever that looks like, start curating a waitlist that is going to make me feel like I'm in this project and I also have public accountability if I bring other people into it. So I'm going to build for this and then I'm going to work on that. And once you get into it, once you're aware of it and you've got a sketch going, then it starts to feel really good to execute on a project. For most of us that I think there's nothing to it, but to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also am curious in terms of like launching something. I know you talked about having kind of that annual map right Of launching and offers and everything like that. Do you recommend like, how much do you plan in advance when you're launching something new? Are you the type to some businesses will kind of make this announcement before it's fully thought out, with the idea of kind of like come along with us as we either launch this new product or like build out this new product, or like build out this new service or something like that. Do you recommend businesses do that, or are you more of a plan everything, get all of your footing right before launch.
Speaker 3:It's a personal question for the business owner, because some people love that and they're like I want to like live document it. I want them to co-create it. I want them to know it's a beta so that I can charge a little bit less, give a little more and really get this figured out with my people Other business owners that gives them so much anxiety they could never. They need it to be more perfected and polished by the time they market it, and so I've done it both ways, many, many times, depending on what the person's ready for. Both work.
Speaker 2:That's something that Tara and I kind of go back and forth on. Tara's a very like let's talk about it immediately, let's launch it immediately, and I'm like we need systems. I need a system where I can't do this.
Speaker 3:Different personalities, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, what are some things that like within your clientele, even what are some of the main issues that you notice just within business owners as a whole, like I know that's very vague and that's very broad, but are there any like specific issues or specific problems that you think that they run into a lot?
Speaker 3:Probably shiny object syndrome and grasses greener. That whole process of just and all of us are guilty of it, we are consistently we. Business ownership is, yes, I have a skill set. However, I am monetizing the skills that way where I only a part of the map but I'm driving across country and so I can get myself to Texas and I don't really know how to go the way.
Speaker 3:But if I can get the text, as I can talk to people along the way and maybe then I can get myself to you know insert state here and so the ability for you to get in and go, and as you're chugging along this path, somebody will pop up and say, hey, if you went this way, there's a great shortcut. So you take that shortcut. Now you're in somewhere you don't know. Oh well, to get back to me, just get, get so messy.
Speaker 3:And sometimes those shortcuts are truly shortcuts and they're the best thing that could have ever happened to your business. And sometimes you're like dang, if I had not gone off course, I wouldn't be in this really wonky state where I now have this spaghetti bowl. So the I don't begrudge your judge anybody, myself included, for shiny object, because a lot of times it's not knowing what you don't know and then you uncover something as you're going. But being able to try and be as discerning as possible to say this is intriguing to me. I'm going to explore and research it a bit more, maybe invest in a power hour with someone to understand how this could look for my business and then have the discernment to make a decision on if this fits into my larger vision or if I'm just going to be yanking the whole team in a completely different direction, trying to turn this whole cruise ship versus where we were a speedboat moving efficiently previously.
Speaker 2:So that brings up a good question, actually that let's say you want to power our, you want to mentor. There are in insane amount of people online telling you that they are experts and telling you what you should do. How do you kind of decipher, like, who you should actually take advice from in terms of your business? Because there's so many people that maybe found success within their business or within their social media alone and they think that gives them enough expertise or enough credentials to tell anybody how to run their business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's the point that I would make. The answer that I would give is have they done it for other people and have they done it in different adaptations for other people? Because there, and there's nothing wrong with learning something, doing it, getting a great result for yourself, and then teaching that exact process to someone else, but that only goes so far, for so many, because then you end up with different personalities, goals, offer, types, no matter the niche.
Speaker 3:Yeah and so in that process, you need to know that somebody's flex their expertise in many different lockups to where they could help you in your unique situation, number one. So results speak for themselves. Success leaves clues. So you're looking at their lifestyle, you're looking at what they're working on and how they're selling, and I would say then it's also just your own discernment, as you are in your industry, or you're looking at, you know, this new pop up tactic, doing a little bit of research to see what the others are saying, and after you read a couple of posts, a couple of emails, which ones resonating in the way where you say, right, this person, I think they know their stuff.
Speaker 3:Number one, and also I think I like them, like the ability to have that, like ability to where I think we're going to jam. Really well, they're going to have a similar style to me. I know I don't work well with a mentor who's not rapid firing, and if they're slowly thinking and they're just musing, I'm like what are the tacticals and practicals? It just drives me insane. So I need to know that their style is going to be similar to how I work as well. Just a little bit of research.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you brought that up. I don't think people think about that enough. Even just personalities, like you said. Do you do you like listening to this person? Can you talk to this person? Like that is such a you know something to look into that I think people overlook a lot. I do want to go back to you saying the grass is greener type of syndrome. That the issue that I think a lot of business owners deal with, and I think it's natural right, especially in in this day and age with, I think, being digital and being on social media, being like you see another company that's kind of similar to yours, how do you like what's the best way to go about that? Like you put your blinders on and you're like, stay in my lane, because I think sometimes you'll see businesses that are that are doing something, and then it it almost derails. You like, oh, I should launch a course or I should launch a whatever that they have, instead of being like, no, I know what I'm good at and I'm going to stick within this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of it comes down to vision and then your like revenue roadmap, because if you were in your current business making more money, having more freedom than you ever have, would you be as enticed by making a course? No, you probably be like, oh gosh, that sounds like a lot. Throw that out the window because you're already so fulfilled and what it is you have in your current business. So I think a lot of times it's coming from a deficit or it's coming from I just keep hitting the same plateau number. And where is the thing that's going to spike me up and get me into the next stratosphere?
Speaker 3:And the first place to look is within your current business, because that is your most repeatable, your current customers, highly highest leverage, and then systems already built, team already educated, way to increase money. And maybe it's you know what, if we clean X and Y up, we roll out this new offer which is just like a cousin of what we're currently doing, and then we turn on the paid ads faucet. That is a better use of our time and effort then trying to do this entire new venture within the business. And so start within the current business, see if you can get to that revenue goal, that's going to make more sense for you to be happier not wanting to pursue that. And if it really doesn't and you're like, nope, I cannot scale to where I want to go without additional revenue streams, then expand into those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then, in terms of that annual kind of sales roadmap, what is that typically looking like? Is that looking like launching several new products throughout the year? Or is that just like re-nurturing a product that may or a service that you already have and kind of almost reintroducing it to your community? What are you? Because I think most people don't want to launch like a million different offers every year, right? So what does that typically look like? Just so, I guess, a broad overview of what an annual roadmap would look like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I use the word launch, which is not the perfect word for it because it makes it sound like it's something new, but I use it for re-offering, counting your same offers, but doing so with a specific timeline, versus when it's ever enrolling and you can buy it anytime.
Speaker 3:There's no bonuses or discounts or pop-up special. So, yes, it could be the first time that you sell something, you launch it literally and then from there, when you're re-offering it in kind of a splashy pop-up campaign or flash sale capacity, I also would refer to that as a launch. And so a launch is something with a ramp up where we're nurturing everybody on the same topic. We're kind of like pulling the slingshot so that when the cart opens for this tighter timeline with this special, that's happening and you release the slingshot, everybody comes running in and you see an infusion of cash, clients confidence throughout this process of doing this a couple of times a year for the same offer, for a couple of offers, whatever that looks like. And then, when you're not doing that, which is just the shaking of the tree and like a nice infusion of cash, you're then ever enrolling for the other offers from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I love that. And when you are kind of doing these launches throughout the year, are you, once that timeline is up, are you closing the door? Is it not an offer, like, are you kind of doing almost limited drops but with services, or is it something that's still available year round, but these drops are maybe, like the prices, a little bit different, or you get like an added bonus if you sign up within this timeline.
Speaker 3:Mostly the latter, to where we're not sunsetting and creating new of our offers consistently. It's like those are our offers. This is what you can get. This is the special right now and, if you've been thinking about it, if you're new to me, if you just opted in for this freebie and this is the solution to your problem, this is one of the best times to buy. So you'll see a cool down on that offer the next month, because everybody just bought it, you marketed it and then they got the best bonus. But the following month you'll see it pick back up to normal with your consistent sales through a funnel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cool. Well, I love all of that. That really is. Those are all the questions that I have. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about? Something that's burning on your mind, or, tara, did you have any questions?
Speaker 3:Well, thanks, for having me.
Speaker 3:No, I would say the only thing, depending on the different types of people listening, is what I was just saying about really making sure that we're monetizing or leveraging our current business before we add on all these additional revenue streams.
Speaker 3:I do want to seed plant that if you're somebody who has one key service that you're offering and you're like, oh really, I thought that I was going to have an offer suite, like a template, of course, and my services and I'm not have that I don't mean not expanding into an offer suite so you have different options for different people on their growth journey, so they can kind of buy everything from you along the way, find what works for them Goldilocks style. I mean, once you have a business with some offers in it, not completely pivoting your entire model, like burning it down and rebuilding it for an entirely new venture, that could really distract you. So if you're listening to this, I do think multiple offers is a great idea launching those offers, funneling those offers and letting them all service the beginner, intermediate and advanced person in your audience, but then knowing from there that there are going to be ways for you to kind of really pull levers and up that revenue without building out six more offers from there.
Speaker 1:I do Real quick. I do. What about like courses? On the subject of courses, do you feel like it's a saturated market? Do you think there is still opportunity in industries, regardless of what that is, that there's still market, a market for that? Or is it like I feel like there's so many courses so I just wondered if there is ever a cap or if it's too saturated?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think it's too saturated myself. Everything is too saturated. Burger establishment or too fast operated like lipstick is too saturated, and so people need a course that is such a great fit for a lot of the way that they would learn at a more entry level Do it yourself resources. It's just about the messaging of the program so that somebody who might have baggage or aversion to sitting and watching a video library knows that this is so specifically for them because it's well messaged and marketed, which of course, I'm talking to the experts on that but additionally that audio courses are becoming very popular as well with the rise of our podcast listening just habitually as a society, and so needing to sit and look at a slide sometimes is beneficial. But if you turn it into both like, you can download the audio and listen to a podcast style and then there's accommodating images that you can look at within the program library or within a PDF. That's been going over really well for people to make sure it peppers into their life better. That's interesting.
Speaker 1:I like that idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker 2:Cool. Well, Shannon, thank you so much for being on. Where can everybody find you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, just come see me on Instagram at the social bungalow, because that's where I hang out all the time, my main platform and then I can point anybody in a direction of something they're looking for from there.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Well, thank you so much for being on. I love this conversation. I feel like I could do 17 more parts, but I won't take up all your time.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Bye.