Managing Fear of Failure in Business: Launches, Sales, Emails, and Bundles featuring Kate Doster

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Ep. 179: Managing Fear of Failure in Business: Launches, Sales, Emails, and Bundles featuring Kate Doster

In this episode, I’m joined by Kate Doster to explore the crucial separation of self-worth from business outcomes. We dive into overcoming negative sales experiences, flexible pricing strategies, and monetizing free bundles. Kate also reveals her insights into conversion rates.

Plus, we discuss the fun of Halloween-themed marketing and her “All Treats, No Tricks Bundle.”

Tune in for practical tips and a roadmap for growth despite setbacks and creating resilience in your entrepreneurial journey!

LISTEN OR SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE IN YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST APP:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RSS

Resources:

All Treats No Tricks Bundle – https://katedoster.com/treats
Cashflow Unlocked – https://aimeecerka.com/cashflow
Connect With Kate Doster – www.katedoster.com/instagram / www.katedoster.com/facebook
Connect with Aimee – https://instagram.com/aimeecerka

Podcast Key Points

0:00 – Episode Overview
0:00 – There Are A Lot Of More Problems When There’s Not Money
3:47 – Fired For Giving Birth
9:04 – Overcoming Shame When Selling
15:31 – Launching and Emails
22:35 – Monetizing a Bundle
29:31 – Tripwires Conversion Rates
35:07 – All Tricks No Treats Bundle and Connect with Kate

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Aimee Cerka 00:00

Have you ever struggled to separate your self worth from your business performance?

Today’s episode dives into this common and often paralyzing issue. Running a business presents quite a few challenges, right? Figuring out pricing and overcoming pricing mistakes can be this huge thing. We can talk about failed launches. We can talk about not being able to monetize.

All of these things show up, right? But what if there was a way to view these setbacks differently?

I’m joined today by Kate Doster. Kate is the host of the do the brave thing online business podcast.

It’s her soul and souls mission to put money in the hands of good people so they can do good with it, while eradicating the idea that nice people always finish last and business by sharing spammer free sales techniques that even your grandma would be proud of you for using and helping small but mighty online business owners propel their lists and profits by hosting bundles. In this episode, we talk about strategies to detach personal worth from business outcomes. We redefine failure as data. We set flexible pricing strategies without creating resentment. We also explore bundle monetization and trip wires.

This is such a good, authentic conversation that’s going to give you hope, confidence, some practical tools to handle setbacks that come up so they don’t become stumbling blocks. And then we talk about some free resources, the bundle that Kate is hosting that is live as of this moment that was just so much fun to be a part of. It’s a blast. So let’s get to it.

Less Problems With More Money

Kate, welcome to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’ll have to say I was binging your podcast last night, and I’m really excited for this conversation. Why?

Kate Doster 02:50

Thank you. I appreciate it. I’m very excited to be here.

Aimee Cerka 02:55

So the first question I always like to ask when we start off is, you know, the podcast is called your money your life. So what does your money, your life mean to you?

Kate Doster 03:04

I think for me, it comes down to, I feel like every entrepreneur probably has like, a similar answer, like, the Your Money Your Life, really comes down to when it comes to, like, earning money and having money, it’s really just about, like, the choices and freedom that it can bring. As someone that started their business as a mom on welfare, I can tell you that while there is such thing as more money, more problems, there’s a lot more stressful problems I find when there isn’t money, um, like, Everclear said, I don’t think people had the joy of a welfare Christmas before.

So all my Millennials are now like, Oh man, I remember that song. Yeah, right. So for me, money really is about choice and about relaxation. So that way, like you don’t have to make a decision based on money, but you can actually make it based on other factors, right, like just preference or comfort or being able to do that. So that’s truly what it means to me. Yeah,

Aimee Cerka 03:57

I love that. And as somebody, when my second son was born, we were on SSI for a little bit social, social security disability. And it’s like the number of hoops that we had to jump through and like all of the programs, because there was a time we were on food stamps, we were time we were on WIC, like those things, like all of the hoops that we had to jump through to try and get those things in a place, in a time like, or I didn’t want to have to rely on them, and having, like, those choices now, like, that’s, I mean, it’s such a game changer.

And secondly, I don’t think that I ever related to being a millennial as much as I do when I get on Instagram reels and, like, start scrolling, it’s like, oh my gosh, I really am a millennial,

Kate Doster 04:40

right? And I think that that’s true. And I know, like, we’re both US based, and everyone’s like, Oh, taxes and all this other stuff, I like to lie to myself and always just think that it’s going to the social services.

Because, just like, you it’s not like, anyone’s like, Yay, I need work, right? But just like, You know what? In my head, I’m just like, this money is going towards some people that were like, in our situation, I. I had gotten fired for having birth, and it was completely legal at the time in the US, and so like, here we were on one income household, and it was just not enough to provide for all of us.

And yeah, when we sat down and did the math, and you might have been in a similar situation, right, when you sat down and did the math, it’s like, it’s literally going to cost us more to put the baby in daycare than for me to stay home. Yeah, so we stayed home with the help, and then we started the business, and then when we were able to get out the help,

Aimee Cerka 05:31

Mm, hmm, totally. And I am new, newly, newly single. I’m in the middle of going through a divorce, and that was like something that was, like, something that we went through, like, at the beginning of the year, it was like, Okay, I’m having to make these shifts and these changes. And so where should my focus be? Like, do I make these shifts and these changes and in the business?

And there’s a lot of, like, trusting God in this season, like, for me, this is that’s something that I lean on. It’s like, I know that, like, okay, these doors are going to open in the way that they’re supposed to? Or do I figure out how to go back to work?

Well, we home school, and I’ve got 12 to eight. She just turned two, so, like, by the time I would pay for somebody to go to daycare, or even just the gas to drive around to get, like, health, like that, it just, it makes such a big difference on I mean it, there’s so many things like, where it factors differently, and you have to be able to make those choices. And so, yeah, I love that.

So we’ve heard a little bit, but why don’t you tell me a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey? Like, why do you do get started some of those crazy stories? I know there’s always, like, those weird, freakish things or thin threads that have brought you to where you are. So what are some of those? And how did you get started?

Writing Sales Copy

Kate Doster 06:46

Sure, so like I alluded to earlier, I had started my business after I had gotten fired for giving birth, so I had my first daughter. I was working in finance at the time, and so I had my first daughter, and then I ended up marrying my husband, who’s her dad, and we got pregnant with our second one. So our kids are 17 and a half months apart, and so that is, like quite a a whirlwind adventure. So probably when our youngest was about like one and a half, things were sort of settled down enough where it’s like, alright, like, you kind of got a little bit of your cognitive brain back, because babies like sleeping through the night, right?

You kind of have, like, as much of a routine as you can with, you know, two under two, and it’s like, how am I going to get us out of this situation that was 100% because, like, my husband was trying his darnest, but he was on social services, and that pays hot trash, right? So it’s just like, alright, if you don’t want to do this anymore, you’ve gotta figure it out. So, like, I feel, I don’t wanna say 99% of female business owners, like 99% of female business owners. I started with a blog, go figure, um, as somebody who has dyslexia them, writing blog posts always seem to take absolutely forever. And this was, like, back in 2000 like, 16.

So like, you know, you can still get, like, a lot of traffic and stuff from Pinterest, but it just like, it was not quite getting the money there. And so I was hanging on a lot of entrepreneurial groups, and, you know, people would be asking questions about, like, freebies and stuff like this. And like, you know, does this work, or what works about the sales page and what doesn’t. And I found that I was really good at writing sales copy, which I didn’t even know was a thing. It turns out that when you talk a lot and you’re great at conversation and you’re very intrigued by people in psychology, they’re like, copywriting is a thing for you, and that can be quite lucrative.

So I started out just with some of the entrepreneurial buddies that I had met when I was doing my old blog, writing landing pages for them, getting recommendations. Then I was, you know, brave enough to start going out on my own. I also got a paid internship with an actual copywriter. I took all of the Copy Hackers course.

Still, there’s two courses, and like, we’re the best investment ever, but copy school is always number one from coffee. Hackers are the best. And so I was kind of off to the races, and I did copywriting for a while, and then in 2019 I think, like a lot of people, on one on one services, you get a little burnt out and don’t want to have to do other people’s timelines anymore.

So I’m like, I’m going to the thing I liked the best about writing copy was always launch sequences and stuff. So I’m like, You know what? I’m going to teach a course about email marketing. So I went from, you know, a one to small audience to one to, like many definitely did not do the most graceful transition, as I always tell my students, I’m like, you don’t when you’re a service provider, you don’t need to have a huge network, right?

Because, again, it got to the point where I needed to know a whole bunch of other copywriters, because you always have to hand off work because everyone was always busy. So now it’s like, okay, right? You want to sell this course, and that’s fine, but you’ve got a list of like, 100 people. Like, you’re great, so you sold it to a lot of people, but like, you need to go get those other people. So I do wish that I had kept on a couple of clients like.

You’re in there before. I’m just like, I’m just doing courses. So lesson learned there everyone, when you’re transitioning for one business model to the other, like, keep one just a little bit of extra on there. And I do think that it will help ease the burden just a little bit. And so ever since about 2019 it’s just been corsets. I occasionally do some coaching. I’ve never been copied for anyone else but myself, since, yeah, since 2019 and that is kind of where we’re here today.

Again, I always really enjoyed writing emails and helping people with sales. Again, I think when you come from having no money and a very some talk about millennials, I have a very Boomer Mom, if it was like, sales, people are like, the worst, and spending money is awful. And again, you know, her parents were in the Great Depression, right?

So it’s like, there’s a lot of, like, money history that kind of goes along with that. And ironically, it was like I was teaching people how to write, which, in like, middle school and high school, the teachers, the English teacher, like, you’re bad at this because of learning disabilities, and I was teaching people how to sell, which ironically, was something that I was always super against, but I’m like, I can have conversation and like I get people.

And I wanted to teach people that you could still love your audience and offer something that was a value, and that when you charge someone, one, it has to feel good to you. But two, as gross as it may sound, when people pay they pay attention. And so if you really want people to get results, you need to give them a way for them to bet on themselves. Like, yes, still have that free content. Your offers can be low ticket, your offers can be high ticket, but you have to give them a chance to bet on themselves. I think that’s like the key thing.

So we do a lot of like, mindset stuff and copy stuff. That’s a very long winded answer, but that’s how we got

Aimee Cerka 11:41

here. No, I love it. And, like, it’s, it’s like, you can almost see my outline here, like, because it segue perfectly into because I wanted to talk about overcoming that shame when selling and making money. And I have to laugh because, like, I love to write emails. I love to write. I had a blog in the beginning too, until I got over the video thing, and now I’m like, I don’t want to write, like, just let me speak it out. Let me do I was even telling somebody earlier. I was like, I’m just going to start like, I needed to process something. It was like, I’m just going to start Voice Recording, like myself, like just talking to myself. And we homeschool as well. So it was like, parent, teacher conference, employee CEO conference. I’ve got it all going on, right?

Like we’re always talking to ourselves, but there’s so much, and you hinted on it a little bit, like in the history and our upbringing, we talk all the time about the money mindset and these stories that we tell ourselves about like, you know, money is evil, or rich people are bad. And there’s also, I feel like a difference between getting your paycheck and getting paid as an entrepreneur. So like, we have two different things, because a lot of times when we’re getting a paycheck from work, I think it’s because we can see that exchange, like we did the work, you get the money, and we don’t have a problem there as much as we do when we’re an entrepreneur.

So for those that are working to overcome that. And it’s like, okay, I can logically understand that. Like, hey, people will put more skin in the game. But like, I still feel icky about it. What types of things would you suggest? What are you working through like, to overcome that shame when it comes to selling and making money?

Separating Self-Worth from Business Success

Kate Doster 13:18

I think that you have to realize that people do love to buy things. I think the reason why, and it was a really great example that you had said, when people are going to a job, they realize that they’re exchanging those work for hours and they’re getting money. And I think us on the flip side of stuff as the one that’s receiving money, we’re aware that this person probably had to go to a job that they hated to get the money to pay us. And I think particularly as females, we are conditioned all the time to just do immense amounts of free labor, mental labor, planning, all of that sort of cognitive load that comes around.

And so it’s like beating us forever that like, you’re just like, serve, serve, serve. So all of a sudden, when now you get a benefit of something, it’s like, oh, well, like, who am I? But you have to remember, people are going to spend money anyways, so wouldn’t you rather their money go to someone who actually cares about them, right? Like, okay, if you bought something on Amazon recently, no one likes Jeff Bezos, right? But, like, people are gonna buy stuff over there, right?

People have stuff in their wish list. So it’s like, all right, when you kind of think of it like that, I think that that can really help. And I know it can sound really silly, but I do think that sometimes really either journaling stuff out or, like us, we’re more of a talker, or like, having affirmations, where you’re just like, You know what?

It’s becoming like, safer and safer for me to have money. And again, I don’t think it’s like, I’m not a bad person. That’s like, I’m a good person to be a steward of this money, right? So you had talked a lot, you know, about how this season was kind of like, you know, following God’s plan and trusting and going for it, right?

So it’s like, I’m pretty sure as someone that’s like a super witch over here, but does a lot of Christian people, right, like being a good steward of what you’re getting, right? So it’s like. You’re gonna put those money to good funds, right? You are providing people with something that is going to help them. And I was talking about, you know, selling and integrity and honesty, and that’s why, like, you know, on sales pages, in emails, like, I’ll tell people who shouldn’t buy this.

And I’m not, like, Oh, don’t buy this if you’re not a go getter, right? For other business owners, right? Or you hate money, right?

And like, no, if you’re in business, A, B, C and D, this wasn’t made for you, so don’t get it if you you know, because a lot of my products, you have to know who you want to help already at this point and what you want to sell. I don’t care who it is, if it’s other business owners, if you want to sell, crafting principles, but I’m not going to teach you how to niche down. So it’s like, if you don’t have those two things, don’t buy that. I’m going to work, right?

If you already have ABC and D, you probably don’t need to do that one either, right? So I think when we are just honest with people, and we’re not apologetic, right, you have to be. I think that this can help a lot.

When it comes to sales and the products, you have to be so excited for the results that your people are going to get that all of a sudden it doesn’t matter. So it’s not like, oh yeah, like, I just made $50 woohoo. Groceries. Well, you know, a half a cart of eggs at this point. Yeah, it’s eggs at this yay. It’s like, I’m so excited because now Tammy is getting a chance to be able to have her house a little bit more organized, which I know makes me feel a lot better, so it’s gonna make her feel a lot better, right? And so I think that that can help a lot. I also think that people, when it comes to having a business, especially if it is like, your brand facing, like, okay, doster com, right?

Like, they have a very hard time separating their self worth from the business, or, say, from the blog. And so it’s like, if the business is not doing well, then you’re a bad person, right? If you know, Sally Sue teach your course, even though you said, like, don’t buy this. If you’re a, b, c, M, D, she’s all of those things. Like, that’s not her. She made the bad decision. But you’re always going to think, oh my goodness. Like, it’s my fault. I should have done this and that. So it’s like, you have to be able to separate yourself from the business, realize that it’s okay for you to get money. Like I said, when they bet on themselves, are more likely to do something.

So I think a lot of those things can kind of help and like, again, deconstruct those things and think about yourself. Yeah, we all have an incident where maybe we were pressured. Like, you know, that weird guy at the mall. He’s like, you know, do one of your nails and make it all shiny attack you. Yeah, right. We’ve all had those awful sales experiences, but there’s also been things that you’ve been, like, excited to buy. So I’m like, even if you’re like, what’s like, your favorite outfit that you own, right?

Are you like, oh my goodness, I’m so mad that Michael coworks made this purse. No, you’re like, oh my goodness, I love this thing. It’s the pros, right? I’ve got my ukulele behind me. It’s a fender and it actually looks like a Fender guitar. I mean, like, how dare you fender? I’m this best thing ever. So you can, you know, start thinking yourself. People are gonna say this is the best thing ever. And so give them the chance to have that joy too, of having your thing.

Aimee Cerka 17:52

I love that. I think there’s a little bit and you’ve talked about it like the confidence in yourself and the confidence and your offer, and knowing that it’s for who it’s for, and the people who are supposed to be in it are going to buy, and removing yourself, like, from the meaning of it, like when they don’t like it, or if they don’t buy.

And like, we would talk, I’d love to talk like launch and like emails, and just for a second, because there’s so I think we’ve all had quote failed launches, like air quotes for those on the podcast, but like, what does it actually mean to fail? And some of those things, like, if we remove the meaning from it, then it’s just the data that we need. And you’re right, we attach ourselves and our self worth and all of those things, because, you know, it’s your personal brand, and that’s the thing.

I’m like, yeah, it’s my personal brand. But, like, at the same time they’re like, of like, what’s the name of your company? And it’s always like, um, it’s me, like, I’m my company, right? Right?

Kate Doster 18:51

You’re allowed to feel disappointed, but you’re not a disappointment, right?

First place, the launch could have failed, but you are not a failure. And sometimes you literally have to, like, write those sentences down and like, don’t feel like a weirdo guys. Like, it is not easy to do this, which is why most people don’t right. It’s like, look again, I’m not a failure, right? But you’re allowed to sit down and sit and have your feelings, like my friend faith Mariah will talk about, like, you can have those bad feelings for a little bit, but you’ve got to be able to put yourself out of it again. And this is another thing that both of us say all the time, you are not going to learn how to swim by reading a book. You learn to swim by getting in the water.

So even if your launch was, quote, unquote, a failure, you didn’t get any sales right, or as many sales as you wanted, right. That’s when you said, now you’ve got the data, and you’ve got the gift of practicing. So now you don’t ever have to worry about another launch feeling, because you already have one. So you know what it’s like afterwards. You can again, you can have your little moment, but then go back and actually look at the analytics that you had. It’s like, okay, like, Where?

Where do I think that that’s kind of what are? Oh, well, not enough people. So we’re opening, or not enough people were getting to the sales page, if you can handle it, and I do think that you all can, right, you can send that email asking people, why didn’t they buy?

Go run to the people that reply back. Or it’s always going to be Bryce, even it was like, $7 that’s just one of those things. So then for you, you’re like, okay, and you’re not going to offer them a discount or anything, but you’re going to think to yourself, how can I position this next time to make that them feel bad that they are only giving me $7 for it? And that’s the other thing about pricing, I think, where people feel guilty.

I don’t know how you feel, Aimee about the term charge, which are worse that, again, does not have enough like separation between like you, you and the business because, like, you’re worth a bajillion dollars, like, your your soul in a body. Guys like, no, there’s, there’s no price tag for that. So anyone you right, when you have those sort of icky feeling grown selling, there’s nothing to say that you cannot start low and go high, right? What I don’t want to have happen is you to send the sell something so low for so long that then you feel resentful. That is a problem. So you gotta give yourself permission to be like you know what?

I need you to change the prices, hit the delete and another key, and now, now the price is up or the price is down. So it’s not something that has to be like that forever,

Aimee Cerka 21:15

exactly. And people can feel where you’re at energetically. So if you’re showing up at this higher price point, because people tell you you need to price it at a higher price point, but you’re not confident in it. They’re not even going to know why.

It’s like a no, but it’s like, Oh, it doesn’t feel right. And we are a much more informed buyer society now, like we’re going to buy off of those things, because this isn’t Amazon, and it’s not the simple return process and all of those things, because I think we’ve all bought stuff, it’s like, oh, we’ll try it, because it’s Amazon, not a big deal to return it, right? But we’re more intelligent.

So start like, there’s that balance there, charging what you feel confident with, but then being willing to raise it. And I think that resentment piece is a huge piece. I actually did this like, as a story of, you can change the price whenever you want to change it. I’m re vamping my signature program, Money Mastery Academy. So it was set up as, like it was always live, a 12 week group coaching program. But I was in a space where I was like, I don’t want to run this live all the time. And I had gotten the price points, you know, feedback that it was a thing. I was like, well, I’ll make it like a self study course, and then if I want to run a live cohort, I can run a live cohort. So it was like, Okay, well, we’re rebranding it. I’m going to do like, this pre sale price on the self study.

So I set it at one price, and, like, had it in my head, I think I set it at 333 and it was going to be 555, like, when it was done. And it was like, there is so much in here. Like the sales price is going to be 555, and it’s going to go up. Because, like, as I went, you could feel where the value is at. So even though I started at one point, I was able to quickly change it. I don’t even know that I told anybody, like, hey, you know, we’re raising the price. Because it was very like, low key wasn’t doing a push on it or anything like that, but you can make changes. It’s your business. Like we’ve talked about, like, it’s okay to do those things and to feel integrity with that.

Because if you’re not a person of integrity, you’re not having those thoughts so

Kate Doster 23:15

straight up, like, I could not have said that better myself. Aimee, like, just straight up. And this is why we’re gonna walk so well, cuz we’re like, Yeah, and again, here’s another thing, you know, talk about how everyone has had alarms that didn’t quite go their way. Everyone has had pricing that didn’t quite go their way, whether it was too low and they were resentful. And I thought, now I can’t get out of this or, and that was kind of me for a little bit with my signature course, or if it was the other way around.

And I’m thinking of another person, she became pretty predominant in the, like passive income space over the last couple of, I’d say, probably the last year or so, and she was putting out, I believe it was like a social media course or something like that. And she’d be the first person to tell you they were raising the prices something. I was like, $500 and literally, nobody bought it. Nobody bought it. And she has a huge audience. The second that it went up by $300 Nope. Everyone stopped. And so one person bought it, so she don’t have refunding them to $300 and she ended up dropping the price back down.

Yeah. And then she just went to her audience. Granted, she’s B to B. I don’t know how this would work for B to C everyone, but I think when you’re just honest, just admitted the mistake, so you just tell people if they could be brave with their pricing, right? So you can do the same thing too, or again, you could have priced it under, you know, different circumstances, like, hey, like, I know that, like, a lot of people are struggling right now, so we’re gonna have, like, inflation pricing forever the next little bit. Or, like, you said, don’t say anything, and just change the price.

Change the price on your funnels that you’ve got going out to all of that other stuff. If it feels gross to you, because you did have a couple people pay at a higher price point, you could offer them their money back. If you’re not in a financial position to do that, you could offer them some type of like, either, like, bonus call with you, right? Like, one on one, stuff is always really great. So there’s always, you know, different ways that you can handle the flexibility of pricing. I think a lot of us are like, Oh, it has to be set in stone. No, no, it doesn’t. I.

Aimee Cerka 24:59

Sure, not at all. We can play with it. It’s again, like, it’s your business. You get to do those things. And when you have the mentality, like, you’re just going to make it right, I think, like, you know, it works. So if you try this and it doesn’t work, just like, there was great examples on, like, how we make it work.

So we just do that. We’re chatting, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the all treats, no trucks, bundle, which, before we get into that, I’ll just have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the emails and all the fun. Like, we can tell writing is your strong suit, because I feel like you should share some of those emails, just because it was so much fun to read, like for me, on all of the for the listeners, like all the things that we have to complete, it was totally like Halloween themed.

And like, you know, Halloween is not even like my holiday, like, I’ll do follow on the pumpkins. I can’t see it, but I did a little pumpkin on my calendar when I updated it, and all those things. But like, it was, like, this is so much fun. Like, I have to be involved. But bundles are very popular right now. And I love bundles, because it’s truly a way for me to get a group of new email subscribers, very low lift, which, again, season I’m in, that’s definitely what I need. But how do you go about like monetizing a free bundle? What are some strategies there to stand out? Because great email subscribers are great, but if we don’t go anywhere with them, then we’re just paying for people who aren’t going anywhere.

Kate Doster 26:26

Sure, so there’s a couple different things. So I have been hosting free bundles, paid bundles, bundles with a free level, paid level, bundle, boost level, all that sort of stuff since 2019 so I’ve been doing this for roughly 80 million years. Um, so this is not our first rodeo. So when it comes to free bundles, when you are, say, the host of this bundle, you can do things like pay for I call them VIP spots because, for some reason, for me, sponsorships just felt weird. I don’t know, it felt too corporate. So like for us, we will open up spots where, hey, if you want to be in the bundle, like everyone can, I don’t charge an entry fee. Um, some people do, and I think that’s gross, and charge over an entry fee.

We’re like, Hey, we got five or six spots. You’re gonna be the first guest on the page. We’re gonna highlight you and all of our swipe files. We’re gonna make sure people download your stuff again. You’re gonna give them list of benefits. It’s 200 bucks.

It’s your first bundle, and you wanna do 100 if it makes you’ll get you 50. You could do that so you can recoup some of your time just by selling those VIP spots. In the perks that you have you can when you have a free bundle, but I always want to make sure whether you’re the host or if you are a person contributing an item I like, as long as it’s per the rules, whatever item I am submitting, I like to have an upsell, like a trip wire that people could buy immediately afterwards, and your thing to yourself, Kate, like they’re In a free bundle and they just got all this they just got all the stuff for free, or they’re really gonna buy things. If your gift makes sense as that first step, and this next thing is the logical step, they’ll do it right? So like, if I give away free newsletter templates, right?

And then on my thank you page, again, not for setting up for the bundle, but from an actual gift, it’s like, Hey, we’ve got your newsletters taken care of. But what about your launch emails? What about your welcome series? What about if you have a whole bunch of cold subscribers, you have an email people in forever?

Well, now I’ve got this paid product that’s like, you know, $29 and it’s not sell them astronomically, right? So you can try selling on your thank you page, right? There’s no way you can. If you’re the host. You can have a like, a resources section where it’s like, Hey, if you appreciated this free bundle. You’re thinking about buying any of these other things. If you want to go through our links, that would be super awesome. And I’d always say you’d be surprised, but a lot of people are just like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like, how can we repay you? Well, if you’re looking for to buy a Thrive car, you can head right over right cuz, again, I feel like people really do want to reciprocate. So again, now we’ve got selling VIP spots.

We’ve got having your trip wire that makes sense for the item you put in. So this goes for anyone contributing to a bundle, and not just hosting. Don’t just throw whatever, throw something that makes sense in your ecosystem, that that way you have some next steps, and whether or not you don’t sell on that thank you page, because you don’t have to. You want to make sure, regardless host or not, what is your after plan for these people, that is, like the biggest thing, where people fall short, right?

They’ll just send them into the normal buyer series for whatever that particular item was, and then dump them into their newsletter. It’s like, they’re gonna need, especially if they’re brand new, or they got us to free, like they’re gonna need to get to know you more. You’re gonna probably wanna cross sell. Talk about other products that you have, if you don’t have any other product, to say maybe this is, like, your first thing kind of paid that you just that you just threw in this bundle, right?

Where else can you have them come Can you have them listen to your podcast? Can you have them go to YouTube? So that way maybe you can get monetized, right? Always thinking of that next step. Can you, and this is what I teach all of my students, is that when you are playing a bundle, you’re going to plan it around a launch. So this is our bundle ramp up system that we’ve got, right?

It’s like, okay, when are you going to launch something the month or so before have this free bundle, or even, like, two weeks before, depending on how it is mine, it just happened that my birthday is the fourth of November, and I’m turning 40, so it might happen to me the week before that we ran our bundle. It’s our two week birthday Bonanza that’s kicking off with all trees. No. Tricks bundle.

So like, for me, it’s like this, so it’s like, Okay, again, making sure that it makes a lot of sense when I had my full signature course for it was called Love your list at the time for email marketing, and it was like, I would always put in for email templates on the thank you page would always be the upsell to my product that I still do have the email marketing fair. That’s all the templates.

And guess what? I’m inviting them to the webinar for my course that I have, or if you have a webinar funnel set up right in that welcome series for your item, get people to your auto webinar. Our funnel right? Hey, I know that we’ve got this, this and this, but what about X, Y and Z? It’s this. So you just want to make sure that you have a plan for people on the back end as well. What’s really nice for our contributors is that, because of the timing of my birthday and how it all worked out, that is about four ish weeks right before Black Friday, because Black Friday on Cyber Monday, or I say later, but they’re later because I think Cyber Monday is December 1 this year, so like, it’s going to give people like, yes, they’re going to have a bit higher more unsubscribes than normally would. And I tell all that contributors that that’s the name of the game.

They know, but a lot of people do stick around now. They’ve got a month or so to be able to knock people’s socks off, and they have new people to launch two for Black Friday.

Yeah. So that is, that’s your note, your after plan you sell on your thank you page, you know, resources sections again, maybe the gift that you give people again, because it’s always going to lead to, hopefully, something bigger or something bigger, or something you’re planning on doing bigger, maybe there, if you don’t have another product, you can talk about, like other like your affiliate links for things that can help people out, those sorts of things. So you can there’s a lot of different ways that you can monetize a free bundle. And one of the ways that we tell our students is you can offer, I don’t call a free plus level, I call it a bundle booster level, which is for like, seven bucks. That’s all we’re asking, $7 right?

But $7 you can give people like an air table database or a like Google spreadsheet or Trello board or notion doc to help them keep track of all the items that they have. You can give them extra time. You can give them access to live calls. So it’s not like you’re like, throwing more stuff at them, right? Bucha for $7 more if you want to have an extra two weeks to go through this bad boy and give us $7 so there’s a lot of different ways that you can monetize.

Aimee Cerka 32:12

I love it. What on the thank you page or the tripwire? What do you see average conversion rate from the bundle specifically.

Kate Doster 32:23

So we make sure that we have, like, a separate checkout page and a separate version of the same thank you page that, like, we use for all of our trip wires. And what was it? I know it’s over 10% I have to say, because we use it for a lot of different bundles, especially, and I’m not shocked when we host our own bundle. Obviously, the conversion rate goes up a lot higher because it’s people that know me. So it’s one of those, like, oh, and I’m gonna discount on her stuff.

Like, of course, I’ll buy so can be like 15, which is like astronomical for like, a tripwire page, no, any sales page ever is only supposed to be between one and 2% so like, if you’re getting like, five, it’s like, ridiculous, right? So it all depends on my friend Lenny Lamar, when she was still running her business, she has a whole podcast where she broke down all the analytics from being in my actual bundle. And she’s like, Yeah, she you know, I had more unsubscribes. And just like, technically, the tripwire didn’t perform as well, but it still got a really high conversion rate. So I think that is just making sure where it’s like, Oh, okay. And I know some people now, again, this depends on the host and depends on your own style. A lot of people are sending people to a Thrive Cart Checkout page.

So they might just have, like, an order bump where it’s like, hey, it’s like, you know, you’re getting this thing for free. It’s completely all yours. You know, click here if you want to add this other thing. Again, I wouldn’t make this other thing because you only have, like, this much space. Guys, a couple sentences, I want to make it like, super high cost. Was like, hey, you know you got this. However, the next step is this. It’s like, seven bucks, 12 bucks, 18 bucks. You can have this again, just make sure for your bundle.

Hostess, okay, so like, for ours, you’re allowed as a contributor to have that it cannot automatically be turned on. And the other thing that we don’t allow is because there’s no way around it. Or, I think one person figured out with Thrive cart, sometimes, if you’re using its native upsell feature, it’ll require that people put in payment information for a free item, and that we just don’t use, like, you can’t do that. Hate when that when they can’t.

Yeah, I’m like, you can’t. However, you can have Thrive cart redirect to a thank you page that you have on your website that has that offer on it, right, that has that second Thrive Cart Checkout page like that’s fine, recreate it on your own site, but it can’t be the native one, or you can’t be inner bundle. I wish. I’m sure somebody, one, one person figured it out, and we have to ask them, Oh, how did you do that? No one has to, because then it would be a lot easier, because then we could show our contributors how to do it, but usually just from all sorts like, they can’t enter anything or like, have to click like, PayPal and then continue it.

No. Like, no. That’s the other thing you’ll find that you’ll appreciate as a contributor and as. HOST as organized as like the host can be. And I don’t want to see like as rigid, because, again, everyone is technically doing everyone a favor. But you always want to think to yourself, if I first think of my mom, she is an inner she is like, 68 so I was like, If my mom is attempting to sign up for any of this, what would confuse her, right? And we just don’t allow it.

Nope, simple, because, again, you want people to be in your bundle again, right? You won’t ever know a great experience if poor Aimee is getting support ticket people because somebody else in my bundle was trying to, like, bamboozle them and make them put in their credit card so they’re gonna have their upsell. Aimee shouldn’t have to deal with it, because Tammy decided that she wanted to, like, try to do this upsell and get past me Kate, the actual host, right?

Like, that’s not fair for Aimee, so that’s why we try to do it that way. Like, okay, how can we make this like, Mom proof as possible?

Aimee Cerka 35:52

Yes, I love that. That’s a good lens to look at it. It’s kind of like the reverse of like, the fifth grader, because I know, like, my 12 year old, so he’s seventh grade now. Like, there’s times where they can be, I mean, I’m decently techie, but like, there’s times where he does things and I’m like, I don’t know how the heck you did that. So that whole like, make it the fifth grader level.

That doesn’t necessarily work anymore when they’re getting so tech savvy and all of that. I have, I guess, a thought here to add on with the trip wire conversion rate, because I know my trip wire technically converts a little bit lower than industry standard, and I know that, but I also feel like it serves very well. Feel I can see the data that it the people who do take the trip wire, they’re primed for the problem that I solve. So less people take it, but they’re more primed to take my higher end back level, because they know like, Hey, I’ve got all this stuff and it’s overwhelming. I’m not doing it as it is.

So like, when you take the trip wire, then they’re more likely to do that. So that’s another thing to look at, like, with your data, and it goes back to the data, like, knowing the numbers, so offering that, but also looking like, hey, maybe this converts a little bit lower. But yes, we’re going to see what we can tweak and get that to convert higher. But the people that are converting are the people that you really want to be working with. Exactly

Lifetime Value of Your Customers

Kate Doster 37:12

What lifetime value of people. And again, it’s not like, necessarily subsection, I’m not you know, one of these people is like, Okay, you’re gonna have an upsell. Let me down. Sell. Let me this, this, this, but it’s like, okay, especially when we did have our bigger email marketing course, it’s like, all right, like, we’re gonna and the buyer series for the email marketing fair, like we’re gonna talk about, love your list. And we would even give coupons back to people where it’s like, Hey, you bought this.

You can get $36 off of the bigger course. It worked like gangbusters. Like you said, you guys don’t have to offer coupon codes for people to step up in your bigger thing. But like you would, set the people that you do get there convert really high, and that’s what matters.

Aimee Cerka 37:51

Alright, this has been amazing. Let’s talk a little bit about the all treats, no tricks bundle, because, of course, it’s live the bundle that you’re hosting, and then I’m contributing in. So yeah, why don’t you share about that for a second, sure?

Kate Doster 38:04

So you can go to Kate doster com, forward slash treats. I’ll do it with and without the answer, just in case. Because, again, Mom proof, right? So we’ve got both for everyone. When you do, you’re going to put in your information to be able to unlock our bonus sort of bundle claim area. So because I know, like in our industry, like a lot of people do, do bundles, so they’re familiar, but again, you never know, and people tend to get overwhelmed with all the choices. We do have our Ultras, no tricks, bundle success roadmap.

We’re like, I’m going to tell you how to, like, get the absolute most out of this bundle. And everyone gets a copy of that completely for free. Like I said, it’s part of my birthday celebration. We have 40 gifts. I think it ends up being 41 but I’m like 40. So much cooler because I’m 40. So we’ve got about 40 to 41 gifts that we have over there. And we have, we really, really tried with this bundle.

You know, even though it’s free, right to only have one expert per topic pillar. So that way it’s not like, oh, it’s like, this is like eight free things on how to start a blog. It’s like, No, we have one blogger a person, right? We do have somebody that talks about monetizing a newsletter, but then, like, there’s newsletter templates, my notes for us apart where I’m like, That’s okay, right?

We got people talking about Instagram. We have somebody how to write your book in 30 days. That, course, is really nice, but we’ve got Aimee’s, which hopefully she’ll talk about hers as well. Over there, we have selling and Instagram DMS with automations, right? We have graphics that you can use to be able to sort of sell your products. We’ve got Pinterest templates. I try to always think to myself, What is something that somebody is going to need to either make their holidays easier or to really set themselves up for 2025 because I know 2024 wasn’t necessarily the easiest for a lot of people, right? So I’m like, okay, like, what kind of, like, cool things can we get in there? Um, I’m super happy we have, uh, stuff for service providers.

Usually, I work mostly with people that sell digital products, but we do have a certain section just for people that have clients, where it talks about, like, those awkward conversations that you have. Have to send with people like you’re raising your price. So we have free templates for that. We’ve got some legal templates in there. We have all sorts of stuff. It’s really amazing. It’s all 100% free, as long as you sign up by November 1 at 11:59pm Eastern, Standard Time, because that’s where I’m at. You have until the third, so until it actually turns my birthday on the fourth to be able to claim everything. So you’ve got, like, the weekend to go through everything. We have our system where it’s not just like an endless scrolling page. We have it where you can actually, like, search for Aimee’s name.

So that way you’re like, Where’s my stuff? Immediately she’s not showing up as the first three type Aimee, right? Get that in there. Grab Aimee’s gift. You can sort it by price, so what they normally would sell for on somebody’s website. You can sort it by we have big topic pillars, because since everyone has their own unique topic, I couldn’t be like Instagram, Pinterest, podcasting, like, go, go forever. So we broke it up into into four sections. So it’s like attraction, right? So if you need eyeballs, go over here.

If you need conversions, go here. If you need help creating your paid digital products, slash courses, slash all of that sort of stuff.

Go here, right? So we’ve got those sort of bigger sections. But again, you could just search, because this has an actual search bar. You can just search the word Instagram and it come up. You could, we do have it by type. So you could just go, I just want templates, and it’ll just show you everything that’s a template. I

Aimee Cerka 41:17

love it. I normally, whenever we send, when they send out the Hey, check your stuff. If there’s a search feature, I’m always searching my name because it makes it so much easier to find. But my money mindset, makeover blueprint is what’s going to be a part of this bundle. And honestly, it’s not a course that I normally put in a bundle. I don’t think I’ve ever actually included this one in a bundle. But reading through the description, it was like, you know, this is exactly where it needs to be.

So this conversation today, we talked a lot about mindset and money and the way to shift some of those things, and that is really what that course is designed to do, is take you from scarcity to success when it comes to your mindset. You know, we talk all the time about like it’s the spot where we never arrive. So I’m really excited to be able to share access to that.

Of course, we’ll put the link for the bundle down in the show notes if you’re listening to this after the fact, to make sure to go check it out, because I’m sure Kate’s got it all set up. He can grab free treats, whatever it is. New option I cannot talk all of a sudden, new offers, etc, but real quick, I know you host a podcast as well. Why don’t you give us names of that links, how to connect with you online. We’ll make sure all of that’s included so our listeners can connect with you Sure.

Kate Doster 42:34

So I have the do the brave thing online business podcast. I do do seasons, so at the time that we’re recording this, technically, we’re in a little bit of a hiatus. So the fall season is going to be a starting soon. So it will be started by the time this one comes up.

We’re going to be interviewing some of the VIPs from this bundle, actually, that we have coming up. So I will talk a lot about sales, about email marketing. One thing that I’ve really enjoyed doing, and I tend to in the summertime, is listeners will send me in questions, and I will just riff on a question. First, I say six minutes in air quotes, if you guys couldn’t tell them what talk or usually ends up going to eight. But I think summer and six just sounds really cool.

So we have our summer and six series, and people actually really, really love that. And so that’s pretty much now I’m coming up with all of the topic episodes. It’s all just going to be listener questions. Some of them will be six minutes. Others of them are a little bit longer. We have one on starting a podcast that ended up being like a whole master class pretty much for 40 minutes. But I do talk fast. I’ve been informed by many people.

I’m the only person they don’t listen to on one and a half x speed. I’m like, I always, I’ve been told that too. Speed, again. Maybe it’s because we’re from up north, right? Like, I know I’m in New England. I know you’re like, Chicago area, right? No, I’m

Aimee Cerka 43:46

down south. I’m in Texas.

Kate Doster 43:48

Oh, you’re in Texas, right? So I’m just like, oh God, in Texas, I they would have no clue what I’m saying. No clue at all. Aimee, so you can listen to that in there, but it’s one of those things. I talk fast because I get excited, and I get really excited, just like Aimee, when people realize that, like, it’s okay to make money, it is okay to tell people about your offer, right? Like, you don’t have to pressure them. Selling doesn’t have to be a nasty word.

Because, again, I’m not trying to convince anyone truly. I’m trying to, I don’t say I’m convinced them to buy, because I’ve never apologized. But like, I want them to be like, I’m really excited. I bought this again, I’m really excited for this fender ukulele. It’s the best I call her Roxanne. So I want people to think that about my products and my services. So we talk a lot about that.

Again, it’s one of those things, and this is why we absolutely love Aimee’s product in the bundle. Is if you have ever said to yourself, and I feel like this comes into play a lot with health and fitness, but it does for business, too. If you ever said to yourself, I know what I should be doing, but like, I don’t do it right, one of those things, like, I know I should be drinking like a gallon of water, but I don’t. Usually, unbeknownst to you, you want to play all these excuses.

Usually it’s your brain or your habit. They’re holding you back, which is why Aimee’s, course, definitely, guys, if it’s still open, go and download 1,000% me, you know you’re listening to this podcast. She’s great. But like, if you can’t get your brain to do something on repeat, it’s not going to work. And if you always think that, like, money is evil and you’re evil and you’re the worst, you might be able to break through that like once, but you’re not going to do it repeatedly, and you’re not going to actually change the core value underneath it. That’s why Aimee’s course is so powerful.

That’s why head over to https://katedoster.com/treats, so that way you can get it you’ve got until Friday, everyone. Oh, and if you want to hang out with me on Instagram, I, like many people with ADHD, go through spritz where I post every day and then I don’t post again for three weeks. Um, it happens. Um, so, but I really do like playing over on Instagram. It’s been pretty fun.

I think I got mad at it because I took a two week break, and then they put me in Instagram jail, not literally, but like, my views went like four. So you have to just remind yourself, at least those four people are are getting something out of this, right, which is why, anytime I follow my friends, I wouldn’t even look at their post. But I will always like just to give them some and give engagement, or be like, yes, like just something to help your friends out.

Aimee Cerka 46:08

So little boost. I love that you use that phrase if you know what to do and you’re just not doing it. I’m pretty sure that phrase is on the tripwire copy, because I talk about that all the time. Why

Kate Doster 46:19

I love your Aimee so much more. We were so excited. She said, Yes, it was all our and we you can. I don’t know if your Aimee is gonna use the sweat files we created, but like, because, you know, as a bundle host, you wanna let people to promote. I do have some Halloween pun filled ones, and I’m like, I really hope our contributors use these. I don’t believe that they will.

The registration page will have lots of Halloween puns. Um, granted, our branding, we’re like, it’s not like, it reminded me more of like, wicked rather than Halloween, per se, even though we do have orange, but this more relies on the purple and a little bit of green type scenario. So come

Aimee Cerka 46:55

on, I will definitely be using them. So if you are not on my list and you want to see, like, make sure you sign up, because I’ve enjoyed it.

Kate Doster 47:03

They’re fantastic.

Aimee Cerka 47:07

All right. Thank you so much, Kate. I’ll make sure all the links are down below in the show notes, and we’ll see you next time. Guys. Bye for now. If you love today’s episode, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

That way, you’ll receive new episodes right when they are released. Then leave a rating and review. It helps amazing people, just like you find the show faster. We’ll see you next week.