Evergreen Product Strategies with Nicki Krawczyk
[00:00:00] Made Remarkable Intro: Welcome back, and thanks for tuning in to the Made Remarkable podcast hosted by Kelli Nguyen. In today's episode, Kelli is talking with the copywriting queen, Nikki Krawczyk. who shares her expertise on automated sales systems.
Nikki shares insights into setting up automated sales systems with multiple opportunities for customers to purchase, captivating your audience's attention while their energy to learn is still high, and utilizing paid ads to drive traffic. Nikki and Kellee discussed the importance of tapping into deeper emotional desires in messaging. Setting real deadlines for sales and understanding customer needs to create a compelling evergreen product. Check out the show notes and transcripts for more information about NIKI. Exclusive promotional offers and any special links mentioned during the episode. Kellee loves connecting with listeners, so don't be shy.
Reach out on social media and together let's build a community that celebrates the remarkable. If you want to be notified every time a new episode hits the airwaves, just hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform.
Thank you for joining us today and always remember, you are made remarkable, destined to achieve the unimaginable. Now, let's get to the good part, introducing Kellee Wynn and Nikki Krawczyk.
[00:01:11] Kellee Wynne: Well, hello. Hello. I'm Kellee Wynn, artist, author, mentor, fiercely independent mother and wife, and the founder of a multiple six figure creative business. And I love my life, but I've been where you're at. I was slogging away at this art business thing for more than a decade. Once I finally connected with my true calling, unlock the magic of marketing and built a system that could scale, while I realize I can make an impact and make a substantial income, I'm finally running a business that I love and it makes all the.
Difference in the world. My biggest dream is to help you do the same. Let this podcast be the catalyst to your biggest success. You already have it in you because you are made remarkable.
[00:01:56] Kellee Wynne: We're just gonna just start off with Nicki on the podcast 'cause we were chatting and having fun and I'm just like, turn it on and let's keep it real. Yes, yes. Nicki and I are both like trying to get all the things done as business owners so that we don't have to like work full time while we're we're traveling.
So we were just commiserating and also very excited to travel. Nicki, where are you traveling to?
[00:02:19] Nicki Krawczyk: To Amsterdam. Very excited. First time there.
[00:02:22] Kellee Wynne: For fun or for work? Or for both?
[00:02:24] Nicki Krawczyk: Well, you know, here's the thing, right? Is I'm going for fun, but I'm also going with a couple of business owner friends. And Kellee, you know how this goes when you travel with business owner friends, you're going to end up talking or, but also at the same time too, I know I'm going to come back with 10, 000 new ideas and new programs.
And yeah, my core team, they're probably like, Oh, why don't you just take a break?
I know
[00:02:48] Kellee Wynne: exactly what my team says too. And then I'm like, nope, I have a couple of weeks. I'm going to go and do this thing. Yeah, but I love business. So I get it. And you will love Amsterdam. I love Amsterdam. So why don't you just tell us who you are since we're just already in this fun conversation.
[00:03:07] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Well, I'm a traveler who goes to Amsterdam.
, my name is Nicki Krawczyk and, our company is Nicki K Media, but we have a couple of different brands, , and my origin story, which I'll get to Give it to you kind of quick and dirty is my background is in copywriting. So I've been a professional copywriter for more than 20 years.
So, you know, Britain for like multi billion dollar companies, solopreneurs, all the sizes, but about 12 years ago now, I was working at a company and they needed me to train up a whole team of copywriters. Cause they were. Bringing out a new website and they needed a whole team of people to be writing.
And, uh, the crazy thing about copywriting is that, or I should say crazy. The, the absurd thing about copywriting is that, you can't like major in it in college, which doesn't make any sense. It turns out really well for me, but you can't major in it in college. So a lot of people are kind of trying to figure out.
Figure it out as they go. So what ended up doing was bringing on a bunch of writers and then kind of teaching them as I went and, you know, we'd meet every day and we would share samples and we talk things through and we talk principles and all that kind of stuff. And, at the end of it, once they were up and going and writing, I've been doing great work.
I thought, huh. I wonder if I could create a course and like, just sell it so that they could become professional copywriters too. And so I did, and then it was super easy immediately and it just sold out like crazy. No, of course not. That's never how it happens. Never how it happens. Like, yeah, I'll just put a course out into the world and people will find it and
love me.
[00:04:37] Kellee Wynne: That's exactly what I think a lot of my audience, my community. They think if you build it, they will come, but actually you have to build it and you have to market it and you have to keep building it. And then you will turn it into something.
[00:04:51] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes. And I have to say, thankfully, I did have some people that purchased it and would send me emails saying, you know, like, Oh my gosh, I lost my job.
And then I took your course and now I have this amazing new job. And I, you know, you, this has changed my life. Thank goodness for them. Cause they kept me going because from 2012. To like the end of 2018, yeah, I was just spinning my wheels. I was trying all the different things and I couldn't make consistent sales.
And then finally, you know, listening to what everybody says, cause this is an echo chamber, you know? And then finally toward the end of 2018, I went, okay, clearly not working, let's take a step back. And I thought, what do I know? I know messaging, like nobody's messaging me. Business, I know customer psychology.
I also know that I don't want to live launch. It's great for some people. It's not my jam. Um, I don't want to do like free Facebook groups and give away a whole bunch of free stuff, hoping that it's going to attract people. And so what I did was I created a system, an automated sales system, that, let me sell that course, that cut that professional copywriting course on autopilot.
And in 2018, I made, 40, 000, which was the most I had made on that course up till that point. I'm very proud of myself. But then in 20. 19, I made 268, 000 and in 2020, I made 1. 6 million. Okay. So yeah, just by putting it on the system, and certainly, you know, increasing in the, the, we did some ad spend because we've got more people into the system, but it was the system itself that did all the selling.
For me, and then, of course, since then, we have, we've expanded. We're now a multi seven figure per year company. And now I also I've taken that system and I've had business owner friends say like, Hey, that, that thing you do to sell your copywriting course, can you teach us how to do that? So toward the end of 2022, I built out that program.
To teach other course owners, uh, course creators and group program creators, and, you know, one to one service providers, people, anyone who sells things, basically,
um, how to do it. Right. Digital stuff online.
Yes. And that's what we now call our circuit sales system. Cause it's a, it's a closed circuit. Once people get in there, unless they unsubscribe, they're going to buy at some point.
[00:07:12] Kellee Wynne: Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm glad you're coming on the podcast at just the right time because I'm in the middle of getting ready for launch, which I am one of those weirdos that doesn't hate launching. And I do teach people how to launch, but I also am looking at like, this is a one time a year thing. I don't have the energy to do this.
Over and over and over again. Right. So how do I put the rest of my business on autopilot? And then I'll be, I'll be quite frank. I know who you are because you, your ads kept coming through my feed and. I'm so inundated with information that I'm like, okay, keep your head down and focus on what you're doing.
But then when I got the email, I'm like, okay, I really do want to talk to Nicki about this. Like I don't understand how does this really work and can I actually put evergreen products on autopilot?
[00:08:04] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Isn't that funny? I just show up in your feed and then I show up in your email.
I'm coming for everybody. Yeah, you know, here's the thing. Like you said, some people do love to live launch and if they do great. And if it's working for you, keep doing it. I don't know who said it originally, but if it ain't. Broke, don't fix it. If it's working, then great.
What we get is a lot of kind of refugees from the launching realm, you know, people who have launched for a while and all of a sudden they're like, Oh, I just can't, I can't do it. It's so tiring. It's so they find it so tiring and just exhausting. Or we get a lot of people too, who are, have been on that launch roller coaster where they put together a launch and it does really, really well.
And they think, okay, great. I finally figured it out. And then the next launch, they do everything exactly the same, like same messaging, same audience, same, you know, everything. And it tanks. And then, then they don't even know
[00:09:03] Kellee Wynne: where it happened to be an election year or something.
[00:09:05] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes, exactly. And, and it is.
I don't want to say dangerous cause I don't want to over, I don't want to overstate it, but I also don't want to understate it. So, you know what, let's just, I'm just going to say dangerous, uh, to have your income built on just that one launch, or, you know, some people launch twice a year or whatever, once a quarter doesn't, doesn't matter, but if you are banking on that one week to make all of your revenue for For a quarter or half a year for a year.
[00:09:37] Nicki Krawczyk: You're in big trouble if it doesn't happen. And I've seen I've seen that break businesses, people have to get out of it because all of a sudden they don't have any income. And what I have discovered is what for me, at least a much better way to do things is to have an automated, much more predictable selling cadence.
[00:09:59] Kellee Wynne: Okay, so in order to do that, we need a business model that has the kind of products that can be put on autopilot. Right? So if you have a start date and an end date to something, You might not be able to run and get cash in all year long, but you might still at least be able to build your list.
[00:10:21] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. So here's the thing is we actually do have some people that don't have a perpetually running program. Like they run it once or twice a year, but what they do is they run The, they run what we call the system, the circuit, they run their circuit all year long and they get people the ability to, to buy into that program to secure their spot for the next cohort of it.
Yeah, now it's requires, it requires a little bit more effort because then you have to, you just have to keep an eye on it. And once the cohort fills out, fills up, then you have to start saying, okay, you know, April's full. But you could buy into October or whatever it is, but you could still just because your program isn't automated, doesn't mean that you're selling for it.
Can't be automated, mostly automated.
[00:11:06] Kellee Wynne: Yeah. Okay. So you're converting me slowly. But when I got you on here for, I'm like, I don't know how to do this. If I'm not launching and, and I do have things that are open and I have many clients that have things that are open year round. And I'm sure so many listeners have never even tried to launch their course or their, or their digital offer.
They just say, okay, here's my product. And then they leave it open and they're like, why am I getting no sales? It's because it's a continual process to bring fresh eyes in and make an offer. And a lot of the things you're talking about resonate with me. There's messaging and understanding your customer's journey really well.
It's designing a product that works for your, for your customer to come in and say, yes, this is exactly what I'm looking for. And then there's that whole nurturing that you have to do with it. And most people I see out there, especially all the creatives of ours, they create a course, they put it out there and they're like, where's all the money.
[00:12:07] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes. Isn't that just going to flow to me? It can when you set up a system. Yeah. I think the, one thing you mentioned is, one part of like traditional evergreen. So obviously we know what a launch is and I do agree that a launch, especially for someone who's brand new can be a great thing. But then the other, if people burn out on launching, they tend to think, Oh, okay.
Well, I'm just going to evergreen. I'm just going to evergreen. And that's usually, that's like one of two ways. One, like you said, where people just put it up on their websites, put their course up for sale on their websites and then go great. Now people can buy it whenever they want to. But the problem is, is that when people can buy something at any time, they don't.
Exactly. Human beings don't take action if we don't have a deadline. So I know, I understand how people are like, well, it's, it's very, it's not pushy and it's like so helpful. Cause they can take it whenever they want to, but they just don't. There's a reason why all of the, all of the, the sales have end dates.
You don't must use this coupon by this date or must be. Because we don't take action if we don't have a deadline. And then the other one is this, the kind of evergreen funnel, which is usually, all right, get people on your list, give them some kind of mechanism to like teach them a whole bunch of stuff and then give them offer.
And then if they don't buy, which is most of them kind of leave them languishing on your list, probably until you get sick of the low conversions and you launch again. And the, the problem is, is that. Teaching fundamentally is not a great way to make sales. Teaching is a great way to teach.
Teaching is a great way to convey information, but it's not a great way to make sales. We tend to lean on it because we're like, well, I created a course, so like, I know how to teach stuff. And we're like, oh, okay, I'll have to just teach more, and then people are going to buy. But that's, it doesn't, that's not how it works.
Learning is a fundamentally energy draining activity.
[00:13:55] Kellee Wynne: Right. My coach, she has this philosophy. She's like, what happens when you go to the restaurant and they give you bread and you eat the whole basket? You don't need the rest of dinner. Yes, exactly. And that's kind of the same thing when you're like, I teach, I teach, I teach for free.
And I have been. Working with my clients and all of the people who students who come through my programs to learn better systems, but a lot of it's more about speaking to their heart and their needs and then teaching on the inside of a program.
[00:14:24] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Because it's when people first interact with us, they're at their peak excitement, right?
They just signed up for us for email. They're there at the peak moment of excitement, which is great, except we have to remember that. Motivation and excitement are their chemical states. They're not meant to stay that way. So they are going to start to wane as soon as they are on our list. And the problem is, is that first of all, their energy is naturally.
Draining that, that excitement, that kind of activation energy is naturally, naturally decreasing. But then when we also give them a quote unquote sales mechanism that teaches, which for them, again, learning as an energy draining activity, we're taking this excitement and we're pulling it way down and then at this low point, we're going, Hey, do you want to buy this?
And so to your point, we're fighting against the fact that they did learn something and there's a large portion of an audience that goes. Well, I learned this little thing, so let me like really focus on this little thing and then maybe I'll come back for that big thing later. Oh, or the other portion of the Exactly.
Or the other portion of the audience who goes, oh, I have this little thing and this makes sense to me. So you know what, I bet I can figure out that big thing. I don't need to buy it. Right? But on top of that, you have even the people who, who paid attention were there for it. Learning is energy draining.
It takes that excitement away from getting to that solution. I mean, it's like, going to school. Like, most of us did not get super excited to go into school and learn. Even like if you went to college and you get to choose the classes, you would rather sleep in. We're buying courses constantly, right?
Constantly. We always want to see what's out there. And I don't know about you, Kellee, but one of the things that I do all the time, and I see this among students and quite frankly, most people I know is we buy a course. We're like, great. Awesome. I've got the course for it. And I'm like, Oh, I got the course.
Now I should have to do something with the course. No, exactly. Yeah, shoot. I forgot about that part. And then I have to go into my schedule and schedule out times on a, in a sauna to like go through the course. And that's what people experience, but that's what they're experiencing with our free stuff.
Right. I don't want that with our free stuff. We, all of the stuff that we give them before the purchase should be things that encourage that excitement should be things that, Open their eyes to new possibilities should be things that help them understand why they haven't been successful in the past and why they can be with what we have to give them.
And that teaching is, of course, super important, but that has to happen after the purchase when we have more mechanisms to, like, encourage them to take action and stick with it.
[00:17:06] Kellee Wynne: Well, so one of the things that I love to do is help people design the right kind of freebie offer to get them in. Are you working in a circuit system that doesn't require like that opt in offer?
[00:17:21] Nicki Krawczyk: No, it does. It absolutely does. But what we put together is what we call our light bulb video. And this is where we, Give the best the best of the best in this video, and we get through, like I said, instead of doing the teaching, we do what we call paradigm shifts where we can we can talk a little bit more about that if you want to, but it's the first interaction with them, but at the same time, because they're at that moment of peak excitement, we're also going to take the opportunity to sell to them. There are a lot of people that say, like, oh, no, you can't immediately sell to people because, what do they say? There's this metaphor.
Oh, the metaphor of, selling to someone immediately is like going up to them at the bar and saying, hey, um, Uh, you're really cute. Do you want to get married? Like, oh, ho, ho, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, oh, that's totally right. That makes sense. Except that's not really how it is at all. It's not like you're coming up to them.
These people opted into your list. It's more like them coming up to you at the bar. And at the same time, too, We're not asking any of our customers to get married to us. This is not a lifetime commitment. You know, a program is not that huge of a commitment. So you can, you absolutely can sell and nurture at the same time.
And that's actually the most effective way to do it.
[00:18:36] Kellee Wynne: Okay. I like that, especially because I love the idea of being able to connect with. And make income all year round rather than just once in a while. So a lot of the power in evergreen comes from the way that you present the product in the first place.
Yeah, because like I said, I have so many people are like, okay, I made this course and I put it up here. So, for with the copywriting background, you really understand the customer psychology and how to write the words that compel them to make a decision sooner. But if they. No, this is an evergreen product.
They know it's not closing anytime soon. How do we get them to have some sort of a trigger point that says, okay, this purchase now I can understand someone's really feeling like desperate for a solution for a problem. Then it doesn't really matter when it comes through their feed. They're like, yes, that's the 1 that I need, but I have personally been in those funnels.
With deadlines and incessant emails and then you purchase one thing and then they have like six more things in the funnel for you to decide on and I'm like, I think I just got put through a funnel hell and I actually don't want to have anything to do with this person anymore. So there's a fine line of.
I'm giving you something you need versus I am just bombarding you with it.
[00:20:02] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I would say that, that our program is kind of the, the, we don't really call ourselves evergreen because we're kind of the best of live launching without live launching because we still get that excitement and those conversions and we get that predictability of evergreen, but without the low conversion, we actually don't.
Um, but yes, you absolutely have to have deadlines for your offers. And by the way, they have to be real deadlines. I'm sure that you have had the same experience where you're like, I'm kind of interested in buying that. Like you leave the tab open on your computer and you get the, this is the last chance email from whoever they are.
And you're like, Oh, yeah. And you're like, I don't know if I want it that badly. And then you look over at the tab and you're like, Well, now, wait a minute. This seems to still be available. Okay. Well, I'm just going to keep this tab open and, there's actually one, I have the tab open right now. Cause I'm kind of interested in it, but like, I don't know, maybe if I have an extra glass of wine one night, I'll end up buying it.
But my favorite way to buy anything. Yeah. Right. Too many glasses of wine. It's all just a fun surprise. Look at what I bought myself. Yum! But so they have to be real, they have to be deadlines and they have to be real deadlines. So what should have happened in that interaction is I would have gone over to the tab just to see and it would have redirected and said, oops, sorry, you missed this offer.
Because then I know that that seller has integrity. And in the future, if they give me a deadline, I'm actually going to pay attention to that deadline. And, and it's going to make it a little bit more important for me, but so you can set up systems so that everybody is on their own deadline based on when they opt in.
And they have, you give them your best stuff, best opportunities, all that, and you will have a lot of people that purchase right away, because you're, you're going to create a really amazing system. But there are going to be some people who just, it's just not the right time. You know, maybe they just genuinely don't have the cash and maybe they genuinely don't have the time or whatever.
You will set up the system so that, all right, that sales period will close. And, in the meantime, there will be, whatever normal emails you send out, you know, oh, we blog posts, podcast episodes, all that kind of stuff. And then after a certain period of time, you're going to set it up so that another Automated sales period opens up.
So it's another opportunity for them to purchase and get back into that program. And then again, if that's not the right time for them, it'll shut down. And, but what they will have the opportunity to purchase when it's right for them, but you never have to think about it again, once you build out your circuit.
All you have to do is focus on just getting people into it. The circuit is going to do all the work and it's going to automate it. Like I said, it's a closed circuit. Once they're in, they're going to keep going around until they're done. Right. And how do we get people into the circuit? Magic. No. Uh, no, actually, really, it's not magic at all.
It's the same stuff that you do to get people on your list now, right? It's, you do your organic stuff. You post on social, you guest on people's podcasts, you highlight it on your own podcast if you have one. , you do collaborative things with other people. You do, it's, you. Post wherever, YouTube, however, whatever your normal channels are, you do that, but you also direct people into your circuit, which starts out with a free video, free, useful video.
And then too, if you want to, you can start getting into paid ads. I will say that paid ads are you know, they're obviously challenging. If you're going to do it, learn it and, or get some help. Right. But the nice thing too, is that it's a lot easier to figure out paid ads when you're literally looking on a daily basis to see what your, what your opt in numbers are like and what your sales numbers are like.
It's a lot easier to figure out paid ads than when you're trying to figure out paid ads and budget for one big launch. Right.
[00:23:53] Kellee Wynne: Because you're running the paid ads. Year round, you can say, okay, I spent this much, but I made this much. We're in the, we're in the red for this.
[00:24:03] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. And you can fix things too.
You know, you can go, Oh, let's test this. And you can see how it performs. Whereas when you're running ads for a launch. You test something and then you go, Ooh, I don't know. Okay. Well, we're getting people on the list, but I don't know if they're actually going to be the people who buy, I guess we'll just have to find out in two weeks after the launch.
And, you know, you can, you can refine things. Yeah.
[00:24:26] Kellee Wynne: Right. I know that you work with all different kinds of like online course creators and coaches and stuff, bore the art and makers and creative industry. People who are offering something that generally speaking, isn't an urgent need. It's a more of a desire to learn how to make art, learn how to make a product, learn how to create, although there are sometimes, you know, People in my audience who are really helping artists get past that hump of figuring out how to become more of a professional artist, and that might be a little more urgent, but most of it is in the, in the want not need category.
[00:25:07] Nicki Krawczyk: You know, though, I think that I think that a lot of things fall into the want not need category. I mean, even our program, there are people who are perfectly like yourself, perfectly fine doing live launching, but they might want to do something different. They might want more consistency. It's a matter though, of in your messaging of taking that want and showing people how good you are Deep of a want that actually is, and it's part of what we do in the system.
I always say that I couldn't I couldn't have taken the copywriting out of it. If I tried because it's my background, but we go through the messaging step by step by step. And actually we have in our student early Facebook group. I have brought in. Copywriters and train them specifically on the circuit sales system.
So our copywriters are in there giving feedback every single day on students messaging, because it is so, so crucial, but I think part of what it is to make something compelling is to get at that deeper emotional desire. Why is it? Cause yeah. Okay. Well, I want to make art.
Sure. But guess what? If someone wants to make art, especially with art, there's probably something a lot. Deeper to that. There's probably something about, and you know, this is just, I was going to say spitballing. No, this is 100 percent myself and my best friend who are like, we need to set up some time to like, do something creative.
That feeling of, of getting to the end of the day and just knowing that you have, you've produced spreadsheets or you've produced it. Word documents, or you've talked to people all day, but you haven't created, or you consumed all day that you haven't created and you haven't created and you get to the end of the day, you get to end of the week.
And all of a sudden you get to the end of the month and you go, Oh my gosh, I feel separate from myself as a creative person. What does it even mean to be a creative person? Who am I? As you tap into that, it starts to get a lot less about being a want and actually a lot closer to a need. There's so many things that we think, but in order to live a fully, a fully rounded, well rounded life, we need to tap into things like art.
We need to tap into, there's, when we think of the things that we buy every day, like people drop what, 1, 200, 1, 600 for an iPhone, which is, Literally a piece of glass. It is a piece of glass from Apple. And thank you, Apple. I use mine every day, you know, probably multiple times an hour, but it's a piece of glass that we'll all pay a whole lot of money for.
But the thing is, is that, that the people that you and I work with, they're creating programs that actually sure they might be based on a, on a desire, but they're creating programs that actually can make changes in people's lives and changes, certainly changes for the better that have a whole lot more impact than like.
[00:27:56] Kellee Wynne: Well, you're speaking my language because this is something that I really home in on with my clients is we can't just say, hey, I'm going to teach you how to do X, Y, Z and call it a day because that's not why someone purchases. There are a million jelly plate printing. Courses out there, which if you don't know what it is, you should learn because Nicki, you'll become completely obsessed with it by the time you're done.
But why is your course different? How is it going to meet the needs of your customer? What is it that they're feeling inside? Where is that? That deep desire might be a nicer word than pain point, but honestly, the pain point, what is the problem you're solving? And once you can start getting into that kind of language, that's when things start changing because people are like, Oh, this isn't surface level anymore.
You're tapping into something deeper within side of me.
[00:28:49] Nicki Krawczyk: Exactly. Exactly. And I think that, some people I'll talk to, to business owners often and they go, Oh, you know, I'm afraid of being salesy. I'm afraid of being pushy. I'm like, I get it. Nobody wants to be pushy. Nobody wants to be pushed.
Nobody wants to be sold to. It's when you get to that emotional messaging that you're actually, yeah, you're not maybe holding somebody's hand. But you're making an emotional connection with them. And it's much more effective for selling, frankly, because they understand that you're a person who genuinely cares about them.
And it also makes it that much easier to sell because you don't, you don't have to be pushy. All you're doing is in your messaging, effectively saying like, Hey, I see you. I see what you're going through and I have something that can help you. And I would love to be the person To help you with that, please join me if you'd like to, it's so much more authentic of a way to sell than just to be like, Ooh, here's my sales page, you know,
[00:29:44] Kellee Wynne: I look at me with my Lambo.
[00:29:47] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes. Oh my God, please. It's amazing. It's so easy to look to look. Splashy on, on online, right. To look successful on Instagram. And you just go, what are these, what are these people doing? And best of luck to the people who follow them and are like, yes. Oh, I want a Lambo too. Like, okay.
[00:30:08] Kellee Wynne: You do realize that they probably drove into a rich neighborhood and stood in front.
[00:30:12] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. That's somebody else's car. Exactly. That's someone else's car. Exactly. It's not their car. Yeah.
[00:30:19] Kellee Wynne: But, but when it comes to. Well, when we're online and we're creating something for somebody else, which is really who I work with. If you're creating something for somebody else, usually service base, and you're creating a business, not just I've made this thing.
I'm selling this thing because. Anyone can like get up and just be like, I'm an artist and also I sell my art, but it's different to say I'm a creative and I'm creating a business. So when you start creating a business, you actually have to have a customer in mind rather than being self centric, which says I made some art.
I hope you like my art. Here's my art for sale. It's different to say I'm creating. Whatever it is, my art, my course, my digital products, my coaching program, because I am actually helping somebody else get the thing that they desire. Right? So even if you're making art that you love, what you're thinking about, like when you're selling is how is somebody going to feel having real original art on their wall?
How is somebody going to feel? Being able to come into a community of like minded people and be encouraged to try something creative that they've never done before. Thinking about how the customer's journey is going to be with you takes the sleaziness out of selling because you really do care about their outcome.
Yeah, that needs to be in all of our marketing, whether we're doing a launch or we're doing it in a circuit or we're doing it on Instagram or we're doing it on YouTube or it's in our newsletter. If every time you're showing up, you're really thinking about what happens when the money is exchanged.
That's an energy exchange. And what you want them to part with is pure satisfaction that they gave you money in the first place because they got exactly what they wanted. In order for them to get exactly what they want. You have to know what it is that they want and deliver that.
[00:32:08] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes, exactly. And I think that's a big mistake that a lot of, uh, I was going to say a lot of newer, but no, I see a decent number of business owners at any range is they try to sell people on what they want to sell them versus what the person wants to buy.
And that just never works. It absolutely never works. We have to really tap into our audience. And understand them at a very fundamental level. And quite frankly, too, we need to tap in at least once a year. We should be when actually market research is built into the course. And one of the things that I say is like, you're going to want to try to skip this.
You're going to try and you're gonna be like, no, no, no. I sent a survey before, or no, I had calls a while ago, but you probably didn't ask them the right questions. We need to understand what's going on with our target audiences. And the best way to do that is to talk to them in person. You're not getting the depth of answers that you need from a survey.
The surveys absolutely do have a place. We have surveys that we send out regularly, but if you're looking to do true market research, you have to get on a call with them. And you have to do, you have to talk to people who have purchased. You have to talk to people who haven't purchased. And if at all possible, it's also good to talk to people who have not yet Purchased who are on your list or in your orbit, but they haven't had the opportunity to purchase yet.
Cause you're going to get 3 different sets of answers from all of them and your marketing should, uh, your marketing should factor in all of those groups. And then again, you should be to, we all should be doing these calls once a year. At least things change the environment changes. And for all of us, and I hear this a lot too.
I'm sure you do the, well, my, my audience, my target audience is me. So, like, I know what they need to hear because it was me before I solved my problem. It was me before it's not. Your target audience is not you anymore. You are the target audience. Are the person you have, you have made the transition. You have made you had the transformation.
You're a new person in a new place and you think things think things in a different way and you speak in a different way. You use different words, different phrases. You need to find out what your target audience is thinking and saying, and saying to themselves. And also on top of that, we have to do it once a year because society changes.
Exactly.
[00:34:24] Kellee Wynne: I mean, what you were doing when you were first selling your copywriting course Compared to now. And you're like, yeah, I tried all the things and I was just listening to the rules, but we didn't, you know what the, the level and what we learn now to sell an online business is completely different from a decade ago before it was like, create your ideal client avatar.
What purse does she carry? Where does she shop and how many kids does she have? And now it's like, why were we even listening to that crap? Because it doesn't work. It's like. Where is she stuck? Why does she need you in the first place?
How does she feel at the end of the day? What's her environment like?
Is she stuck in the suburbs and wishing to escape? Is she out in the middle of nowhere and wishing she could connect? Like you gotta know her. And yes, she may have been you, but you've changed. You're probably out of touch with her now.
[00:35:21] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes. 100%. 100%. Yeah, I
[00:35:24] Kellee Wynne: mean, it just business changes so rapidly. So if you're in it for building a business for actually creating something that's sustainable.
It's time to look at it like a business, which means really understanding your customer inside and out and building systems that work and continuously deliver, but adapt and change in order to continue to make income.
[00:35:46] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Well, and I will say that I think that's probably one of the biggest mistakes I made until I stepped back and created the system in 2018 is I wasn't treating my business like a business I was selling a very high quality course that clearly worked, but I wasn't.
I wasn't treating it like a business. I wasn't putting on the CEO hat. I wasn't thinking about the things that I need to think about. I wasn't actually looking at my numbers. You know, you, you and I both remember the days when they'd be like, you can just spend 10 on Facebook a day and make so many sales.
And, and I was like, okay, great. I'm going to spend Spend 10 on Facebook. And then I go, well, that's weird. I'm spending 10 on Facebook and I'm only making a sale once every three or four days. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Just all of the stuff that we have to go. No, no, no. If as a business owner, you have to sit down and go, okay, how many people am I getting in?
How many people are taking action? What is my price point that they are taking out? All of that kind of stuff. Yeah.
[00:36:46] Kellee Wynne: What is your customer acquisition cost? Exactly.
[00:36:49] Nicki Krawczyk: Exactly.
[00:36:49] Kellee Wynne: And I'm saying that word and I'm pretty sure most of my audience is like, what does customer acquisition cost? In fact, I'm not even sure if I know whatever green And then I have to stop and just say, just in case you've gotten through this far in the podcast and you have a Google search to that, just think of an evergreen tree that's always green year round.
And that's what we want in our business as a product that is all on, usually on demand, but you say that you have ways of doing the circuit system, that it is not on demand, that it can be a guided program. But nonetheless, an evergreen is. Is really literally meant to be something that somebody can walk into and take any day of the year always available to some degree or another.
Now, as you've said, you've got to have some sort of, deadline or a limited quantity. Or another urgency to put in place for them to make a decision. But I do love the fact that you're talking about the copywriting can overcome a lot of that anyway, and just have somebody go, you know, deadline or no deadline, I'm ready to purchase now, because this is exactly what I've been looking for.
[00:37:59] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes, but I will say that you will see so much better results with the deadline. I would never sell anything. Except maybe like a tiny little add on, like, I don't know, 7 add on thing. Like here, have a template that's already in the course. And if you want it by, if you don't, whatever, I would never sell anything without a deadline.
Absolutely. Never because we, as human beings, we make a decision. When we have a deadline and maybe the decision is that they're not going to buy from us. That's fine, but we are, we are helping our audience when we encourage them to make a decision one way or the other. Also, by the way, it's really hard to know if what you have to offer is converting it.
And when we say converting in this sense, I mean, people purchasing it, um, It's really hard to know whether or not it's converting. If people can buy at any time when you have a sales window. And again, it can be, a continually moving sales window. Cause when people come in our circuit, they each get their own deadline.
It's constantly running. But when you have that window, you can say, okay, yeah, you know what? This is converting at three or 4%. This is great out of all the people that entered our list. We've got a three or 4 percent conversion rate. The standard conversion rate is like one to 2%. So great. We like to see our students at three to four.
Some, we have a lot higher, but we like to see it like three to four. Cause those are numbers we can all build a business on, but, and then there are other things that you can do to sell them afterwards. But anyway, Don't want to get ahead of myself, but when you have that window, you can see, all right, I have this stuff.
I can see who bought during the sales period. But if you don't have that window to, to encourage them to make that decision, make that purchase. It's really, really hard to figure out if your message, if your message is converting, if they can come in and buy it. Anytime, then you can't, it's really hard to measure your messaging and measure the methods that you've been using to get people on your list.
And whether that's ads or whether it's doing organic traffic or any of that kind of thing. It's a service to us as a business owner to have a deadline, but it's also a service to our audience members to have a deadline.
[00:40:02] Kellee Wynne: Very important information to know and understand. Hopefully this is enlightening enough for Especially for the artists who don't want to build their whole business based off of a signature course that they launch once a year.
I know many artists who have created beautiful hubs with many different, like, Pick and choose types of art courses or a good signature course that they just want available all year round. So considering how to turn it into an evergreen or using a circuit sales system, that is your proprietary information, the way that you teach it, Nicki, is just a whole new way of thinking.
I think for most creatives in business to say, okay, I could do this In a different way.
[00:40:51] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Well, and it's, it's, you know, I, I totally understand this idea of like, well, I want them to be able to purchase it whenever they want it. But here's the thing. There's a good chance that when they got on, when they get on your list, like I said, they're at that peak moment of excitement.
So there's a good chance that this is actually. The best time for them, or at least a very good time. Cause they took the action of getting on your list. There was something in your messaging that they felt called to join into. So there's a good chance that right now is the best time. But if you don't give them a really effective.
A really effective offer. They're not going to take action and then they're gonna kind of forget. But like I said, for those people who it isn't the exact right time, you can have other sales windows that open up relatively regularly, you can decide when that is, but that allows people, it gives people deadlines, but it also allows them a little bit of flexibility.
It's not the last time ever that they will have this opportunity, but hey, if you want to take advantage of this and you want to do this before, you know, whatever, three months are up, then now is the time to get started. So you can absolutely support them in doing it when it's best for them, but you're still giving them a deadline to take action.
[00:42:06] Kellee Wynne: What would you say, though, for someone who, who, I'm just going to throw a wrench in your, your probably total expertise, and you've been doing this long enough to see the results, but for me, I need to get to know someone before I want to spend money on a program. It's rare that an offer comes through that I don't know.
Who that person is, and even if I know who they are, when they show up in my inbox and I get an email from them, like, twice a day for the next 6 days. And I'm like, what the heck? Like, I need to shut this down. I need a little bit more of a slow roll because I live a busy life. I don't even have time to spend.
Forever getting to know you or not forever, like all this time right now to get to know you I am that person that needs to be warmed up a little bit more. There are occasions because I have a big enough budget that if something that's under a couple hundred dollars comes through and I'm like, oh, this would be interesting to try.
I'm willing to put money in it, but there's no way like, these bigger programs that you're going to be able to work me into it until I've got. So you and see, and I don't have time to take your freebie or your low ticket item right now. Like, you know, I need to schedule the time.
[00:43:17] Nicki Krawczyk: And there are absolutely, there are people like you, and that's part of why we have those later on sales period.
So they can start, they can get in if they want to, they can consume our video with our fast action pricing. And when I say our, I mean, all of anybody who's running on a circuit, they can consume, but also too, it's not one of those. There's so much that we do in digital marketing that like penalizes people for having lives, you know, that, that the, Hey, show up at six o'clock tonight.
And if you can't show up at six o'clock tonight, there's going to be no replay. So you better be here at six o'clock tonight. It's like, when I signed up earlier today, I thought six o'clock was going to be great, but then now my friend's dropping her kids off here and I have, you know, whatever. Right.
Exactly. Like it penalizes people. So one of the things that we do is that our, our video is it's on demand. There's a deadline to watch it, but we encourage people to split it up over a couple of days, really get the chance to get into it. And we send a couple of emails to remind, you know, email a day to remind them of what it is and also send any additional resources.
And then into. You know, the, the next period in the circuit, but there is a way that you can give people your best sales information, but also not push it on them, serve it up to them in a way that's, it's good for them. Easy for them to be able to consume it. But like you said, we got a lot of people that purchase right away.
They're always going to be some people that are like, nah, I opted in, but now it's not the right time. It's fine. No problem. Stay on our list because we have a lot of other resources, you know, and also too, as part of those resources, I'm going to be sending you our regular podcast episodes, but you're also going to get our podcast episodes of all of the student success stories that people put their circuit into action.
And are seeing amazing results. So by the next time the sales period opens up, you are, now you feel warmer, now you feel more excited and you want to be a part of the program. Whether that's the first sales period, the second or any of those kinds of things. Yeah. So we can work with, we we've set it up to work with as many different kinds of people as we can, as we can possibly support, Fundamentally, if someone is not supposed to be in your program, right?
If they're, if they're not your target audience, or if they genuinely can't afford, you know, for our copywriting program, we'll sometimes get people writing in and being like, oh, I'm really having trouble paying for groceries this month, but I want to do your program. We're like, no, no, no, no, no, please.
Please do not buy this program. This is not a great choice for you. Please get some stable income and then come back to us. Here's some free resources in the meantime, they're always going to be people like that who are excited to get on your list, but for your genuine target audience, if they're on your list, there's no reason why you shouldn't either be able to sell your main program to them at some point, or at least.
Sell them something within your ecosystem. Again, automated as part of your circuit that, that helps them find some kind of solution. That's what we're all here to do is to help our target audience find a solution, but also do that in a way that works for us as business owners. When you have something like this, that does your selling for you, you know,
as a business owner, we have so many hats and there's the, all right, we have to get people onto the list, right? So I post on social and maybe run ads and, and then, oh, okay. Sales. So I have to, I have to sell people. I've sell people and then, oh, The people who end up getting the least amount of time in that model are often the people who've paid for it, you know, which is terrible because they should be getting the most time and effort.
So when you have an automated sales system, yes, you can, you can get people in and you certainly have to put, put time toward that. But then you can spend so much more time giving the best of yourself to the people who most deserve it. The people who paid to, to learn from you and be a part of your community.
[00:47:05] Kellee Wynne: Oh, that makes so much more sense for sure. Because oftentimes as business owners, we do spend so much time on the forward facing stuff. And the social media, the networking, the blah, blah, blah. And I like that part, but I also know that that drains me enough that I'm not going to deliver at my highest level when I actually love getting on my coaching calls.
I love being able to show up and help the people who've already said, yes, I'm ready for this. I would say probably the other question I have for you, is what can you tell these young, new, baby business owners about the big, bad, scary Facebook ads?
[00:47:52] Nicki Krawczyk: You know what, here's the thing. I think the first thing to say is that you don't have to start out with Facebook ads.
You don't necessarily even have to use them. It really depends on how big you want your business to be. If you want your business to be into the multiple six figures, seven figures, multiple seven figures a year, there's a very good chance that you're going to have to incorporate ads just because you need that volume of people coming into, to your ecosystem.
You just need to. Um, but I think something to think about is, you know, people go, Oh, I don't want to do ads, but here's the thing. No matter what you are paying. To get people on your list, you're either literally paying with money or you're paying with time and energy. And you're going to get to a point in your business where you have more money than you have time and energy.
And it makes sense to, and even, even before you get there, once you know that you have something that will sell to the right audience, you have to kind of lean into. Getting it out to, to more people via paid ads. And you do absolutely have to be really careful. I would say that even if you're going to hire somebody to do it for you, take a course, so you understand what's going on.
[00:48:59] Kellee Wynne: Thank you for share because these supposed, ads managers. Don't always know what they're doing.
[00:49:07] Nicki Krawczyk: We, let me tell you, I had an agency for a good couple of years and then things just in the middle of last year, we would just, I wasn't happy with where things were going. Still very much like them and, and recommend them, but like, it just wasn't right for us.
So I brought it back in house and I was doing it for like, Four, five, six months, no longer. It's April now, when we're recording this, it's April. So it, a very long time getting close to a year now. And that was because I knew that I could do it. And I wanted to, to play around with some of the messaging and I wanted to kind of get things back on track, but that it's a big job.
And so we have been looking to hire an ads manager for. Four or five months now, and there are so many people that look great on a resume. But when you ask them questions, it's very clear that they don't know what you're talking about, or they haven't looked into your business. Like, okay, well, what questions do you have for me about my business?
Oh, like you didn't even prepare. Anyway. So I could really go off on a tangent, but yes, exactly.
[00:50:12] Kellee Wynne: A lot of, a lot of small business owners are afraid of spending money on ads, but once you know your funnel or your circuit or your product or your whole system works and you've tested it with just organic and you're like, okay, I can see that when people land here, they're getting the message.
The message is right. They're making a decision. My conversion rates are higher than the. They're high enough to, for, you know, the viability, like conversions, meaning how many people land on your offer and make a decision to purchase is usually only one or 2%. So if you're getting higher than that, you know, that the flow is working, you know, that the back end of either a free or a low ticket item, they're staying on the list long enough to get to know you and maybe make the next purchase.
Okay. Organically, we've already tested all of this organically. We already know. Customers are coming back completely satisfied with the product. And I don't know why so many people, even after that, and I'm included, will wait years and years, and you're still afraid of the ad. And yet, sure. What I'm really excited about is those who've joined my program, the league, they started off with ads right from the get go, because as soon as they had it tested and they knew it worked, they were like, Oh, They're putting fuel on the fire and they're just seeing that it's working for them.
And that's why the next step we all want to take and we just have this discussion this week was okay I have certain products that I do like doing a live launch for but everything else I'd like to put it up on this is automation And in your case, it's a circuit and there's deadlines. And I like that.
And that's why I was like, okay, I want to talk to Nicki because I want to see how this could work in our industry. And for my higher end clients that are already making multiple six figures. Now, how do you actually with a, an art business, you know, most people are just like, I'd like to make enough money to cover my art supplies, but I want them to shift how they think and think like a business that says, I want to make enough money that I can retire with bank.
And that's what I'm doing. And that's what I'm teaching people to do to say, I can take care of my family's needs I can take care of my parents aging needs. I can take care of my kids or my kids with health problems. I can take care of my own health problems. I can finally travel.
I can put the roof on my house. Oh my goodness. Those old 30 year old bathrooms. I can finally replace them because I am worthy to make this money. So now I'm thinking like a business I'm willing to invest in myself and my business and my learning. to make multiple six figures or more. I also am willing to take chances on building out systems like this that will start growing and making this kind of money.
And I think the only way to make that kind of money is to get serious about the business, be willing to spend money on ads, be willing to implement and it's hard work. I know that you're not going to ever. Just suede someone and say, Oh, it's easy. We'll just build a quick, simple circuit. It takes work, whatever system you decide to do, but when you get it right, everything from that point on gets a lot easier.
[00:53:23] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:53:26] Kellee Wynne: So. This is my call to everybody. Let's make it a real business. We're not playing with our Fisher Price cash register anymore. Mhmm, mhmm.
[00:53:37] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Well, and I love what she said there because it's, it does take work, and it does, it's, all of the best things in life are outside of our comfort zones.
Absolutely. Every single one of them is outside of the comfort zone, but you have to do it anyway. Go. All right. Ooh, I'm really nervous about giving ads a try, but okay. You know what? I'm going to follow the steps and I'm going to learn it. Oh, I'm really nervous about trying a new system for selling my program.
Okay. But you know what? There's a whole step by step system, lots of support. So I'm going to lean in and learn it. It's. Okay. And you know, the thing about being a business owner is that we, we don't really have the luxury of sitting back and being like, Oh, I hope nice things happen to me. We just don't. If we want to be able to keep this going, we have to go, okay, I'm nervous about this, but you know what?
I'm going to do it anyway.
[00:54:28] Kellee Wynne: I'm going to show up on social media. I'm going to create that email list. I'm going to continue to communicate with my customers. And like you said, your job isn't done just because you have a system set up. You're still showing up on podcasts. A guest here on Made Remarkable.
You're still showing up on social media. And some of that may, it can be alleviated because I know when I run ads, I don't have to be omnipresent anymore. I can show up a little less and a little more manageable pace, but you still have work to do and you still have customers to serve. So not going to lie about it.
It takes work, but it gets so much easier. Once you figure your shit out, once you've figured out who your customer is, once you get focused on your niche and your, and your offer. And you go full force and building out a system and then you repeat that system and don't do what I did, which is change it every single year.
So you're exhausting yourself, figure it out and then put it on repeat. That's the magic. Yes,
absolutely. Absolutely.
So any last advice to my community? Of usually highly sensitive and very connected creatives, how they might be able to take their business to the next level. What would be the 1 thing that they can start getting in place?
Now, if they actually want to consider this kind of circuit sales system.
[00:55:55] Nicki Krawczyk: Yes. I really feel your audience. That is my copywriters are the same. My copywriters a lot of them are, we get them in the program because they have been told that they can't make any money as a writer, but no, you actually can't.
You can make money as a writer and you can feel fulfilled doing your writing. And quite frankly, too, I think a lot of business owners, I think a lot of us are secretly, secretly. Maybe not so secretly. All right. Let's just, let's just go ahead and say it's, we are hesitant and scared. And I really love it.
When I listened to a podcast or an interview with someone who's making like 50 million and she's like, Oh yeah, I'm totally scared every day. Like, Oh, thank you. Thank you. So if you're feeling scared, if you're feeling confronted, if you're feeling whatever, that's. Good news is, is that that's part of the process and you will grow so much more.
It's what I heard somebody say that next to having kids starting a business is the most self growth you can possibly go through. But boy, are you going to be able to look back a year ago and be like, Oh, look at, look at how much I've grown. Anyway, that was a long time ago.
[00:56:58] Kellee Wynne: I agree completely.
[00:56:59] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Yeah. I think that the, in terms of practical steps, aside from just embrace the fact that it's going to be scary sometimes, because it is, and in those scary moments, be like, all right, oh, Kellee and Nicki told me it was going to be scary. So this is one of those scary moments. So I'm just going to ride it out.
And then I'm going to feel the feelings. Don't try to surprise. I'm going to feel them. And then I'm going to figure out my next steps are, but in terms of, which I guess those are kind of practical steps, but once you're doing those, Dig into that market research, get people on the phone, find out who they are, what they're actually thinking, what they're actually saying, because that is absolutely gold for making sales in your business.
[00:57:34] Kellee Wynne: Yeah. And I'm going to piggyback on that because what I teach is to do a test run before you invest all your time and money into creating a program. And I'm not saying pre sell it and then create it. I'm saying run it live with a small group so you can actually get feedback. Yeah. And see, does my system work?
Do people actually want this? How can I adjust it before I invest everything into building out the entire product? Cause I made a lot of art courses that were kind of, and I would have rather tested the ideas first. Yeah, that makes complete sense. Absolutely. And then you get automated feedback because you have a small little group that'll just tell you exactly where you went right and where you went wrong and what you actually need.
[00:58:23] Nicki Krawczyk: And then testimonials about how great you are that you can use on all the rest of your stuff. Yeah,
[00:58:28] Kellee Wynne: there you go. See, it's, it's a really, it's a really good way to move forward. And if I hear any of you saying, but I'm too scared to get on zoom, I'm like, you got a business. Now you best be ready to show up and show your
[00:58:40] Nicki Krawczyk: Well, and you know, here's the thing too, is we're making it all about us.
If it's like, well, I'm afraid to get on zoom, like, but this isn't about you. You're asking them questions. Oh, you're going to show up to the call with a list of questions to ask. And you want to hear from them. And quite frankly, too, you know, we, we forget that we are just these people on the internet to them.
So when we say, Hey, I would genuinely like to hear what you have to say. For a lot of people, it feels, it feels kind of like an honor. Like. Oh, you want to hear what I have to say? You want to hear what I have to say, which is a very cool thing. But yeah, it's not about you. It's about what they have to say.
So I say this with so much love and support, but you've got to get over yourself and that's not, it's not about you. It's not about you. It's about what they need. Yeah, exactly. How can you help them better? You're getting on the phone with them on zoom with them to find out how you can help them better, how you can make their lives better.
[00:59:30] Kellee Wynne: Yep. Everything we do, if you put it in that perspective, then it doesn't have to feel so scary.
[00:59:36] Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, exactly. You are doing a service to your audience.
[00:59:40] Kellee Wynne: Awesome. So thank you so much for coming on and explaining it because, there's one thing to see an ad on social media. It's another thing to actually talk to you in person and really get a clear picture of the circuit sales system.
[00:59:55] Kellee Wynne: Everyone will take this to heart. Where can they find you? Where's the best place with you?
[01:00:02] Nicki Krawczyk: Absolutely. They can follow us on social at, uh, with of course, circuit sales system. And then if they want to kind of see what it's like from the inside, they can go to circuit selling. com and they can opt in for the video there.
Right. And I will make sure that's all linked in the show notes. Thank you, Nicki. Oh, thank you, Kellee.
If you'd like to listen to or learn more about the podcast visit https://www.maderemarkable.com/blog for our show notes and links to the main players.