You're listening to Cubicle to CEO episode 249. You may be overcomplicating your launches, while in the midst of a health scare juggling appointments, surgeries and literally being unable to speak for periods of time. List Building expert and business matchmaker, Linda Sadu still pulled off a $330,000 launch. She didn't use any of the traditional methods during her launch to promote her offer, like ads, webinars, social media posts, or email blasts. All of her new buyers were referred by her network of clients, peers and mentors.
Linda is a testament to why community is the greatest lifeline for your business. And in this case study, she details exactly how she supercharged word of mouth sales to enroll 98 members for a $3,500 offer.
Welcome to Cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. Every Monday go behind the business and a case study style interview with the leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it, and what the results and revenue were. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
Hello, friends welcome back to the show. Today, we get to welcome back another guest who was previously on our show, you know and love her Linda do queen of quizzes also queen of networking and collaboration and connection. And that actually is exactly what we're going to be talking about in our case study today. So if you haven't listened to Linda's previous case study on our show, that one was all centered around quizzes as a lead gen tool. So if you want to, you know, create your own quiz and use that to build your email list. That would be a great one to go listen to. We'll make sure to link that in the show notes below.
But this one is all about how Linda use high impact networking to have a $300,000 launch for her mastermind without using any of the traditional marketing assets like ads or email blasts or social media posts. So can't wait to dive in with you, Linda. But first, for those who haven't heard you on our other episode, what is your Cubicle to CEO story.
So I was in pharmaceutical sales, actually I leapfrogged into the industry. So I've never been in pharma. Usually when you start in pharma, you should start with general doctors and I didn't, I actually started to call on dermatologists, which was a specialist. I was there for 10 years until my husband and I moved out to the Pacific Northwest. And we ended up getting married buying a house having a baby. And so I retired from pharmaceutical sales. And then when Liam went to kindergarten, I launched my own business.
But based on my experience with pharmaceutical sales, I ended up getting certified in disc, I was taught disc, which is personality based strategy to sell to different doctors and to really understand how to communicate and sell to doctors. And so when I launched my business, I created a quiz as a lead magnet. Because I was like the only way I know how to, you know communicate with people is if I know their personality, and then I can meet them where they are, communicate and then sell my products and services. And so that got me into the quiz stuff. And then I'm sort of pivoting a little bit more into collaborations this year.
Well, I see so much of that personality, background and knowledge woven through everything you do, whether it's quizzes, or whether it's what we're talking about today with high impact networking. Some of you may already be familiar with the mixer mind, because we did a bonus episode talking about why the mixer mind is different than your typical mastermind. I use the word mastermind only because it's the most familiar term people might have to Container similar to this. But it's really quite different, I would say then the traditional mastermind, both from a price point as well as the offer.
So I feel like for some context, as we're getting into this case study, Linda, it would be helpful. If you could just in 30 seconds, explain real quick what the mixer mind is and what the price point is. And then we'll get into the details of the launch.
Yeah, so the mixer mind was a strategy that I thought of whereas there was thinking, Do we really have to keep paying 10,000 18,000 $20,000 on mastermind groups to learn from one expert, or are we all experts and can we just have a group like a peer to peer group come together and support each other at a less expensive price point and come together and really kind of lean on the philosophy of the rising tide lifts all boats and capitalize on collaborate? Since networking and behind the scenes and learning about each other and supporting each other, and so what happened was, instead of launching a mastermind like every buddy else does, I thought of the concept of launching a mixer mind where we all are experts. But then the price point was more around $3,500 to join versus like 10,000, $20,000.
I really think you hit a sweet spot with this offer, Linda, because, you know, I joined as a mixer mind member this year, I was not part of the previous year, the beta round that you did in 2023. But, you know, as I was talking to peers who decided to join the mixer mind as well, a huge draw for them was this idea that, you know, we all want to get in the right rooms with people who we can connect and collaborate with.
But we're not necessarily not all of us, at least are in a stage of our business that we're trying to consume knowledge, like, like you said, many of us are already experts in our own areas of expertise. And we have solid, sustainable businesses. And so sometimes, you know, when you're early in your entrepreneur years, you're really in that consumption mode. And then I think as you progress as an entrepreneur, your focus is less on like knowledge consumption, and more on people connection. And so anyways, I just want to give you huge kudos, I think you created such a great container for that. And no wonder you had such a successful launch $300,000, 96 members joined. Out of curiosity, how many were in your first year of the mixer mind? Because to my understanding, it grew by quite a lot.
Yeah. So okay, thank you so much. I actually double check the numbers, it ended up being $330,000. So sorry, to clarify that real quick. But-
Don't be sorry, we should be celebrating 330. I love that.
And basically, when I did the beta round, it was about 28 people. And it was really just a concept, I was trying to follow the breadcrumbs. So I just reached out to a few peers and was like, Hey, would you be interested in this. And the price point was actually even lower when I did the bait around, but I still wanted people to pay for it. So I was going to, you know, develop it as I go kind of like what you do paid to create, right? And just kind of survey people understand what they want. And then once I got to the bottom of okay, this is what's working, and this is what's not working, I'm gonna double down on what they want, then I was able to really launch it in November 2023. And so there was 20 people that rejoined from the beta group. And then there was 78 new people that joined that was not in the beta round. So it was a total of 98 people who enrolled in the mastermind and 2023, 2024 sorry.
That's incredible. The fact that 20 out of 28 of the original members rejoined, I think that's an incredibly high retention rate for anything, any program any container over $1,000. Right. So great job there. Your launch events were really centered around a series of open houses three open houses that you hosted, which I do want to give a quick shout out. If you are listening to this interview, we're not going to deep dive into how Linda constructed these open houses, because we want to kind of focus on the angle of using connections and referrals to sell your offer.
But if you are curious about open houses, we did a really great case study with Veronica Romney, who also happens to be a mixer mind member on our podcast in the past, and she kind of broke down everything you need to know about the open house model. So if you are curious about that, we'll make sure to link below that episode to catch up on but anyways, Linda, you have these three open houses. But the majority of your refer or your enrollments rather, actually came from referrals? Right?
So let's maybe first talk about the 15 people who were referring new people into the mix, or mine, who were these 15 people? Were these all friends of yours that you already had established relationships with? Were any one of these people, total strangers that you just cold pitched? How did you select the people that you wanted to reach out to?
Okay, so let's back up a little bit and talk about sort of like a sticky message of really why referrals and relationships, and it's so important. So if you want to gain more visibility, right, then you need to create more meaningful connections by allowing people to experience you. And so what I mean by that is, when you're asking people to support you to be an affiliate, or to join a program, or to be on an open house or to be at an event, you need some sort of trust built in. And so to answer your question, there was 15 affiliates, five of them were not mixer mind members. 10 of them were part of the beta group.
So the 10 people had obviously experienced the group. They experienced me throughout the year and they trusted that if they invited their peers, they were coming to a safe space. The other five individuals were just individuals that I thought would be a great member, you were one of them. And so I reached out to you, Sophia Parra, for example, was another one that I just felt like, you know what the energy of these people would be incredible if they could join the mixer mind. And I also know you and Sophia pretty well, I was on your podcast.
So there was a form of trust already built there. So really just focusing on the trust. And I think when you can actually develop this type of trust, you can do it with three different individuals. All right, so these stem from your clients, where you're helping them transform, your these are also peers that you are friends within the industry. And then you are mentors, people that you look up to, maybe you join their mastermind, but all three of these people have one thing in common, it's because they've experienced you, which then means that there's a lot of trust built in. So I think with the rise of AI, what's going to happen is there's going to be a lot more people that want a referral, because they trust that referral to make a purchase.
Yes, I think that's such a great point. And I really like how you break down the three different identities, if you will, or almost pools, like where you could look to find potential referral partners. So you said clients, mentors and peers, I do want to ask about the client portion. So you mentioned 10 of the 15 affiliates. Were previous mixer, my members who rejoined I know of all of the mixer members, 20 people actually rejoined for this year. So I'm curious, the, you know, 20 people rejoined 10 of them decided to be affiliate partners. Did you invite all 20? Did they all have the opportunity to be affiliates? And 10 decided to take that on? Or was it you hand picked 10 Out of the 20? Who rejoined and invited them personally?
Great question. So I invited everybody, of course, you know, there's different personality types. And obviously, if you look at human design to some people just don't feel comfortable, like putting themselves out there for different reasons, right. So out of the 20, there was 10. And what I did, instead of doing like leaderboards, and like, really, you know, just like being I guess like in their face, what I did was everybody got the opportunity, I invited them to be an affiliate and to sign up, there was 10 people that signed up.
But when I started to see the people who were really eager to be part of this, I was personally reaching out to them on Voxer letting them know, Hey, did you realize that your peers so and so just joined, awesome job. And I was actually giving them energy and excitement, and kind of fuel in the fire. And so if I noticed people weren't really that interested, I just kind of like left it alone, for whatever reason. I mean, life's been tough lately, anyways, plus, it was around the holidays. So I was just giving people grace. But for the people that I could tell were like all in and doubling down on it, I was definitely like giving them personal boxers, I was super excited about that. And that's kind of how I ended up rolling it out with those 10 people.
I love that and you are so so good at those personal touches. I mean, Linda, checks in more than any any of my online friends that I know of just like you always have the right message at the right time, you always are so thoughtful you remember birthdays, and special occasions and just just little things like you really, really pay attention to detail. And I think people really appreciate that about you. So great tip there is that it doesn't always have to look like prizes or extra cash incentives that get someone encouraged to continue to share. So the other identity, you talked about mentors, was there a mentor of yours that you reached out to to be a part of this?
Actually, it was you I view you as a mentor. I know when I first before I ever first connected with you, I definitely viewed you as a mentor I looked up to I was listening to your podcast and binging that all the time. But you know, what's interesting about our relationship is our relationship sort of turned into a magic match, which is something I wanted to talk about anyways, I don't know if you know this or not.
But when a mentor becomes a client, who's also ends up becomes a peer of yours. That's what I call a magic match. And so let me dig a little deeper on this. Okay, so you are a mentor to me. And I really looked up to you. I've been on your podcast, but at some point you had hired me to do a quiz for your business.
And so you became a client, right? And once you became a client, and we worked a lot together, we Voxer it a lot. We spent a lot of time together. I've seen you in person, I've come to your events. We ended up getting in a situation where I feel like we're peers at this point, right, friends, friends? Yes, friends. And so I think that there's this beautiful thing that happens occasionally and it's called the magic matches when a mentor becomes a client and then up here and what happens with this going back to the trust is at this point, we've developed so much trust and understanding of each other, that when we support each other or collaborate, I think it goes a long way versus just like a email swap or a podcast interview, like there's so much trust built in that those are people that now become your magic matches. And these are people that you really have to focus on a long term, mutually beneficial relationship because of the trust and the authenticity of the relationship.
So true. And actually, as you were saying that I was thinking through Wow, we have worked together a lot of times, like, it isn't just these one offs, you know, I think, if I'm running through them real quick, in my head, it's been more than five collaborations just in the last 16 months, probably 24 months. So it really is cool to to see you say that or to hear you say that, and then also to see it in practice, in our relationship. And I love again, that you broke it down into these three identities.
So hopefully our listeners today as they're if they're wanting to implement, you know, a similar strategy, maybe you can start creating a list. Maybe that's your homework assignment is to start creating lists of like, who are the mentors that I could see becoming a magic match or like, who are my peers that I already have built in trust with? Who are the clients that rave about my work already, that I can reach out to for this?
Now, I do want to point out to our listeners, this is something interesting. The 15 affiliates, including myself, who were referring people to the mixer mind, yes, you did have a series of three open houses that we could send people to. But this was not your traditional launch, where the whole point is that we were getting people to sign up or register for an open house.
And then the open house acts like a webinar that then converts people, it wasn't like that at all, the majority, I think of the people that I actually referred to the mixer mind didn't even go to an open house, Linda, I think it was just through our one on one conversations, I sent individual messages to people explaining why I joined and then also why I thought they would be a good fit.
And many of them, were able to make a decision just from reading the sales page, they didn't actually have to go and register for the open house. So I did want to clarify that point. Because I think a lot of people think the pathway has to look like get people to send people to a free event. And then the free event converts you into you know, a paying client. The open houses though, looking back at it now, you know, you share that you had a 20% conversion. So 103 people registered for this 20% converted? So about 20 enrolled of the 103. who registered for these specific events?
Do you feel that you would do these again next year? Or do you feel that because the higher conversion actually came from people just having one on one conversations with their peers that you may actually forego it the next round?
That's a great question. So I still think 20% conversion from 100 people at the open house was fantastic. Now, of course, these are people that were well, if you say I'd still the it's probably going to be a similar approach. Since you know, you want to double down on the things that are working. But there was 103 people that signed up, to be honest with you, I don't know out of the 100 How much actually showed up live.
Right.
I didn't even record and send the replay though. I just was like, Okay, I'm gonna trust that the quality of the individuals that are there are the right people, and I'm not going to record it. If they missed it. They missed it. Yeah, it was just an opportunity to experience it in the open house. I'm not sure what strategies people use for open houses. But what I tried to do was replicate what it would feel and look like inside the mixer mind.
So I did a panel and I had five people on each day. So there was three days where I did an open house Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And so 15 of the original people in the mixer mind and the beta group were in on the panels. And then the topic of discussion was collaboration. So you know, we talked about what how do you collaborate? How do you network? What are ways to partner and support each other, right? And so it was just a direct duplicate of what we're getting inside the mixer mind.
And so once that was over, it was just an easy and ask like, hey, if this is something you want to be a part of next year, then now's the time to join because the doors are only open till next Tuesday. So there was about 20% that converted from that. And then to your point, I believe there was 58 people that enrolled by just a peer to peer invitation. I do want to point out though, one of the things that was very helpful was our bonus episode that we did, where we talked about the pillars and what they would experience inside the mixer mind.
So since I had no replay of the open house, I was directing people if they needed more information to the sales page and to the podcast interview, which makes me think I could probably just get away with like a private podcast if I really wanted to.
That's very true because I think more and more at least for myself. People really love being able to make sales decision. Things are buying decisions, I should say asynchronously. Like, I love live events for connection purposes for collaboration, for learning even. But I find that when it comes to making buying decisions, I would rather just do it on my own time, you know, I'm that person that will opt to watch the replay.
And so I think that idea is really smart to test maybe you can test it in conjunction, and yeah, you know, what, which attracts more registrations, and then also, of course, what the impact on the conversion is. So okay, 20 people bought from the open houses? Where did the 103 registrants come from? Because you didn't do social media posting, you didn't do email blasts? Were all 100 people, people that your affiliates had referred to attend the open house, or where did these people come from?
Yeah, they were just peer to peer invite.
Okay, wow. And then the 58, who enrolled but did not come through an open house, were all of those peer to peer invites as well or was like a portion of that maybe people you personally had reached out to?
That's a great point. So I believe that I was actually a part of that, too. So there was people that I was reaching out to as well, the enrolled, I had put together like a list of people that I thought would be a good fit. And one of the strategies I did use last year was occasionally I would invite them to attend a real mixer mind event, just to kind of sit in and see how it feels. We had a smaller group in the beta.
So I felt like I could get away with it and where it was like, you know, with 28 people, and if only 40% of the people showed up, we're looking at like, what, 12 people there around that amount. So it's a smaller room. And so I started to reach out to people who I was like, oh, you should join this next year, come to this event and check it out. And then that's what gave me the idea to do an open house. I was like, you know, I think people just need to experience it.
Because to your point at the beginning, it's a brand new category in the online industry and mixer mind was something people didn't really know what to expect. So the only way I could really, I guess, like tell them what it was is to kind of like show Intel, right, like, allow them to experience the event so they could understand what they were getting themselves into.
Yes. And I think that strategy is so smart. We're doing something similar right now, actually, with the C-Suite, our membership, which you're part of, I wanted to give people an opportunity to attend our monthly boardroom calls. Because, again, to your point, if you name something, I guess something that's a little bit unconventional, like instead of calling it like a monthly meeting, or like a monthly membership call, if people don't have a previous association with it, then to them the word could mean anything, right? Mixer mind can mean anything, boardroom call can mean anything.
And so it's been really fun inviting people as a first time guest to those boardrooms. So they get to experience it in real time. And then they can decide from there, do I want to continue staying part of this community and attending more of these. So I think this show Intel strategy is something that is only going to become more popular and more expected almost. So I highly encourage those of you listening in if you haven't tested something similar in your business, maybe thinking about is there an aspect of the product or service I sell, that I can allow people to experience upfront before they ever actually have to purchase anything?
So great tip there, Linda. And I'm wondering in these peer to peer invites, the ones that came from your affiliates and from yourself honestly, did you notice any common themes or patterns among the peer to peer invites that worked well and actually ended in conversion versus the ones that didn't end up going anywhere? Anything you observed we'd love to hear?
Well, I do think one thing that worked out in my favor is the receiving end. I have had several people tell me that when they were invited by you, or any other person that was inviting them, they felt special. And so I think from the get go, it was like a very non salesy approach. It was more of a let's cultivate this together. And I think what we were trying to do inside the community was we were building this together.
And that was how I set the tone. Like, let's build this together and invite the people that you think is a good fit that you think would love this type of thing. And so on the receiving end, I think it went over very, very well. And so I think that actually attributed to so many people purchasing it based on a recommendation only approach.
Yeah, no, that's actually very true. I have been on the receiving end of a mastermind I joined in 2021 You know, the host specifically personally invited me and you right it did feel like you are chosen right to be part especially when you know it's a curated container and I I honestly I guess I wasn't really thinking about it so much then.
But now that I'm, you know, thinking about it as we're talking about it, when I made a list of who I wanted to reach out to, it really was the people that I would want to spend a year with getting to know and being virtual and in person together, because there was a in person component to the mixer mind in us going to Cabo in November. And so I jotted down, I can't remember, it was like 20 people that I was like, I would really love to spend a year getting to know these people better and that those are the people I reached out to. So that is a really excellent tip.
Is there anything else that you saw, like the most successful referral partners do that you would want our listeners to replicate or that you tried that worked well for you?
I honestly think that the people who had the most conversations with individuals did the best in the end. And the people that didn't feel comfortable or didn't share it as much, or maybe there was a few people who were sort of late to the game. And then they realize, oh, my gosh, this is actually really easy.
The more I can reach out to the people who I think would be a good fit, the more people were saying yes. And so on the back end, I started to realize some people were trying to share it when the doors had closed. And I was like, Well, you gotta had your chance, you know, like, the doors are open the doors and like, I really tried to be firm with the doors closing, because I had a feeling that that might happen. And if I said yes to one person to come in, I would have had to say yes to everybody.
So there has to be some type of cut off. So I really do you think it was like a numbers game, just being confident and the offer inviting the right people, it was a very easy, yes, in my opinion. So the more people who shared it, the more people they brought in, and the more they contributed to the launch?
Well, this is a silly analogy, but I feel like it fits here. It's almost like playing the lottery, right? The more tickets you buy, the more chances you have of a positive outcome. So it's like you have to put yourself in the game, to even be exposed to the opportunity. So that's a great point.
I think another thing that I observed in helping to curate the community that was part of the mixer mind this year is I noticed that there were quite a few individuals who I reached out to that were really excited about, you know, this new version of a mastermind, if you will, loved the concept. But because they only knew me and didn't know you, they wanted some form of opportunity to chat with you one on one.
And maybe they weren't as interested in attending an open house to kind of scope out you and your energy. And so I noticed that a tag team approach that we did also worked really well. So I wanted to bring it out for our listeners, in that, you know, if someone showed a lot of interest, but they wanted to get to know you, I would just send you their Voxer. And then you just took the initiative to start a conversation with them. And I think a lot of those people did end up actually joining anything from your experience there that you want to shed additional insight on because I wasn't privy to those conversations. So.
I'm actually so glad you brought that up. So that was really fun, actually, because you did connect me with a lot of individuals. And it was so fun to get to know them. A lot of the things I just wanted to start off the conversation with is, you know, who are you? Who do you serve? Like, what are your goals for 2024. And so I really wanted to listen to them and understand them. And honestly, I think everybody you connected me with ended up being a good fit. And the majority of them actually joined, if not all of them that we have those private conversations with.
But I will tell you to once people joined, they got a thank you page. And on the thank you page, I gave them a set of rules that they needed to follow. One was to join the Facebook group that I had created. One was to reach out to me on boxer and say hello. And that was actually a lot of fun. Because as soon as they would join, people would reach out to me and connect with me. And I would just celebrate them, I would take a minute be like I'm so excited that you join. And so I did add a lot of personal elements to this launch.
That really felt low lift for me because I actually enjoy connecting. And I thought it was fun. And it was great to meet all these new people and meet them where they are, and celebrate them when they actually made the decision to join. So yes, it was like Voxer played a huge role. And the connection points for sure.
I really liked that. I forgot that you did that. But I totally do remember seeing that. I think that's brilliant. I think if anyone has especially a group program where you may not always get to spend equal amounts of time with everyone throughout the container, I think at least at the very beginning especially while excitement is most high, it would be very wise to do something similar to what Linda did in asking someone to reach out to you to start that conversation so you can at least get to know them a little bit more. I think that's so smart. I love that.
I do want to share with our listeners because you gave such great data so I want to share this with our listeners the affiliate sales breakdown in case you're curious. So on average, each affiliate generated around three sales the top person brought in over 15 people followed by another Per person bringing in nine, another six. And then for affiliates bringing in three each, and then the rest brought in one person each.
So you know, this really tracks honestly, with my experience both being an affiliate and then also running affiliate launches is that typically it's one to two key players that bring in the majority of the sales, which I do find really interesting. And it's hard to say like on the other side of it, like when you're on the selection side of like figuring out who you want to invite to be an affiliate and how you best invest your resources into the ones that do put in the bulk of the work.
Is there anything that you learned from this round that if you were like, Okay, if I wanted to go out and replicate more of those, like, top two to three people who brought in between six to 15 people? What would you be looking for, if you were trying to replicate those people, those top players?
Well, I will say that two out of the three people have an audience match with me. And so if I look at the two individuals that brought in the most people, these are people that were serving similar audiences as me when I was working with just quizzes only. And so I think there is something to making sure you're in alignment, when you're actually trying to double down on borrowed audience, which is essentially what I was doing, right.
So really getting in front of the right audience to make sure that they're a right fit. And then also personality wise. The other thing I noticed is the both of the individuals have a personality that energetically I like I'm matched with. So we're not exactly the same personality. But you and I are both very fast action takers. We've got you know, we're movers or shakers, you know, when you're excited about something, you're gonna move fast. And that's how I am too. And the other individual, actually, all three individuals were very fast action movers and shakers, too.
So what I realized is, there was nobody that was opposite of my personality, who was a little slower paced, more thoughtful. I don't believe that if there was somebody in that personality type, and there was actually I can think of one person right now, they did bring in one person. But when you're thinking about personality wise, I do think people who are fast action takers are going to get excited and take action.
Right? That's a really interesting viewpoint or perspective, I guess, I never really thought like, you know, we think about personalities of our buyers. But I don't know that I've ever really thought about the personality breakdown of our referral partners or the affiliates that we work with. And so that is really interesting. I mean, obviously, your disk expert, like you mentioned at the beginning, is there a resource that you have, maybe not related to the mixer mind, but just in general, under your Linda Sidhu ecosystem that you could direct people to to help them discover what their personality type is, or to help them distinguish what personality types their referral partners might be?
So that they can kind of like you said, better tailor matching with people who mirror the type of energy that they give out?
Absolutely. So I actually created a brand new quiz. And it is, what's your visibility it factor. And it's all based on your personality style. And the four results are based on the disc personas, the very first one is the people's pilot, that is you. And so the people's pilot is a and this is what's really cool, let me back up to when I go back to my sticky message of everything that I'm trying to do moving forward. In regards to collaborations and connections, I realized that in order to gain visibility, you need to have meaningful connections through experiences.
However, there was one component that I really leaned into when I created this quiz. And it was the word experiences. So when I created this quiz, it's sensory. And so these four results are actual experiences I've lived in my life. And so the people's pilot one is a hot air balloon ride over Napa. And that's what my husband and I did. After we got married, it was my gift to him. But my husband's a people's pilot like you.
And so the way I thought about this personality was that there are going to be the ones that go up in the air. Everybody sees them, you are so visible, like you're amazing, right? You really shine bright, and then there's obviously weaknesses. So come down to to the ground, and then we can show you some of your blind spots to be aware of right. The second personality, which is the influence or type personality, which is me, is the host with the most. And the way I really thought about this personality is I embodied my Tuscan experience.
So the test can table being in Italy last summer and just really weave that into the actual results. The third one which is the study personality, and Ask. And that's the smooth sailor. And it's really about being calm, cool collective, like very loyal personality. And I really pulled in my time in Iceland when I was at the Blue Lagoon for that one. And then the last one, but not least, is the gifted Guide, which is really embodies my time with my dog in the Pacific Northwest.
And when I go take her on different hikes, but you know, that analyzer, the person with the map, they've, they know exactly where to go, they can assure you to the top, that kind of personality. So that's the gifted guide. And so when you take my new quiz, it is essentially a resource to help you understand what your personality is, and how you can step into those strengths to gain more visibility. And then there is a workshop I put together.
So it's not something free right now. But it is called the magic match workshop that I recently put together that goes over who your magic matches are. And also I talk about personality types and who would be a good match for you there as well.
Those are such great resources. Thank you for sharing that I will make sure if you're listening to this, you can go to the show notes, all the links Linda mentioned for the workshop as well as to take the free quiz will be below if you want to test that for yourself, hey, maybe even send it to someone you're thinking of having as an affiliate partner and have them tell you what their result is.
So then again, you can start thinking, oh, okay, this is a person who could play to their strengths. If I did this for them versus another person, we might need to work together in a different way. So anyways, I think that will be extremely helpful for everyone moving forward. Again, I never thought about putting my affiliates through a personality test. But it makes a lot of sense, why you would.
And one thing we haven't touched on yet, Linda, but I think it's really central to this entire case study and why you even chose to go this non traditional route of only high impact networking and peer to peer invites for your marketing strategy sales strategy, instead of you know, any of the other things you could have done email list, social media content ads, is because of your own journey last year going through thyroid cancer, right, and having that huge health scare that you were not planning for, we're not expecting.
So I would love to know, you know, now that you're on the other side, fingers crossed, right? When you're looking at the upcoming launch for 2025. mastermind, do you feel that you are going to continue to stick to only doing the peer to peer invites and networking based sales? Or are you going to bring in some of those other elements that you were not able to last year because of your you know, limited capacity?
Oh, my gosh, what a great question. So I think what I learned last year was okay, so for some of you that don't know, I didn't realize I was going to have cancer, I removed half of the nodule in the thyroid, and then they tested it. And so then I had to have a second surgery. Once I did find out it was cancerous. Note, by the way, I did have a biopsy, it just didn't appear cancerous. So they must have got cells that wasn't cancer.
So I ended up having the entire thing taken out. So in the second surgery, I developed a hematoma, which was a blood clot above the surgery line. And a week later it collapsed in my throat. And then that's when I had an emergency surgery. It was definitely a situation where I realized my own mortality. And I wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not. But thank goodness, I was in stable condition. And it was not bothering my airways. And I was rushed to the hospital had emergency surgery and everything was okay.
But I will tell you, I had to like cancel everything the upcoming four to six weeks to really heal, because I couldn't even talk when I got out that last surgery. And so I had to allow time to just rest and relaxed. And I realized that without my health, I had no business. So everything just got scrapped. And I will tell you when it comes to relationship marketing and building partnerships, you know, originally you think of it as a business owner of like, oh, this is going to help propel my business forward.
But I will tell you, Ellen, when I was sitting in my bed, laying next to my dog drinking bone broth, I realized that my community became my lifeline. And that was when they started to show up on Zoom calls that I couldn't make and host them for me. They also took time to collect money. And they sent me gift cards for Amazon food delivery because they knew I couldn't go to the grocery store, nor could I carry grocery bags. And they just really stepped up in a way that I never thought was possible when it comes to partnerships and relationships.
And I think because of that it was really a clear indication that like business aside, you need community. And so to answer your question, I mean, I think you can keep things pretty simple in life and in business, especially, you know, there's so many things you can do, but that also adds so much stress. And to really keep in mind how can I make it simple? How can I get myself more balanced? How can I make people feel supported without adding the extras and stressing over Anybody else out? And so I think to your point, and so the question was it made me realize people are doing a lot of stuff, they probably don't have to me included.
And so I think if I got away with something so simple last year, because I couldn't physically emotionally actually do the traditional launch, I realized in a big way, Wow, am I complicating things? Is there an easier approach? So the answer is yes, I think keeping it simple. And keeping it intimate. And using these strategies, would be great for any business owner, but definitely for myself, too.
That's amazing. I think that's such a wise and healthy perspective, right? That, to your point, like community, everything is better with community, every life experience is more enriched when you have people that you care about to enjoy it with. And I think especially, I mean, knock on wood, I've not had that moment yet where I've had to truly face my own mortality and be like, isn't any of this even worth it, but I'm so glad that in your moment of need, so many people rallied around you and, and showed up for you in a way that had nothing to do with business, right.
But also everything to do with why we run businesses in the first place is, so much of the work that we do is impact driven. So to see it returned to you must have felt like such a great gift. I love that you got to experience that. I can't think of a more deserving person to have experienced that.
So anyways, you know, I love you and adore you to wrap up this case study. Linda, we've talked about a lot of the things that worked well for you in this last launch in terms of relationship marketing, what is something that you feel did not work? Well, or maybe a common mistake people make when it comes to approaching collaborations that you want to make sure our listeners can avoid?
That's a good question. I think when you're thinking of your own launch, you think, okay, I need to get affiliates, I need to have partners. And then you put together and you you're like, Okay, I got 20 people that's going to help me out, right? I think every single time I've launched, I realize that it's probably not 20 people. When it comes down to it, life happens for whatever reason. So sometimes you might want to just like instead of if you want 20 people maybe ask 40 people because I think it'll just dwindle.
Or maybe you can expect more people to just maybe refer one person or they don't have the capacity. So to answer your question, I think when I went into this, I was really pleased of the partners that I had put together. But I also was aware from past launches, that maybe not everybody will show up. And that's exactly what happened, there was a few key players that I thought would like, you know, be there to support and then you know, at the end of the day, it just didn't happen.
And it's so nice to be able to give that person or the people that weren't able to show up in the way that I thought they would or that they thought they would give them grace. And then just know that behind the scenes like that you're accounted for. And the reason why I say this is because you never want to go into a launch, expecting one person to do it for you. And to put that energy on to them, right. And so I think when you approach it in a way where you know what's going to happen, maybe you don't know who maybe you do know, you know what I mean?
But at the same time, like never going into a launch, making the relationship have to play a role to support you with this to hit your goal. And if you could back it up and just say, you know, it is what it is I've tried my best I've asked the individuals, I think that would be a great fit, life's gonna happen. And just like bless and release and see what happens. Like that's probably the best approach because you never want somebody to feel that negative energy, especially if they have something going on in their life where they weren't able to show up, right?
Yes, absolutely. I think placing expectation on people especially. And this is, you know, a point that I will fight again and again, because it's it is a little bit I think against the grain of our online industry, at least I don't know about all industries. But I think sometimes people view affiliates as almost like a paid a paid person. Right that but in reality, yes, you're paying them and me you paid out significant sums for this launch. I think I saw in your case study was like around $40,000 That went to affiliates. Yes, you pay a significant amount of money to thank people for the contributions they made.
But that all happens after the fact. So I think a lot of times people have it in their head wrong, right? Like you said that they place these expectations unfair expectations on people who technically aren't paid anything to to help support your launch until they actually are successful in engaging a sale and that's not guaranteed they could put in all the work and not have anything to show for it.
So I think that the way that you approach it and in removing that pressure, removing that energy is just so healthy and honestly probably serves you better in the long term anyways, with the relationships that you're building. So great point there. Linda, thank you so much again for coming back on our show. You know we love have Are you on Cubicle to CEO? Where can our listeners continue to connect with you? And if they're interested in 2025 a mixer mind? I don't know if there's even information out about it yet, but like, if there is where should they go?
Yeah. okay, so I would love for you to take my new quiz, which is what's your visibility it factor and that will reveal what your personality type is. And it also reveals the strategy on how you can gain more visibility. So there's definitely a lot of juicy information in the reveal. I also switched my Instagram. So I am now instead of Linda Sidhu Quizzes. I am now I Am Linda Sidhu do so I switched it because I wanted to make sure that you know I'm not only serving people with quizzes, but I'm also pivoting a little bit and supporting people with collaborations and connections. So you can find me on Instagram at I Am Linda Sidhu. And then I also still show up in my Facebook group Super Connected. So I'll give you that link as well if people are on Facebook too.
perfect, and like always, everything will be below in the show notes. So click away to Linda. Hi, if you listened in today and got something out of this. Thank you all for tuning in. We will catch you in the next episode.
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