You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 262 feeling bored of doing the same launch over and over in your business, but not necessarily the ambition of starting and selling a new offer from scratch.
Today's case study is a test of the perfect in between solution, selling a live cohort of an existing digital course with a low lift launch, Candice Ward, food photographer and monetization coach for other food bloggers and content creators, decided to put a pull up on her Instagram story asking her followers if they would be interested in a 12 week implementation focused VIP coaching cohort of her signature course. After receiving a positive response, she built out her new offer with minimal effort the very next day, selling only to those who had virtually raised their hand on her Instagram Stories by quietly launching only to this exclusive group through Instagram stories and DMS, Candice sold out of all spots, injecting $12,000 into her business in just six days. We've got the full scoop on this quiet launch and how you can replicate something similar to refresh your digital courses and revenue.
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 in a case study style interview with a 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.
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the show. Today we have Candice Ward, who is a food photographer and strategy monetization coach for food bloggers and content creators, super excited to have you here Candice.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
And Candace, you know, her background is actually in sales, so I think this case study will be really interesting for anyone who not only wants to maybe test a new offer or get a cash injection in their business, but also anyone who's just more curious on like, how do you sell on a more personal level without all of the bells and whistles that sometimes come with traditional launches? So I'll give you more details on the exact case study we're covering in just a moment. But first, Candice, I want to hear your cubicle to CEO story.
Absolutely. So I, five years ago, was in a sales career at a fortune 500 tech company. I had been in sales for 10 years at that point, and had my first son, and decided I needed to, kind of decide if I wanted to continue on my business. At the time, my business was making wedding cakes. So it was nothing related to what i
Oh wow
yeah, yeah, I was making wedding cakes, and I started a food blog. And then, of course, covid happened, so I had to pivot again. So my new way of making money was I learned food photography, and then I started working with brands, and I just had a lot of creators reaching out to me, saying, How did you get this brand partnership? How did you establish that relationship? And so I started to kind of bridge the gap between my sales career and leaned into coaching other food content creators and just creatives in general with how to work with brands and how to monetize their business.
That's amazing. We do a lot of brand partnerships and sponsorships as well in our media business model, but I'm always curious, like, when you teach people to work with brands, are most of your creators working more on the UGC, the user generated content side of things, or are they more so like traditional influencers with their own audience distribution that brands are working with?
It's definitely combination UGC, as we know, is definitely taken a rise in the last few years. So I am shifting more towards that. Really. It just depends on on the individual. I also work with just food photographers that want to work with brands on a freelance basis, and so they're really trying to learn how to communicate their value proposition to brands. So I help all different creatives on sponsored UGC as well as just freelance work.
That's amazing. I love that. Well, let's get into your case study today. So this is a anti launch strategy, if you will, and you were able to make $12,000 in just six days by quietly launching a new offer to an exclusive group of individuals. Now what's interesting about this anti launch, if you will, is the premise of this is that you created a new offer without actually having to launch a new product. And what I mean by this is Candace basically offered a 12 week coaching cohort that dives deeper into the topic of one of her digital courses. And I'm assuming this one is the confident pitch program, right? That was what it was centered on.
Yes, correct.
Okay, amazing. I love this premise, because even before I hopped on this call with you Candice, I was just like, preparing my notes, you know, for our interview today. And I was like, hmm, that is something I haven't considered doing before. Like, it kind of got my, you know, my gears turning. I was like, what are some of the offers, even, like, even, like, maybe a template, like, we sell podcast pitch template. I was like, I wonder if we could do like, a live sprint around a product, and it's just so smart, I think what you're doing here. So my first question is really like, what was the primary objective for creating this new offer or this coaching container around an existing course product? Were you doing this to test making this like a permanent product in your offer suite? Was it to create a cash injection in your business over the summer, or was there another strategic move here for why you did this?
It was honestly both of those. Really, my business has shifted this year. I've been doing less brand partnerships, more coaching, and I launched my digital course annually. So that happened in January. Historically, I've launched my course done, you know, the big launch that takes a lot of energy in the summer, and it's always done well, and I didn't have the capacity to do that again, but I did have more time in my schedule because I was doing less brand work, so I only work 10 to 15 hours a week, so I really have to be strategic with my time.
And so essentially, for the summer, I wanted a cash injection for my business, and I didn't want to put in any additional work on launching something new. So I essentially asked myself, What would my audience need for me at this time, and I've been hearing just through my individual coaching calls, as well as my digital course, that people really want hands on exposure to me while they're pitching, because pitching is a big hurdle to overcome. It's scary, and my students have just always said, we want to work with you more closely on a longer term basis.
So I've offered a VIP package option within my digital course, which is only three coaching calls with me, group coaching calls. And I decided, why don't I extend that and do a coaching cohort? That's 12 weeks where we're doing weekly calls, weekly check ins, accountability. I'm there in the trenches with them, helping them pitch, respond to brands, negotiate contracts, and my audience clearly needed it, because they responded very quickly to this offer.
Yeah, it's so juicy. And I say this coming from the side of you know this earlier this year, we hosted a an intimate retreat, specifically teaching how to pitch premium brand partnerships, not necessarily in like your niche, but just like at large and more from, like the media side of business. And that is absolutely like the need, I think, that we saw come out of is like people really want that, like you said, that real time feedback on, on, hey, is this going to resonate or not? And I think this direction, too, that you're going in makes a lot of sense. Just based on overall buying trends in 2024 it seems that the done with you or done for you aspect is making a really strong comeback, like consumers are wanting more of that, intimate hands on support, like you said. So that's great that you kind of leaned into that.
And with this exclusive launch where you're only making this offer available to a small handful of people, from my understanding, you kind of defined this small group by having them essentially, virtually raise their hand to show interest in this. So I'm wondering, and I think you did this through a series of Instagram story polls prior to releasing the poll or posting the first poll on your stories, did you have any sort of, like, pre launch content that indicated there would be some sort of exclusive offer coming their way, or was it like a total surprise?
No, it was. It was a total surprise. I mean, I will be fully transparent. I woke up one day and I was frustrated with my business, and I was like, I need to do something different that I haven't offered before. I was just feeling not burnt out. I was feeling bored with like, launching the same offer over and over, and I also craved that connection with the people that I was helping. That's why I'm a coach. I really love seeing the results that come out of my time with those individuals, and I don't get that when I'm just selling a digital course every single time.
So I love working with my VIP students. And so it really just generated from this idea where I was like, You know what? I am not going to put too much thought or effort initially into it, and I'm just gonna see what people like, how people respond, and I'm just gonna put up a quick question box on Instagram, and I just want to see what people say. If I have a large interest, like at this point, I didn't even really figure out what the offer was. I just knew I'm gonna do coaching for three months for the summer, yeah, to prep people for q4 partnerships and q3 partnerships. And I was kind of like, I'll figure this out after I gage interest.
So my first initial honestly, time that I ever presented it to my audience was that initial pull of like, hey, if I did a summer pitching Blitz. Who would be interested? I'll be there with you every single week. Well, you know, it's an accountability group. People need accountability when it comes to pitching. Otherwise they just don't do it, or they get frustrated and they stop and they're like, I can't get any brand partnerships, and it's because there's no follow through, right? And so people raise their hands, and those were the ones that I decided to kind of pick their brain, like, what does that look like for you? What would be helpful for you? This is what I'm thinking. What are you thinking? And then I was able to build my offer. After the initial discussion with those, there was about 30 people that were interested in learning more, I just asked if they were interested in learning more, and then we started talking.
That's amazing. So that first poll was just a straightforward, I mean, very direct question. 30 people responded. Did you say I'm anywhere on the story, like, Hey, if you respond to this poll, I may be reaching out to you with, like, further questions, or was it kind of just like, here's the question, you know, answer at your own will, And then, and then you took the initiative, obviously, to follow up with them?
Yeah. So the initial poll, I asked the question of who would be interested, here's what I'm thinking for the summer. Does this sound like something that you'd be interested in? And I just did like, a two box, like, yes or no. And then on the next story, I was like, you know, if you answered that you're interested, stay tuned. I'm going to reach out to you with more information when I have the details. As of right now. I don't know what that looks like yet, yeah. And then I went the next day and I built out the offer on my Kajabi sales page,
Heck, yeah.
And I just was like, ready to go, because I knew I had to strike while the iron was hot, otherwise people kind of lose focus and they go on to the next thing. So those were the people that I ended up reaching out to. I will say I also show up consistently on my Instagram story, so it's not unusual for my audience to see me on there and for me to ask their input on things and to have a conversation. I'm very active in my DMs, so I think that they responded favorably to that as well, because they're used to me showing up there.
Okay, that is really helpful for additional context. After posting that first poll where 30 people responded, did you have any thoughts around? Oh, maybe I'll, you know, post about, like, make the same question or ask later this week to collect a little bit of a larger sample size. I mean, don't get me wrong, 30 responses on a poll is amazing, but like, just kind of thinking through, like, Okay, I want, like, as wide of a pool as possible to, like, you know, have a part of my exclusive launch. Were you thinking that way? Were you like, No, I'm like, I asked this question. I'm good with these 30 people. I don't need to continue to, you know, gauge more interest.
Normally, I would do that, yes. But with this particular launch, I didn't really have. I was kind of just testing the waters, and I wanted to see what the results would be if I put in very minimal effort, meaning the people that raised their hands were the people that I was going to convert. And I, from my sales experience, I know how to convert people if they're on the fence. And also, I wanted to qualify that these individuals were the best fit for my program, because I don't want them to be part of it if it's not going to serve them with where they are in their business.
So that was really part of the strategy was, let's have a conversation and just see if this would be something that you would need and that you would benefit from. And I think they appreciated the transparency on my end. And I really didn't have the goal at that point. I was just going to kind of sell it exclusively to these individuals. And then I was going to be like, Okay, if no one signs up, if I get crickets, then maybe I will look into doing more of a traditional launch, or extending it to my email list, or I didn't even put up a single post on Instagram about it. There was nothing. There was no information anywhere other than the people that that raised their hands in stories.
But I even mentioned that in my stories, I said, if you raised your hand and you're interested, this information is nowhere else. So I am going to reach out to you. I'm going to provide more information. And I think that also made them feel a little bit more like, Hey, this is really exclusive. And hush hush. I'm the first to know about it, yeah. And I think that also played into the results that I saw in six days.
Oh, I bet, yeah. I think it's really fun actually doing stories only launches, or DM only launches. I've also done that a few times, probably same as you. I feel like I relate to you in a lot of ways when you're describing your thought process for this, probably also not necessarily fully intentional, but just like I was like, oh, feeling kind of lazy and like, didn't want to do, you know, all all these elements. So absolutely can relate to that on the landing page side you mentioned, you know, that same night, or whatever you like, went or the next day you created that. Kajabi sales page to get it ready. Was that like a full on, you know, fully flesh sales? Okay? Tell us No, tell us about the sales page.
It was a checkout was a checkout page. Okay, it was a checkout page. Again. Didn't want to put in a lot of effort into this, and I was a little bit nervous, because it's priced much higher than my signature course. But again, I know from data from my signature course launch that my VIP spots always fill up. So I knew there was a desire for this. And so I again, I wanted path of least resistance. I was like, summer's a busy time. I'm also I have two littles at home. I was just like, I want to focus on one thing this summer and one way to make money.
And I decided to just create a checkout page. And on that checkout page, it was basically like, here's what my thoughts are for the next three months. Here's the agenda. Like I this was very rough outline of the agenda. These were the topics we were going to cover. This is the cadence of when we're going to connect. And I didn't even offer payment plan option, which normally, as you know, most people offer payment plan options. That was another way for me to kind of engage with the individual, if they were on the fence, if they were like, if it's money that was holding them back, or if it was budget, I said, Hey, I will create a special payment plan for you. So I really individualize it to each person.
I will say, out of the 12 people that joined, I think I only had to do two payment plans. Nice, because these individuals were like, I have big life changes, like a move coming up. And I'm like, It's okay, we can do a payment plan, right? So everything about this was very exclusive and very personalized, and I think that also played into the results as well.
So smart you are definitely a person after my own heart, like I definitely have done the checkout page only sales as well. And honestly, my thought process, I don't know if you would agree with this. But like, my thought process is, if you're having such personalized one on one conversations with people, by the time they get to the checkout page, it's like they're they're already there with the intent to buy. Like the checkout page is not what sells them on joining, obviously, right? So anyways, I love that you kept it super, super simple for those 30 people that you reached out to, what was the conversation like? What questions did you ask them? Did you kind of immediately jump in and say, Hey, here's what I'm thinking like if you want to join, like, here's the link for that. Or did you first ask them a series of qualifying questions before you would even send them the checkout page link?
I did a combination of both. Again, I didn't really overthink it. I went to each person so out of like the 30 people, I initially just started a quick conversation. I was like, Okay, great. Thank you so much for responding to my poll. First of all, I am going to build out the checkout page. I will send you the information when I have it. And then I just asked really, and again, I didn't, I don't even know if I did this with every individual. I think I went to their profile page and was kind of like, Oh, what do they do? Are they a photographer? Are they a blogger? Like, I wanted to make it relatable in terms of my messaging. And the only qualifying question I asked was, have you worked with brands before? Like, what's been your biggest challenge? What do you want to get out of working together if we work together?
And I just that was it, and I just let them respond and hear where they were in their business so that I could understand, okay, out of these 30 people, what is the commonality, or the common thread between all of these people that are interested? Because I want to make sure that my language and my checkout page is going to reflect that. So I asked those questions prior, I built the checkout page, and then I sent them the link to the checkout page and said, Here's the offer. This is exclusively only being sent to the individuals that said they were interested. I'm not sending it to my email list until and I gave them a specific date, like in five days on this day, is going to my email list.
And so I only had 10 spots available. I ended up selling 12 because two other people last minute wanted to join, and I was fine with that, but I had the intention of only having 10 spots available. And so my goal really was to not only make it exclusive, but to say there is a sense of urgency, you have to kind of decide in the next couple of days, because people from my email list will then it'll be open to them, right? So that was helpful. And then we just initiated in a conversation back and forth. I would check in two days later and just say, Hey, want to see if you have any questions. After reviewing, you know, the summer pitching blitz program, if you are on the fence or you have any questions about if this is the right fit for you, I'd be happy to schedule a quick 10 minute discovery call. And so I was able to do that. I had four discovery calls at that point scheduled.
And did all 30 people that you reached out to respond in some capacity or. If not, what percentage would you say? Had at least one back and forth with you?
I would say, and I want to clarify, like, I think it was around 20 that answered. It was anywhere from 20 to 30 people that replied to the poll. I don't remember the exact number, and yes, so like, every person either responded in some way in a conversation, or if not in a conversation, there were some people that would just like, Thank you for the information and and acknowledge that now was not the best time. So I was like, Okay, I could kind of gage who were my most interested potential buyers, and those were the ones that I focused on.
So I didn't really spend a lot of time, like communicating with all 30 people that responded just on that initial response, like, when they raised their hand and I was like, here's more information coming soon, I could gage their interest level based on, like, how quickly they replied to me, were they answering any of my questions? And if they were, I was like, Okay, those are the people that I'm really going to try to sell. Yeah. And so it was actually, like, oddly simple, because I wasn't really thinking about it. I was just like, I'm gonna go with who I think is going to buy this and and focus on trying to convert those individuals.
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No, I love that you were, you know, effective with your time resources and really prioritize those like you said, who seemed to show a reciprocal interest. I feel like this would be a missed opportunity if I didn't ask you, since you do have such an extensive background in sales, you know, you kind of mentioned already. I don't even know if you intentionally meant to do this, but you like you, mentioned a few markers, if you will, that you look for to gage who are your hottest prospects. Like you said, are they asking questions? Are they are they responding quickly? What other high indicators of interest have you noticed over your years, both in corporate sales and in what you do nowadays as an educator and even pitching brands for your own business, what are those markers that you always look for to, like, really lean in on a conversation?
Yeah, absolutely, that's such a great question. And this is something that I teach to my students, is I kind of look at four qualifications or markers. The biggest one is, and it's used interchangeably with like being able to gage if a prospect is viable or if a brand is interested in potentially working together, or if somebody's purchasing my course or a coaching student. This is transferable across any industry, but essentially, really the four like things that need to align in order for somebody to purchase an offer would be they have to have a budget for it.
They also have to have a timeline for it, like a specific, defined timeline. They also have to have a need, obviously, and then they need to be sold that your offer is the right offer to give them the results or the desired outcome. So whenever I am communicating with a person or a brand, I'm always thinking, how can I check the box in all four of those areas? And so for these individuals that were responding, and I was able to uncover by asking a simple question, have you worked with brands before? Okay, you have great. What has been your biggest challenge, or what are you hoping to get out of our time together?
You would be surprised at how much information you can get about somebody or potential prospect or a potential buyer, just by asking that simple question. Because A, people like to talk about themselves. B, you're learning about what their pain point is, and that is what motivates people to buy. If you know what their pain point is, and your offer can be the solution to that, they will purchase your. Product. But again, the timeline and the budget has to align as well. So I was able to create a timeline. I was pitching this offer to say, you know, q3 and q4 is the highest earning potential for creators like historically.
And so my offer was basically like, I'm going to be in the trenches with you, pitching alongside you, because I also need to be pitching to brands right now, and we're going to be doing it in time to secure those partnerships for q3 and q4 let's do it now together, instead of waiting until the opportunity has passed, right so that timeline was created, and then the budget piece was really how much do I think, based on historically, the offers that I've extended before to my audience, will they invest in this level of coaching? And so my digital course is priced at $549 and then the VIP offer, which is three coaching calls, is priced at $899 and I never have an issue filling those spots, right?
So I was like, You know what? Let's price this one at $999 because I'm going to be way more involved than my $899 offer. And so I was able to really sell the value of that very easily, because it wasn't that much more than my VIP offer. But I think we're getting way more of my time. I've even done more calls than I even originally told them I was going to it was supposed to be a bi weekly, and it's been every week, which has been great, oh my gosh, but, and I love it, because I'm able to get really deep into their business, and what it is that they're trying to get out of our time together.
Yeah, no. I mean, that's a steal of a deal. I'll just tell you as like a third party, you know, person observing that. I mean, for less than twice the cost of your self paced, self guided, course, if you will, they get, I mean, 12 weeks of access to you. I think that is huge. I am not surprised at all that you sold out, and I'm glad that you mentioned this piece about timing the presentation of the offer correctly with you know, you sold this at the beginning of summer, and like you said, by the time the 12 weeks wraps up, we'll be right in the middle of quarter three, so they could really take advantage of the prime selling time for brand partnerships when brands have the biggest budget.
So I love that you utilized the timing of the release of your offer to help you create this urgency around why now? Like answering that question of why now, you also employ two other forms of urgency during this I keep calling it a launch, but it's not you know what I'm saying during this, during this window that I thought were really smart. So I wanted to ask you about them.
The first was, of course, the most obvious one is that you limited the number of spots available in this cohort. I know that you were just testing this offer, and you kind of wanted things to be more low lift for you in the summer. But outside of that reason, is there any other reason that you limited originally to just 10 spots? I know you sold 12, but Was there any reason for, for instance, that you didn't make it like once you saw that there was quite a high demand? Was there any reason you didn't increase capacity to 20 or 30 knowing that you could have, you know, made even more revenue?
Yeah, because of the structure of our calls. I do a teaching for the first call, and then the following week we do like a spotlight session. So the spotlight session is really to have time for each individual to go through their specific business needs and ask questions, and also to hold them accountable. So I give them weekly homework assignments, and I just felt like that would be the size group that I would be able to work with intimately enough for them to drive results. And that's obviously what I care about most, is my students getting results.
I love that. That is a very ethical and very thoughtful, I think, approach to why you, you know, limited, the container size, the second urgency, thing that you haven't mentioned yet, but again, I think is or you've mentioned, but like, we haven't dove into that, I think is really key is how you made it so that the people who raised their hands that you had these private conversations with were able to be the only group that even saw this offer, like you said, for those first five days, and then on The sixth day, you sent out an email to your email list. Tell us about how that played into you being able to sell out the rest of your spots.
So my email list, historically, I think for most of us, I have a small but mighty email list, and that's usually where I make most of my sales. You know, especially with a traditional launch where you're sending out an email sequence, and you're kind of like, I have an open cart period. So with this particular anti launch, if we want to call it that, is, I essentially gave those individuals in the exclusive group, you know, a defined timeline. You know, you have five days that I'm opening up to my email list, and at that point the spots will be filled. So I opened it up on day six, I sent out one email about this, and by by the end of that day, I'd already filled the spots with the individuals that were on on the fence that I had already been speaking to. So really, nobody from my email list purchased it.
I was able to kind of leverage that as a way to create a. Sense of urgency. I reached out to like, three people, I believe, that were on the fence. And I was like, Hey, I know we've talked back and forth. I just opened this up to my email list. I anticipate that the spots are going to be filled. I have three spots left, or however many I had. I think at that point I had like, two left, right. And then obviously I ended up overselling it through 12 people. So I think I made three or four sales, like, on that day that I opened it to my email list, like, people were just like, Okay, I'm doing it.
That's amazing. So, like, again, such a smart way to and I don't know if that wasn't your intention originally, or if it just worked out it was okay.
It was but it wasn't at the same time. I mean, it was because I knew that. I knew that my email list was I could fall back on to make sales if I had to. But I also was like, You know what, if I only have eight people in the group, that's great. I was already happy with that number, and I knew that there were just a couple people that were trying to figure some stuff out in terms of budget, and those are the people that ultimately I was able to convert because I was like, I we've been talking like, was it going to take for you to sign up if it's a payment plan, let's do it like, I just was very much wanted to make it make sense for them, and so yes, I did use it as a strategy to, again, get people off of the fence. But also, if they decided it was a no, then that's fine, and I had the option to sell to my email list at that point.
I love that. So just to recap for her listeners, because again, this was so smart, how you approached it. Candace used three urgency drivers, or, you know, getting the reasons to get people off the fence, whatever you want to call it, first, with the limited spots, second, with having it be an exclusive sale, but then opening it to a wider audience on the sixth day, so that people felt like it was now or never right. They had to now compete with a larger group of applicants, and then three the timing of the offer to align with when they would see the most success.
Like hey, if you complete this program with me through the summer, you're going to be at the most primed spot for landing these big brand deals in q3 q4 so thank you for sharing those. I want to circle back to an earlier point that you made about how most of these sales that ended up closing were through the DMS, but then you did have about four individuals who opted for that short discovery call with you, and I believe three of those four ended up actually buying because one of them didn't end up being a good fit. I wanted to know, what did you observe were the either the objections or sometimes objections isn't the right word, but like, I guess, what were the questions that they felt they needed to have answered on a discovery call that couldn't be answered in DMS like, Why do those four people need that discovery call? In your opinion?
Yeah, so the four people there were definitely people in my group that purchased that I'd either worked with me in some capacity before, so I think there was that trust factor that they already made me the four people that I got on a call with I'd actually never had any interaction with before. Okay, so I personally think and believe that it was just that trust factor. They wanted to just say, Is this going to work for me? Most of them, that was their question was, Is this going to work for me? Here's my situation. I want to know if this fits my business or my business model. Here's my bandwidth for the summer. Am I going to be able to actually be on all the calls?
You know, there's one person that is on a completely different time zone, and they live in Australia, and I am in Seattle, Washington. So they were like, I don't know if I'm going to be on the calls. What does that look like? Where the Will there be replays, just questions like that. So at the end of the day, I do think it was kind of an object. The objection of you know, is this person the right fit for me to help my business with where it is right now.
Okay, that makes complete sense. And I think too sometimes it sounds weird to say, but I mean, maybe not so weird with the rise of AI and the ability to like even manipulate a video to make you look like you're saying something that you didn't say, but sometimes I feel like people just need to know it's like a real person on the other end, and that you exist and you're real and and to, I don't know, maybe gage your energy better, so that that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining that.
Now that you've gone through this whole process, and you're kind of nearing the last third of, you know, your time with your existing cohort. Do you feel that you will offer this exact model again, with this, you know, structured around, you know, your program, or are you kind of more thinking on a more macro scale, where you're like, I like this idea of creating live cohorts around digital existing digital courses in general, and I want to apply it to a totally different course or product that you may have
At this point, I would like to launch it again next summer. I think just the timing was just really critical and important. I mean, it also is holding me accountable. It's helping my business, because I'm also pitching to brands, right? Yeah. I think there, you know, is a level of additional work that I didn't anticipate, because I don't want this to be just a copycat of my course, because there are some people that have purchased my digital course that are in the program.
So I have taken the structure of my course and the topics, you know, for our weekly calls, and I'm taking those templates and those PDFs, and I'm just slightly modifying them to really think of it as being the most up to date, right? Because my digital course was created three years ago at this point, and I have while I've updated it once, there's still, as you know, with pitching and working with brands and just the Creator economy is always evolving, so this is definitely more up to date with what's happening right now, implementing new pitching strategies, like I'm teaching about pitching using video, which people have not historically done, and it's just proven to be really effective.
Again, that human element, especially with AI, it goes really far. And so I do plan on offering this again, and I think it's going to be even better the next time I offer it, and probably less work for me, because I will have everything already completely ironed out. This one has been like, kind of changing things as we go, and I'm leaning on them to tell me what they need as well, and I'm having a lot of like, day to day interaction with them via email as well. There's a community page inside of Kajabi that I've been leveraging to just keep them engaged, because that's a really important piece too, is obviously, I want them to show up, but I also want them to be putting in the work
That's amazing. And have you been sharing any behind the scenes? Of you know, you on these group calls with the cohort, or like, the wins from your students. Like, are other people who weren't part of the initial group that saw that first story pull and then it went away? Have they been clued into like, oh, there's, you know, there's a live cohort going on. What is this? What did I miss
A little bit? And honestly, now that you say that, I think I should be talking about it more, because I've actually taken quite a big step back from social media this summer, because I just wanted to focus on this, this cohort, yeah, and also focus on spending the summer with my kids. And so that was really the reason. My driving force for having this cohort, was that I have this cash injection in my business, so I'm not having to go out and, you know, hunt for new opportunities. So yeah, I would say I haven't shared as much as I should. I definitely mentioned it here and there, and I have shared a few reels about success stories of my students that either landed brand opportunities or they've opened up new revenue streams in their business. And I think that's been really helpful for people to be like, Hey, I've I've never worked with a brand. I can land my first one too.
Yeah, I love that. And I was just thinking, too. If you plan to again launch this next summer, maybe there's a potential for a wait list. Like, is that something that's crossed your mind, especially as you kind of tease out these little snippets of of the current cohort?
Yes, absolutely. No that's a great idea. I and I have a waitlist for my digital course, which is always, you know, my hottest buyers and the most interested individuals. So yeah, I definitely will. Will create a waitlist for the next one.
Amazing and for the next one. Are you planning to increase the size of the cohort based on your learnings from this time? Or do you feel like the exact because you had the exact right amount of people for the structure of your calls? You're going to literally rinse and repeat, like everything
I'm going to rinse and repeat the next one, and then I'm a data person, and that's why I love your podcast, because I love to hear numbers and how people you know, went from a to c. And for me, I think I need a little bit more data, so I'm going to do it exactly the same way for the next one, and then I'm just going to kind of see, you know, what were the results of my students? Like, what could I have done differently? I will always send out, like, a, not a poll, but a questionnaire, yeah, a survey. Thank you. I always send out a survey at the end, just to see, you know what it is that they were hoping to maybe get out of it that they didn't or just in terms of results, like, how what other support did they need from me in order to get the results they wanted to see?
Then I usually will make slight tweaks from there, and then that will happen on my next one. And then I'll probably, by the third launch, I will kind of revisit, do I want to increase the rate a little bit? Do I want to change the structure? But I do think I will always keep it small, 10 to 12 individuals, because that's really the max that I can. I can comfortably coach where they're getting the attention that they need to get those results.
Yeah, no, that that makes complete sense. And like you said, if you needed to increase the profitability over time, you can always raise the rates. Yeah, I love this. Thank you for giving me some ideas too. This year, I have just had so much fun with looking at, how can you maximize what you already have created. And like, I had a great conversation with an IP attorney recently about, you know, different creative ways to leverage your. IP, we actually just sent that out in today's newsletter. And then you now you bring in this idea of, okay, you have existing digital courses like, how can you bring a live element to some of these things that don't have live elements, and be able to do these really low lift launches or deliveries? So thank you for that inspiration.
Candace, to wrap up our case study, I again feel I would be remiss, since you are in the brand partnership space, not to ask you what maybe hot takes or predictions you have going into quarter three, quarter four of pitching for brand deals this year, in 2024 what are some things that our listeners who do participate in this type of work should watch out for, should maybe consider to get the best results.
I think this year has been drastically different for a lot of food content creators, because that's who I mostly work with. And I have just seen a shift with brands kind of holding on to their budget a little bit longer, but I am starting to see kind of an uptake in brands booking out partnerships for q3 and q4 because, again, in the food space, obviously there's that element of, you know, the holidays, and that's when they make a lot their most of their sales.
So in terms of predictions, I think that brands are definitely leaning towards the UGC content and also recipe development, they a lot of these brands just they need content for their social media. And something that I've been teaching in this cohort is, how do you take that skill and try to attract different types of brands? So something that we've been talking about is travel, like creating travel content or restaurant content for restaurants. Historically, we've just thought of it as like well, as a food photographer, we can go in and take pictures of their food, but really, these restaurants just need content. They want to be seen. They want to be shared on social media.
So I think that is evolving as well in the creative space is really the travel content combined with food and the experience that we can share with our audience that we're having at these at these restaurants or on travel. But in terms of reaching out to brands, I think it's really just setting yourself apart because there's a lot more creators in this space, and getting their attention is becoming more difficult. So it doesn't just start with a DM conversation. I'm really teaching strategies like connecting on LinkedIn and having a relationship there, and being invested in the company, and what their marketing strategies are, and how you can then position yourself as a way to help them with their marketing strategy. Rather than just, hey, let's do a collaboration, or let's have, I would love to talk about a partnership, really taking it on a deeper business level, because I think that's what brands need and want right now.
Oh my gosh. I feel like we're just like, the same person. Everything that you say, I'm like, like, just nodding my head, especially the piece about and I think this is like, where people like you and me and the people that you know also do brand partnerships who are listening to this podcast, where we can really stand out is we are business owners, like we're not just content creators. And I think that business background and understanding marketing on a on a more complex scale, kind of allows you to come in with unique insights when you're pitching to brands, to be able to understand and speak their language, if you will, right and to understand like, how can we drive traffic or client acquisition costs down for you compared to other channels that you're using in a way that I think, like the average content creator or like traditional influencer may not be able to come to the table with. So yeah, love all of that.
Thank you for sharing, Candice. Where can our listeners go to connect with you to find out about your next cohort or any of the other work that you're doing?
The best place to find me is on the confident pitch on Instagram, and then my blog page with more information on coaching and my course is eat more cake by candice.com love that. It's my food page, so I have both.
Okay, awesome. Well, we'll make sure both of those links are below in the show notes, or if you're watching on YouTube, in the video description, make sure if you gained anything new from this episode that you reach out to Candace on one of those channels and say hi, tell her thank you. Tell her what you plan to implement. I know our guests always really appreciate that, and I do too. So thank you. Thank you, Candace. Good to see you, and we'll catch you in next week's episode.
Thank you.
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