Using a "Good Enough" Launch to Fill a Group Program with Janna Melissa
This week's episode is a special one, folks. I wanted to have one of my students come on the podcast! This is one of my favorite things that I get to do on the podcast -- actually bring on people who have gotten to work with me behind the scenes, and whose businesses I've gotten to know.
And today's guest has a great story about how she was able to generate some really serious results in her business. If you're listening or reading this episode in real time, then you may already know that the doors to my signature program called Crickets to Customers are actually open right now for another week. Check out the links at the end of the episode to check it out!
Here's a sneak peek at what Janna Melissa and I talked about in this episode:
Starting from wanting to share knowledge [03:33]
From affiliate marketing to creating her own products [06:05]
A group program was the missing piece [09:00]
Putting herself out there before feeling "ready" [14:09]
Success through detachment from results [24:52]
What is a "good enough" launch? [31:11]
What Janna wants you to know if you're considering Crickets to Customers [34:12]
Starting from wanting to share knowledge
Janna is a functional nutritional therapy practitioner (NTP). She helps people transition to a nutrient-dense real food diet such as paleo in order to bring their health back into balance and help with things like inflammation, allergies, leaky gut, and other gut-related issues. Janna became an NTP in 2018, following a rough health situation in the previous year. She didn't get answers from her doctors until she discovered functional medicine and NTPs. Using this knowledge, she created special diets for herself to undo the vicious cycles that were going on in her body and brought back foundational areas of health back into balance.
After all that she has learned from her certification and her experience, she felt that she had to go out there and share her knowledge with those who were suffering from similar conditions.
From affiliate marketing to creating her own products
Janna has been building her health-related business since 2011. It started out as a smoothie site and she was relying on SEO to send traffic to products she was an affiliate for. She wasn't sure that she had the confidence to create something of her own to sell, and in 2015 she took a hiatus from her business to focus on building a financial runway by focusing on her full-time job.
After getting her NTP certification in 2018 and coming back to the online business world, she realized that tactics have changed, and she was looking for clarity on how to create and sell a product or program of her own. She found herself spending all her extra time on endless research that wasn't getting her anywhere.
A group program was the missing piece
Janna got the inspiration to create a group program from listening to Steph on the Fizzle show. She really wanted to learn how to actually build a great program. When Janna found out about Crickets to Customers, she didn't think she needed any of the extra stuff, and wanted to get to the nuts and bolts of how she could structure her program. In fact, she was at the time taking another course that was more specific to health practitioners, and was wary of shiny object syndrome.
"I just felt like the online space was really changing so fast, and it just seemed like it was kind of impossible to keep up. As I was going through the various courses, I just felt like I was actually spending more time doing coursework than I was actually, like, doing things in my business."
However, she really thought about the benefits that she could get from starting a group program, and how this strategy can help her really start her business. "When I saw your email that the doors were open, I just had this feeling that this was what I needed to do. Like this was the time that it was actually going to work out. This was kind of like my missing piece." The idea of a group program excited her a lot more than working one-on-one with people, which is what her other programs had been preparing her for.
Putting herself out there before feeling "ready"
Janna was happy to find that Crickets to Customers was not, in fact, just another shiny object. She found the framework instrumental to how she built her business online successfully. Now she has customers online, and it's a true business.
However, running her first challenge did not feel like a success. She felt unprepared and stressed out. It was a lot of work sending emails every day and doing so much in such a short period of time. She almost delayed launching her program because she didn't feel "ready." She re-evaluated and scaled back to doing weekly videos that led her community to purchasing her program, and that worked a lot better. To take further stress off her shoulders, she went back to her previous full-time job to make the financials easier.
Success through detachment from results
Continuing on with her launch, even though she didn't feel like she had everything set up just right, gave Janna the mindset of being detached from the outcome. "I was just like, I'm gonna see what happens," she says. Even if nobody seemed interested, she was determined to help someone out there by making her videos and connecting with her audience to provide what value she could right now. Because she was working full time again, she was able to be detached from the outcome, and put herself out there without desperation.
When we really feel like we need something to work, others can sense that energy. Janna was able to be successful because she had a cool, calm, and collected energy because she was so passionate about what she did and just wanted to be valuable.
What is a "good enough" launch?
There were a lot of things on Janna's plate in December when she was starting her launch. She decided to do a minimum viable launch and just do what is good enough and see what happens. She realized that she can always improve upon it later. She opened the doors officially on December 24th, which she was worried might not be the best timing due to the holidays. She was about to push the launch to the following week, but the day after Christmas she got the notification that somebody had paid.
Janna also realized that she wasn't going to have the time to do her final webinar like she planned. So she decided to do a Facebook Live video instead, and did the best she could with building buzz around that last video. She ended up getting three more buyers, which filled her program.
"So I really was kind of detached from that outcome, and just, you know, [was] putting myself out there again. And that's honestly what I love about the C2C program is it really encourages you to put yourself out there even if you don't have everything perfectly set up."
You don't have to have the perfect sales page, or the perfect webinar. All you need to do is show up and find value.
If you're on the fence about Crickets to Customers
Joining Crickets to Customers was by no means a magic bullet, but by working the framework she's learned, Janna built a low-stress, low-tech business. She has reworked her lead magnet, and continues to revisit the modules regularly for new insights. She's excited about future possibilities: "If even a good enough launch can fill my group program, imagine what I can do over the next few months!"
Her best advice is to:
Trust in the process and have fun in the process.
Don't pressure yourself or rush towards a specific outcome. Keep putting yourself out there and delivering value!
Crickets to Customers is open as of the date of this writing and until Sunday, February 2nd. If you are looking for a business coach this year, or you're looking for an opportunity to figure out how to get customers this year, this is an excellent program for you. If you're reading this in the future, there will be a waitlist box for you where you can submit your email to get details on when the program will open again. Check it out at CricketstoCustomers.com.
Links & Resources
Janna’s website: RealFoodPlan.com
Janna’s free Getting Started guide: RealFoodPlan.com/guide
Steph’s signature program: CricketstoCustomers.com
Courage & Clarity Podcast about knowing your numbers: 8 Month Year: How I Took 4 Months Away From My Business