Behind the Scenes: What We Learned from Our First Mastermind Launch

Welcome to The In Between Podcast, a show for women navigating the space between where they are and where they want to be.

This is your go-to holistic business podcast where we dive into strategies, mindset, habits, and of course, making a meaningful income so you can live your dream life.

I'm Astrid, a multi-six-figure luxury wedding photographer and a former corporate marketing girly.

And I'm Alexis with 10+ years in tech as a senior brand partnerships manager and business coach. Think of us as your business besties cheering you on as you level up. Let's get into it. Welcome back to another episode of The In-Between Podcast. It is one half of the pod, Alexis, and the other half, Astrid.

And we are so excited to be back because today we are going to be giving you a true behind the scenes on how our mastermind launch went, everything that we learned, and just a good inside scoop on like what you can take away for your next launch, um, and for Just your next, um, yeah, launch. I don't know why I wanted to keep on going with that, but I am so excited to share that with you all.

Yes. So a lot of times when you see people online launching things, they're launching a course, they're launching— like, I know, Astrid, you've launched different mini sessions. Like, when you see people promoting something, selling something online, I am— I'm of the camp where like, I want to know how it went. How did it perform? And maybe this is the marketer in me. You and I are both marketers, but I want to know like the data and I want to understand what worked and what didn't. And at my day job, um, I work at a company called Circle. We do retrospectives after every single campaign and we get together as a team. And usually for all the campaigns I run, I'm putting together a slide deck and it's like, here's what worked, here's what didn't, here's how these different strategies performed. Here's the partner that sent the most traffic. Like, We're getting deep into the nitty gritty and Astrid and I wanted to share the behind the scenes of how the mastermind launch went in hopes that you can learn from what went well, what didn't go well, and really just like give you the tea because a part of us building out the business side of this podcast is us being really transparent, um, every step of the way. So that's what today's episode is going to be about. And with that, let's jump to life updates and Um, in-betweens before we go into today's topic. Do you want to go first?

Life updates. Yeah, I don't have a ton going on on life updates, um, which actually is really nice. I've been loving being home. Um, one big life update is if you've been following the podcast for a while, your girl has been having back issues for— it's about 2 years or so. And so I started lifting when I was like 18, and then this past 2 years has been just rough on like the workout movement side of things. And anyway, I just had my first week pain-free working out, back to lifting, and I'm just so grateful for my physical therapist. I sound like a grandma, but it's okay. He dry needled me lots of times, and then now we've been able to get back to it, and my mental health is so much better being able to— There's something about just doing a very hard, challenging workout that really helps my mindset. And I hadn't been able to physically do that for a while. So that's a life update. Um, what else? Had a great Valentine's Day at home. My boyfriend, uh, made dinner and it was so good and we just play lots of games. It was like the most sweet time. And, um, yeah, we booked our, our travel for Florence. We've booked Mallorca. So just really looking forward to the trips that are happening. Um, I think that's pretty much it. What about you?

I love it. Nothing fuels us quite like a trip. You know, they are so motivating, like having them on the calendar, just get so excited. Um, I love hearing that you're no longer having back pain. And I really need to look into dry needling. I have, you know, off and on have thrown out my back in the past. And so I definitely want to look into dry needling next time that happens, because I'm sure it will at some point in my life. But I love that you're back into your movement routine and feeling good. On this side of the of the house, I would say, let's see, I'm hosting my parents this weekend in Houston and I'm so excited. I feel like I'm at a place with my mental health and my energy and my workload where there's something about spending time with your parents that it just can be really fueling and I need that. My mom has kind of been off and on sick the last couple of weeks.

Mm-hmm.

And I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to make it. And once she told me that they were going to be able to make it this weekend, I literally had this like sigh of relief. I'm like, oh my gosh, thank God. Like I need to see my parents.

Oh.

So I just, yeah, I'm like homesick and mostly homesick for them. Like I just like want to spend time with them. So really excited that they're coming into town this weekend. And then next weekend we're hosting Matthew's parents. So back-to-back parents weekends. So we've got like our reservations on lock and our activities all figured out, but I'm really looking forward to hosting. It always gives me a lot of energy. I like sharing. Our city with different people, and it'll be really fun. Um, so there's that. And then we also had such a fun Valentine's Day. We went and had sushi at our favorite restaurant, and then we went to a comedy show. Oh my gosh, next time you and Nick are in town, we need to double date. Like, the comedy show was a special just for Valentine's Day called Swipe Right, and so they were like going deep into everyone's relationships and like calling people out of the crowd. It was diabolical. It was so offensive, but like I could not stop laughing. Like, it was just so good. Um, loved it.

I love—

Yeah, it was really fun. So that's, that's me on the life update side. For the in-between, so obviously this is the In Between Podcast, so we always share what we're currently in between. So would you like to go first?

I can go first. Um, I'm trying to decide if I want a personal life in between or if I want a business in between. Um, I'll share a business one. So I think I shared this on the podcast last time, but I've been working on my workflows all of like this year so far. So it's been about 8, 6 weeks. Um, and they finally went live this past week.

Yay.

And it's just one of those things where like I avoided the update of all my workflows for so long because, or this past year, because it was just It's tedious. Like every single client, what the workflow is, the email, like for each one of those things, the graphics, the, all that stuff. And I had, I hired someone to support me in that, but even once that was done, it was still very tedious for me to go through. So I did that yesterday and, or this week, and then all of it is running well. And I guess what I'm in between is like realizing what's on the other side of sometimes the most annoying tasks and how much freedom that can bring. Because I've done that But my business needed an overhaul. And now that I've been in the flow of it, I'm getting inquiries and I'm using the workflow and things are more automated. People are getting responses a lot quicker. All of these things are just flowing like a well-oiled machine. I just feel so much better about my business. I'm like, okay, this is what the quality that I wanted to give my clients. And it felt like for a little bit there was more manual and I was busy and all of that. And so I'm just In between, I guess just accepting that I need to carve out more time during the year for those like maintenance things and just realizing like it's a real part of the business and, um, yeah, just how much freedom it can bring and just the investment part of it. So I'm feeling, feeling really good about it. Hmm.

Okay. Love that. I love the like focus on stepping back. And updating processes, and now there's like a sense of pride and a sense of like, yeah, this is running how I want it to run and how you know it can run. But it does take those, like it takes time, it takes energy. I know you hired a specialist to help you set up all those workflows, so it takes an investment, but it's so worth it. And I'm so glad that you're feeling that sense of pride and that sense of like, yeah, things are running how I want them to run.

Yes, thank you so, so much. Um, what are you currently in between?

Okay, I'm also gonna go with a business one this week as well. I came to the realization— I haven't talked to you about this yet, but I came to the realization that I need and want a rebrand. Oh, I know. So I started my coaching business in 2020, and it's called Deeper Life And it's been slowly a brand that I haven't really shared. Like, I feel like most of what I'm building on social is my personal brand under just Alexis Teichmiller. But the coaching brand is still Deeper Life. Like, that's, that's Deeper Life Coaching. And that's still like a big piece of, I guess, more of the, um, detailed nuanced side of the business, but it's not something that I really share very much. And I think with the direction of building out a newsletter, like growing the coaching business, and maybe one day, maybe even later this year, like launching a physical product, I think it makes sense for me to rebrand. So I started journaling about it on Monday and I was like, I think this has been the blocker in a way of like why things haven't always felt as organic for me. And I kind of feel like things are pocketed in different places. And I feel like a rebrand would give me the fluidity and the focus and the clarity of like, this is what I offer, this is my business. And so I am excited. I need to do more digging and understanding, but I've decided I'm going to do the whole thing myself. I'm going to do the whole rebrand myself. I'm going to design my own logo. I'm going to design my own website. Like I'm going to go in on it by myself because One, I know that I can do it. I know there'll be a learning curve for sure, but I also think that I am at a place where I don't actually want to invest externally. I want this to be something that like I push myself to do on my own. And yeah, I just don't want to outsource this. I know that we're both like pro outsourcing, but there's something about this that feels like I really need to have all of my attention and hands in the project.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe once I get clarity on certain things I need to outsource, I can, I can do that. But yeah, I think this is a challenge that I'm ready for and something I want to do on my own. So I'll keep you updated.

I love this. I am so excited for you. I still remember when we went to Colorado and we took your first Deeper Life launch photos in the mountains.

For the website?

So fun. Yes, for the website.

Um, yeah, if you go to alexisteichmiller.com, like LOL. Like, I love, I love past me and I loved that brand and the people that worked on it were freaking fantastic. But it's also 5 years old and I, I've just evolved so much and what I offer and how I coach has evolved too. So I think that, yeah, yeah, I remember that too.

A moment for the hat era Alexis.

The flat brim hats. Not even kidding.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love this though. And I love this podcast because our listeners, are all in different, I mean, you, we all run different types of businesses and there's different decisions that you need to make. And I love this because it's, there's no right way to do it except what you as a business owner feel like is the best decision. And so this is a perfect example of like following your intuition that you need to have your hands on it. And I agree. I think like there is an aspect of deep diving into your brand and creating it yourself. That allows you to have that full ownership, full clarity before any other type of outsourcing can happen. I do think that sometimes outsourcing prematurely takes that away from you where somebody else then is running their vision for your brand rather than you deciding that first. So I'm so proud of you.

100%. I love that you said that because I think that's sometimes what I've done in the past is like, I don't know, here's a bunch of things about it. What do you think? And then I'm leaning on their expertise so much that it's not necessarily my words or my vision. So I'm excited for what's to come. And with that, do we want to transition into today's topic?

Let's do it.

All right. The behind the scenes of our first launch for the In-Between Mastermind. What went well? What didn't? Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, we want to be transparent. We want to walk you through like how everything went. But before we do, do you want to kind of kick us off and share when the mastermind idea came to us and how quickly we cranked this out?

Well, I love this story because it's truly one of those where it's like you don't need to overthink things. So we first started thinking about the mastermind over our Christmas break. So you and I met and we really were reconsidering the podcast. And if you've been listening for a while, you've probably listened to the episode where we said we were close to shutting it down. And it was through that session and that conversation, we're like, okay, we want to pivot. We want to serve specifically business women and business entrepreneurs and creators. And it's no longer going to be a lifestyle brand. So what does it look like to do that from that perspective? And more like in addition to the podcast, like, okay, how can we take this a step further and connect with our community? Like, what does that look like? Is it a retreat? Is it a membership? Like, there's so many different aspects, but we knew we wanted a more high touch than just the podcast that we have been having so far. And so then we started brainstorming ideas on what it would look like to I think our first idea was to do more of a membership, right?

Yeah.

It was to launch a community. Yeah. And so we first thought about a membership and it was funny because then we sat on that for a week after our first initial brain dump and like, okay, this is a direction we're going, but it didn't quite get to the mastermind aspect. And then a week later we were both kind of like, okay, no, you messaged me and you're like, okay, What if we did more of a mastermind focus group and deep dive with the girls? I was like, this sounds amazing. This sounds so in alignment. And then I think a week or two after that, when we were really putting bones to all of this, the retreat idea came about and we're like, okay, let's just marry these 2 things into one and have an in-person idea. So I love sharing this because It goes to show that the ideas evolve and the more that you put it out into the world, the more that you talk about it and give yourself a little bit of time to marinate on it, you will continue to refine it as you sit with those ideas. And so I love that that was what our experience was like as we were trying to figure it out. We were like, okay, this is when we're going to do the launch. So yeah, that was our initial process. And then we put some bones to it of like, okay, when are we going to launch? New Year is here. Everyone's really ready to lock in their goals. At first, we were going to do it much later and then we moved it up and we're like, no, everyone's ready to lock in on their goals. Let's do it now.

Yeah.

And honestly, that was a challenge because we, again, the idea came about in December, the last week of December. So that was definitely a challenge. But I'm so glad that we, that we did it. So that's kind of like the initial story from it. Yeah.

We met once we had decided to do the mastermind. We met on January 2nd. I went to her house. I was actually in Illinois visiting for Christmas and I went to her house. We like sat down for an hour or 2 and like just brain dumped everything. And then we launched, we relaunched the podcast end of Jan. And now like we've already had our first mastermind call and we're recording this in the middle of February. So all that like goes to show that yes, process and like ideate and like sit on those ideas and make sure that it's, you want to take the action on the right idea for you. And then also once you do decide, okay, this is what I'm going to do, don't overthink everything. Don't overthink yourself out of taking action. And that was a big thing.

Mm-hmm.

One, I'm so glad that we're business partners because we feed off of each other and we like get that energy and that motivation and accountability from each other. Um, but during that January 2nd meeting, we really wanted to like understand who was this for? Like, who was this mastermind for? And so as you're building your launch for your next product, your next service, whatever it is, getting really clear on who exactly this is for really helped us with our messaging, helped us with the way we marketed it, how we talked about it.

Mm-hmm.

And then from there we were like, okay, If we know that it's for this type of business owner who cares about obviously the growth of their business, but they also are looking at this from a holistic perspective of how their business impacts their life, and they want to earn more money, but they also don't want to do that in sacrifice of their mental health. Like it's a very specific type of business owner, right? That helped us ideate on what was included. So okay, we we want to obviously have the group. Um, aspect of the mastermind calls monthly, but we also want to have one-on-one coaching where we get to go deeper with the girls. And we want to have homework assignments and resources and templates every single month to help them go deeper. And then we want to have a community piece of it where like they can talk to each other in between. So like we really started to build out this offer of like what's included and then how long we wanted it to run. And then we talked about pricing last because once you get to this place where you know who it's for and you understand what you're including, it really gives you the ability to price it from a really like eyes wide open space.

Mm-hmm.

Like versus you go in and you're like, I want to charge X. Okay, well, who is it for and, and what's included? And so we got to the point where we talked about pricing last and we knew that we needed the pricing to be approachable and accessible for business owners, but we also needed it to be at a place where, um, if we hit our goal of X number of women, we could pay for a retreat. Like, because an aspect of this mastermind was an in-person retreat. And I don't know if you listening have ever run any type of events or retreats before, but they can be very expensive. You have the cost of the Airbnb, food, activities, like The experience that you're building. And so we knew that we also wanted to make profit from this too. We didn't want all the money that we made from the mastermind to just pay for the in-person weekend retreat. So we kind of, you know, you and I talked through that. I loved that conversation that we talked through of like, okay, we want this pricing to fit this criteria. And we really did the math on it and started understanding how much the mastermind weekend, like the IRL weekend would cost us.

Mm-hmm.

And that's where we're like, okay, we need to have it be at this This price ended up being 2,222. Astrid's angel number, one of your angels. And then we also knew that we wanted to offer payment plans too. And so I think understanding like this is the base price, but can you offer payment plans because it's a 6-month mastermind? You can pay once a month and get to that price as well. So that made it really accessible and like an easier yes for some of the women being able to split up those payments. So Those were a couple of things that we thought through early on. Yeah. Anything to add?

Yes. On the pricing portion, I feel like that can be such a tricky aspect to a launch where sometimes we can price ourselves out of being able to get certain clients. And I think that this mostly happens when you're first doing something for the first time. So you're launching a new course, a mastermind, service. And so truly what we're offering is valued at more. And we're like, okay, let's bring it down because this is the first time that we're doing this mastermind and let's get the girls in. Let's deliver a great service, a great mastermind. And then later on we can bring it back to what we know this is actually valued at. And so that's something to keep in mind with a launch and something that I have seen with people that I've also done coaching for is that they I love that they know their value and that's so important to have as your starting point. And when you're entering a new market, you have to know that for the most part, you're going to have more success if you're able to bring those prices down so you can enter the market and then you can bring your value up.

Yeah. I'm so glad that you brought this up because there's an aspect of you're so excited about the launch. You know what you're going to offer, you know your worth, you know your expertise, And you can sometimes end up pricing yourself out because it's such a new offer. Now that's, that's not always the case. That's not always the case with, with some people, but this was our first time offering a paid experience attached to the podcast audience. So we had never launched anything paid before. So we didn't really have that data to say, okay, here's what we've done in the past. Here's what we could launch with. And so I think taking that into consideration. That really allowed us to say, okay, we want this pricing to be accessible knowing that we want to keep doing masterminds every, you know, 6, 7 months. And we can continue to raise those prices as we add more value. And also based on like where our current coaching rates are, like we want to get, you know, increased over time. But I love that you brought that up. So when we got to that place where we understood the pricing, we also were like, okay, we want to use the relaunch of the podcast. Mm-hmm. To build hype around the mastermind. And we decided that we wanted to launch the mastermind with a waitlist of like, here's the landing page, here's all the details, here's the price. That was another thing too. We were never like, we were never, um, what am I trying to say? Like we never hid the price. I sometimes think that like people will join a waitlist, but they won't even know what the price is. And we really only wanted people to join the waitlist who knew the price and were comfortable investing that. Um, and so when we did that, we knew that there would be a lot of hype around the relaunch and like us shifting from lifestyle focus to business focus. And so being able to couple that launch, I also think really helped us build momentum around the mastermind and positioning us as business experts. And like, this is what— this is the direction of the podcast and this is what we're launching. If you want to go deeper with Astrid and I, and I really loved how the, like, that was messaged. I liked how that launched and I thought that went very, very well.

Absolutely. I love that we planned it simultaneously because our account was already getting a lot more eyeballs to it and having that shift focus. I got a lot of DMs from people that were like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited that now you're shifting into like business. We got more follows. I know you did too. And so. Honestly, it was scary at first. I thought we were going to have a drop in engagement with the podcast because most of our listeners, I thought, were more on the lifestyle front. But it was really, yeah, it was really refreshing to see even more of an engagement as we went focused.

Our downloads since we shifted to business have increased. Like they're, we're getting more downloads as a business podcast and like with that framing and that focus on our episodes. Than we ever got as a lifestyle podcast. So yeah. Yeah.

And I want to just normalize the fact that it's scary to pivot. It's scary to launch something. And we did this scared. Like, we're going to share with you some of our struggles too. And like mentally what we were navigating and just know that it's very normal. Like as you're creating your pricing, your customer experience, like be aware of that fear that pops up of like, will anyone sign up? And then like, Don't price yourself just because of that fear. Don't create a certain customer experience just because of that fear. And so I think that's also where having the partnership came into play because you helped me snap out of that fear and just kind of more be sober-minded. And I feel like we helped each other on that front.

Absolutely. We yo-yoed back and forth. I was super confident and I would be like, yeah. And then you'd be super confident. I'm like, yeah, okay.

Okay.

So we used the relaunch of the podcast and the customer experience went like this. So we launched the podcast, drove traffic to the waitlist, and then once they filled out the waitlist, it redirected them to an application for us to learn more about who they were, what their business goals were, what struggles they were having, and the way that they wanted to grow their business. And then they kind of went into this waiting period, and we'll talk about that here in a second. And then we sent them a personal email with the link to buy. So we—

yeah.

Like, let's talk about that waiting period for a second. So we thought that we would wait like 2 to 3 weeks to build up the waitlist and then email people the link to secure their spot in the mastermind. But we were like 3 days in and we had probably like 6 people on the waitlist. And I was like, wait, should we wait 3 weeks to give them the link to secure their spot? Like, We just kind of had this mindset shift of these people are ready now, they're interested now, and if we wait 3 weeks, are they going to invest in something else? Are they going— is so much time going to pass that that first initial spark that interested them in the mastermind is going to dwindle and burn out? And by the time we're like, hey, secure your spot, they're like, I don't know. Like, we wanted to capitalize on the, the like newness and nowness of, okay, you're interested now, let's make this happen now. Not in like an urgency icky way, but like you're clearly interested. Here's the link if you're ready to, you know, secure your spot. And that was something that we like went back and forth on. We're like, okay, I think we need to change this up.

Yes. And that was, uh, something that, or that is something that I would say is like, don't be afraid to just pivot as things are happening. And so we ended up moving up the whole timeline of when the mastermind was even starting because of that waitlist. We're like, people are interested. We don't want to lose that hype. And I do think that when you're putting so much time and effort into those campaigns and emails and all of that, if you wait too long, then it just falls to the back of people's minds. It's top of mind for you, but not top of mind for them.

Yeah.

Um, I want to do a little, um, a little parentheses here for anyone that's doing a launch and looking to do a waitlist portion or an application portion. Um, the platform that we used for it was Kit, right? Or is it ConvertKit?

Yeah. We used Kit for the landing page to like gather the emails and then it redirected them to a Google Form. And that's where we actually had like the application to gather all the information about them. And that also helped us with our messaging.

Even more. Yes.

We're like, okay, we've got a couple of people that have filled out the application that allows us to know like what, who they are, what their struggles were. And so we were able to use that language in our marketing. And I think that really helped us like speak to the right people.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that. I feel like sometimes we're hearing all these things about a launch and then also hearing like, what platforms are people using that you can also use for your launch? So there's those for you. Um, and then we just use Stripe for like people's checkout link as well.

So once the, once the, I'm glad you brought that up. So once we had launched the Stripe link for people to secure their spot and actually purchase, we changed the user experience, like the prospect, you know, potential customer experience from here's the landing page, put in your email address, let us know. that you're interested. That was kind of our way of capturing that lead. And then it just immediately redirected to the Stripe checkout. So we removed that application process friction and it's like, as soon as they were interested, they could just purchase. So with that, like in the first couple of days of us, actually like the first 24, 36 hours of us emailing everybody on the waitlist, 2 people secured their spot immediately. And then we had to go into like prospect nurture time. So do you want to talk about, about like that process and what that was like? Because that was like something that we obviously expected, but we had, we're using email and we noticed like, okay, people aren't responding as much or like giving us that feedback or like, what are they thinking? And maybe what are some of the reservations? What are some questions that they have?

Yeah.

We noticed people weren't as drawn to responding to email. So we were like, okay, we might need to shift up how we're following up with these people on our waitlist. So yeah, do you want to talk about that?

Absolutely. Yeah. So once we noticed that we weren't really getting a lot of response, clearly these people were interested at some point because they signed up for it. And we're like, okay, how can we get them engaged again? And so we just went into a one-on-one aspect and we Divvied up, being able to DM them. And that way I feel like that made it more personal where it's not as salesy and it's like, okay, if you do have any questions, happy to answer it. And actually when we messaged them, there was a lot of questions and we were able to talk through it, whether it was like a retreat location question or like how much like touchpoints are we going to have. We then ended up tweaking some of our language where we realized like, Oh, people are misreading how many calls we're having per month too. And so that goes to say, don't be afraid to DM someone that has already expressed interest. It's not icky because they're interested in that.

Yeah.

And to further that even more, we're like, okay, what are some people that we know that would genuinely have expressed interest in more coaching or a experience like this and we can just share it with them. And I will say it's hard sometimes to send those messages because it's like, hey girl, you know, you— I've gotten some of those messages before from different people and some of them have really landed and I'm like, oh, thank you for thinking of me. Actually, I am very interested.

Yeah.

And some of them have not and I'm like, why would you send me that? So that was a little bit scary, but I think we We're very strategic with it. And we didn't just mass message this to everyone that we knew or that this massive list. It was literally a shortlist of 5 people each that were like, I think these people would be very interested. And that went over really well. And that's how we were able to get to our signups with that. But that lull between the 2 that signed up right away and then no one responding, no one doing anything and securing their spots and just hearing crickets was honestly daunting. We're like, we've put so much work into this. We're like, what are we missing? And I think that's the biggest thing of this too, is if you launch something and you're not getting the response that you want, sometimes we tend to just jump straight to like, it's not good enough, or maybe we're not supposed to be doing this. And that was my first One second thought. And then afterwards you have to talk yourself out of it and be like, no, it's sometimes just the communication or like something's lost in the mix and we're trying to figure it out. And clearly people were very interested in it.

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes when you don't get the initial reaction or response that you thought you would, you can sometimes take your foot off the gas of promotion and it's like, well, you know, this isn't going as well, so I'm just not going to talk about it as much. I'm not going to send that extra email. I'm not going to share on Instagram. Instagram stories. Like, I'm kind of nervous, but I'm really proud that we both, like, we talked about it. I was like, I'm feeling kind of nervous about this. I'm feeling a little anxious. Like, what should we do? And we were constantly problem solving and pivoting. Like, okay, what about this? We could try this. And we noticed there was a really strong allure to the in-person mastermind. Like, that was a huge selling point. Obviously the 6 months of going deep and being in an intimate community, and the coaching aspect was a massive value add. And that like differentiator to this program was the in-person retreat weekend. And so that's when we're like, okay, we need to create a mood board. We need to talk about the retreat more. We need to talk about what that weekend is going to be like. And we really put more like social media power behind that on both our in-between Instagram as well as both of our individual Instagrams. And Once we were at that like closed cart, that's another thing. I sometimes feel like buyer behavior is usually like, as soon as the cart opens, there's going to be people that are going to buy. And then you're going to be in this no man's land in the middle. And then once you give somebody a deadline, it's like, hey, this Friday cart closes.

Boom.

People are like, I'm in. Like I need to secure my spot. And that's exactly what happened to us. We had 2 customers or 2 women in the mastermind join within the first 36 hours. We had a trickle. We had 1 person trickle in in that no man's land period. And then the last 24 to 36 hours of the cart being closed, cart is closing, we're closing the doors, we had 3 more women sign up. And so we have 6 women in our mastermind. We're like, okay, this is great. This is exactly the kind of group size we were hoping for. And I think it just goes to show like the acknowledging the lulls in a launch and recognizing that if you can create hype around the launch and hype around the closed cart, that's where you're going to see the majority of your signups. And I just want to quickly talk about buyer psychology for a second. So there's 5 steps: awareness, research, consideration, conversion, and repurchase. And We used awareness. Step one, podcast relaunch. We have this big hype. We're going to like focus on building awareness around us as business experts. We're going to relaunch this podcast as a business podcast. Boom! We have a mastermind. The research part was more so for the women, like the customer of saying, "Okay, who is Astrid? What is her expertise? Who is Alexis? What is her expertise? Like, is this you know?" What does it look like? What's included? Is this something I need right now? And then the consideration piece, like getting to that place where they're considering, that's where we were in the DMs. They were already considering, they had joined the waitlist and we're like, okay, let's understand what questions do you have? What reservations do you have? What hesitations? Like, tell us more about your business. And that's where we were able to get that consideration into a conversion. And that conversion piece is like, okay, yes, I want this. You've answered all my questions. This is very clear. I want to invest. Boom, I'm going to convert and then repurchase. We're not at that stage yet, but I do think that's helpful when you're looking at buyer psychology. A lot of times we can jump to like, I want them to just consider the offer and buy, but we, you have to build time in the launch to build awareness around the offer, get them to do their research and really understand what is this? Do I want it before they move into that consideration piece? And I like that we used a waitlist. to capture consideration. And then we were able to nurture that into people ending up purchasing. So yeah, thank you for coming to marketing research 101.

I love it. No, I think this is an amazing thing to keep in mind whenever you do another launch or a launch, because sometimes I think as business owners, we're so hard on ourselves that we drop off. In step 2 or 3, because we're not seeing the results that we want. And so keep this in mind of like, okay, what is a customer processing and how can I create more content or information around what stage of the process it might be? And I think too, whenever somebody does a launch, and I've seen this a few times where they think that the customer retains 100% of the information, and the truth is that we don't. And so that's where like repetition is really important. Being able to highlight, like, say you have 5 core things that you're offering within that main offer, like do different posts about highlighting what that looks like. We did that with the retreat. We did that with like the coaching aspect, like all of that stuff. And so being able to highlight it educates and gives them more information to make that decision purchase. So, um, yeah, I'm so happy that we got to, to do this. And I also think that Your first launch is always going to be harder because there's not that testimonial just yet. People don't know you as the person that does X, Y, and Z. And if you can just push through that first one, work through all those kinks, the second one I genuinely feel like will be so much easier and people will be like, oh, so-and-so got these results by joining that mastermind or by buying this product. I want that too. And so just give yourself that grace too, that The first one may not necessarily hit all and check all the boxes, but it's okay. It's, it's meant to be a learning experience as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Like you have to take action. That's how you build confidence. It's how you get to that place where you are hitting every box. Like it's, it's tough to check all the boxes if you're not taking action and, and give yourself that grace of the fact that you're learning. This is a learning process. We learned so much and I'm glad that we got to Talk to you about our experience and what worked and what didn't, and ways that we were able to pivot midway through. With that, thank you so much for being here. We love you. We can't wait for next week's episode. We know that there are so many podcasts out there to listen to, and we really are so grateful that you listen to ours. If you have any questions for us or resonate with this episode, you can always DM us on Instagram at inbetween.pod, and you can always reach out to me personally at Alexis Teichmiller.

And you can reach out to me at @astrojohannaphoto. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we'll catch you next time.