George Kao learned that session timing dramatically affects sign-ups for online courses. Moving JOY Pro sessions to times that work for European and North American audiences increased enrollment. Live interaction generates higher sales than evergreen recordings, especially for smaller audiences.
One of the reluctant lessons I've learned this year is that the timing of our sessions matter a lot for not just participation, but it does matter. It doesn't have a significant difference for sales as well. So let me explain. If I, if I say I'm launching a course, XYZ course, and it's gonna be it's going to be taught at 2 AM your time, you definitely are going to be less likely to sign up for it, even though there's a recording you can watch. Most people prefer that the session is at a time that they can attend. And in the past— now I want to say, I think the topic of the whatever you're launching still matters more. Like if you're launching a course and it's gonna be at 2:00 AM in some of your audience's time and it's a good fit for your audience, you're still gonna make plenty of sales. You're gonna still make more sales than a course that has a topic they don't like, even if it's at a time they like. So I think topic still wins above timing, but this year I have seen through several launches and several programs I'm running that timing matters more than I thought. And I really am, so I'll give you an example of recent, I'm trying to give a recent example. Yeah, I mean, whether it's launching JOY Pro or my ABC year-long program or various courses, people are giving me more and more pushback about the time. Like, oh George, I really, I wanna sign up for your pro— I mean, this is literally a recent example. Several people said, oh, I wanna sign up for Joy Pro, but the weekly training time not gonna work for me, so I'm not gonna sign up. And then I changed the weekly training time so that it's better for, well, in this case it's better for the Europeans and people in North America during the day. And they signed up. They said, oh, well, that changes my mind. I'll sign up. Okay. And so it obviously matters. Pricing. Okay. I would say this topic and pricing matter more than timing. And in terms of pricing, what I've learned this year is the importance yet again of a payment plan or like a lower chunk I'm gonna talk about this in a separate segment, but let me just finish on the timing thing. Recently my wife signed up for a yoga, sort of 14-day yoga class experience. And one of the reasons she signed up was that they offer several different times during the day of the same class. So she feels like, okay, I can have the experience that I want, at several different times. And I imagine— I don't, I can't confirm this, but I, I can't— I imagine that the teacher, the core teacher, which is what people sign up to learn from, isn't like showing up, you know, at these 3 different, 4 different times of the day and teaching the same thing. I imagine that this core, this, the core teacher has already recorded the class and now is using YouTube Live to distribute the class at different times. And here's the thing, it's not just a, it's not just a Semplero video where it's like, well, I've already recorded it, good luck, go and just watch it whenever. It's no, no, you are signing up to show up at 7 PM and there's going to be a bunch of other people there and you can chat live and it's a, it's a webinar experience. Now the thing is, I don't know whether the teacher was actually there. Like I said, I can't imagine. It's a simple system these days to record and replay at a particular time. And they're, they're using YouTube Live, YouTube unlisted link, a live link so that people can— so they're, they're using YouTube's streaming software essentially for free. Um, so that it's, you know, YouTube has, you world-class servers and streaming stability. So they're doing that. And anyway, so all I'm saying is, and I've also heard from another marketing expert recently that he was able to grow his client inquiries by simply offering exploratory calls at more times. You know, like up to now I've been, I've been, I've been wanting to believe, well, I still believe this to some extent. Like if your energy signature is strong enough and, and, and pure enough and more aligned with your audience, they will climb over mountains to meet with you. They will, they will do anything. They will wake up at 2:00 AM to join your classes or to meet with you. And the reality is that most of us have a small enough audience where that might be true for one person or two people, but we can't— we don't have enough people willing to climb over mountains for us yet. Like, if you have a, you know, 100,000-person email list, then yes, you, you know, if you're like, I don't care, I'm going to set the time, I, I, I'm, I'm only gonna— I'm only gonna take 3 exploratory calls per week, and it's going to be at these exact times because those are best for me. You have the luxury if you have a giant audience to do that. But for those of us, all of us here probably watching this who don't, you're gonna expand your business by expanding the amount of options you give to your customers, clients, potential clients to meet with you. And like I said, like I said at the beginning of this, people want to meet with you live rather than watch a recording, etc. In terms of sales, you get much better sales that way. So I, I guess maybe I'll end the video by, by, by inviting you to comment below if you'd like. Where have you noticed this dynamic? First, let me say, as a customer and client and a student of other people, have you noticed this dynamic within yourself that you're reluctant to sign up for something if the timing of the live sessions doesn't work for you, or you're more likely to sign up if the timing works well for you? Have you noticed that? Maybe, maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure. That's the first question. And the second question is, as a service provider, have you noticed that when you offer more options for, for times for people to meet with you on an exploratory call or a client call or or course teaching times, have you noticed that it increases your sales, increases your inquiries? And I guess the third question is, what are you gonna do about this? What are you gonna do about this? Comment below. Like, I'm starting to brainstorm. It's just, I'm letting the seed plant within myself. Like, ooh, I guess maybe what I should do about this is replay my course sessions. I, so here's, here's the, here's the problem. I mean, I'm like, I was, what I was gonna say is like, I should replay my course sessions and, and sell the fact that, hey, you can attend this course at, you know, 10:00 AM your time or 2:00 PM your time or 7:00 PM your time, you know, and, and there, there will be other people there and you can chat and, and things like that. Like I could maybe replay my course sessions first and then I can have the evergreen replay afterwards. Maybe, maybe do the, do the timed replays first and then a few days later the evergreen replay is available. But this, but then I'm thinking I've kind of tried the watch party thing before. Those of you who have been around in my courses know that I've, I've, I've launched several courses that have watch parties, meaning like, hey, Um, people in Australia, I'm gonna host a watch party at, you know, 7 PM, or 7 PM my time, but like, you know, 10 AM your time or whatever, and you can show up and watch the course, and then that's it. I'm not going to say anything, or I might answer a few questions, but I'm going to mainly just have you watch the course during that time. And nobody wanted it. Just about, just about nobody wanted it. So I'm I'm trying to figure out what this means for me. So I'm open to any, any thoughts that you might have on, on this question of timing.
