#268 - The Real Math: Why You Need 10X Fewer Sales to Hit $200K in 2026

Here's the truth. You can have the best offer in the world, but if your numbers don't work, if your math doesn't math, then your business doesn't work. I see this constantly. Coaches creating beautiful programs, putting their heart and soul into the delivery, and then wondering why they're still broke, still stressed, and still can't hit their revenue goals. And it's almost always because they didn't do the maths, because they were scared of it. Maybe they didn't know what numbers mattered or why. But either way, today I'm here to fix all of that and get your maths mathing. Hey, welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. I'm Kate McGibbon from HelloFunnels, and if you've been following along for the last few episodes, you know we've been deep in this conversation about the pivot that needs to happen in 2026. We've talked about why traditional DIY courses are on the way out, why I has disrupted everything and will continue to do so, and how I built a $5 million group program while navigating life with a newborn, and the biggest mistakes when they're creating their offers. It's been juicy. If you haven't listened to those episodes yet, pause this one and go back, because they're going to give you the full picture of why this shift matters and how to do it. Right now. Here's where we are. If you're ready to make this pivot, if you're ready to stop chasing volume and start building something sustainable and profitable, you need to know your numbers. And yes, I'm a bit of a nerd. I love a spreadsheet. That's no secret. But here's what I've learned. After six years of running this type of group program and almost 18 years of working online, having generated millions of dollars across countless offers, the fact is that different types of offers have different types of numbers that matter. And knowing what these numbers are, knowing how to track them, knowing what to do with that data, can literally be the difference between hitting your goals with ease and and wondering why nothing works. So today I'm walking you through the most important numbers you need to know if you want to create, fill and scale. A successful and profitable leverage. Live experience in 2026 and real quick before we dive in, if you're listening to this as it goes live, doors are open right now for the pivot project and our early bird rate closes midnight Friday, Australian time. So if you want to save over 50% and get in before we start next week. Now is the. All right, let's dive into those numbers. All right, let's start with a question everyone always wants to know. How much can I and should I charge for my group program? And the truth is there are a lot of people out there undercharging and there are also a lot of people out there massively overcharging, if I'm being honest. So let me give you my framework. Generally, as a general rule, you can charge three to ten times what you would charge for a DIY course, solving a similar problem. Now, for your first round, your founding members, your first intake, you're probably going to be closer to three to five times your DIY course price. Just while you're getting everything dialed in, making sure it works really well, getting those first testimonials. But then know that you do have the capacity to go up to 10 times the DIY price once you've proven the model and you've got the results to back it up. So if you're currently selling a $500 DIY course, your program might start at 1500-2500 for your founding round, and then you could scale it up to 3,000 to 5,000 once you've got everything running smoothly. Now, while we're talking about pricing, I want to share one of my favorite numbers to track and that is the percentage of people taking your pay in full option versus your payment plan. This is something I track on all of my offers because it gives you really valuable data about where your pricing sits in the market. And here's how to read it. If a vast majority, say 80% of people are taking the payment plan, that usually means you're at the higher end of what your market is willing to pay. Now, as long as you're still converting well and your cashflow positive, that's not necessarily a problem. That's just the data that you have and you can use it to make decisions. Now on the other hand, if the vast majority of people are paying in full, that usually means you are undercharging. People see it as such crazy value, they are happy to pay it all at once. Which means you've definitely got room to raise your prices. The sweet spot usually somewhere around 5050 or 60 40. So track this. It'll tell you a lot about how the market perceives your pricing and is one of my favorite little 1% tweaks that can completely change the economics of both revenue in bank and how your offer converts. All right, this next one is really exciting, especially when so Many people have spent the last few years watching sales slow down and launches get softer. So I want you to actually sit down and do that back of napkin math on hitting your revenue goal with this type of program. Let me walk you through an example. Let's say you have a goal of making an extra 200k next year from this offer. If you were trying to hit that with a $500 course, you'd need to make 400 sales over the year. Reverse engineer that and say your launches convert at 2%. That means you need 20,000 people in your launches to hit that goal. Or if you're selling through an evergreen funnel, you need to making 33 sales per month, which means hundreds or even thousands of people can coming into your funnel every single month, depending on your conversion rate. Now, when you look at those numbers, does that feel doable? Does it feel likely? Does it feel profitable? Or does it feel really, really hard? Now let's look at the same goal, but with a $5,000 group program, you'd need to make just 40 sales over the year. That's about three to four sales a month. And if you're doing quarterly launches, that's still 10 sales per launch. Suddenly that feels a lot more achievable, right? And just for fun, let's add in some upsells. Let's say 20 to 30% of those people either renew for another round or upgrade to a higher priced offer. That's an additional eight to 12 people paying an extra $5,000 or more. That could be an extra 40 to 100,000 plus in revenue just from people who already know, like and trust you. That's the power of knowing your math. When you sit down and actually run these numbers, you start to see why this model makes so much more sense for most coaches and course creators. You're not chasing volume anymore. You're focused on quality, on transformation, on creating an experience people want to stay in and invest in again and again. So do the math for your own business. Plug in your numbers. See what it would take to hit your goals with a DIY course or your existing office suite versus a group program. I think you'll be very surprised. All right, the next set of numbers are all about delivery. And these are really important. Number one is the time to results. So this first one, the way you calculate is really looking at what is realistically the time it takes for someone to get the results or the promise. Following your framework with the tools and support you're giving to them. This is a number you want to know and you want to include it in your messaging and you want to track it also over time. Because here's the thing, people are time poor. Most people don't really want a 12 month commitment or something unless it's absolutely necessary. So if you can say most people get this done in 8 weeks, or using our program, most people see results in five weeks, that becomes a really powerful social proof point. And if your program is 12 months, that's fine too. Just make sure that's accurate and that you're clear about why it takes that long. But knowing this number and being able to speak directly to it confidently makes a huge difference in your marketing and in setting expectations for your clients. The second delivery number I want you to focus on is the first seven days. I always recommend that people structure their first seven days really intentionally to make sure people feel like they've gotten a win early. Because if people have a great experience in those first seven days, if they're in, they're excited and they're getting momentum, studies show they're statistically more likely to keep going with that same energy to get better results and to have a higher completion and success rate. And that is a win win for everyone. So think about what's the quick win you can give someone in that first week? What's the thing that's going to make them go, oh wow, this is working. I'm so glad I invested in this. That's what you want to engineer into those first seven days. All right, the last two numbers I want to talk about are around your sales and marketing. So first is the time on list before purchase. So anytime someone joins your program, I always like to track how long they've been on my email list before they joined. You can do this manually or you can set up an automation to track it, or you can have your VA pull the data. But it's really useful to know because when you start tracking this and looking for the trends, you'll see the average time it takes someone to go from joining your list to becoming a buyer. Going to help you to plan out your promotions and know whether you need to nurture people for three months or 12 months before they're ready to buy. It's just really, really valuable data to have. The second number is your completion rate and your retention rate. So knowing where are people dropping off, what percentage of people are getting to the end or at least 60 to 70% of the way through. Because the higher the completion rate, the more likely people are to renew, upgrade, or refer others to you and that's where the real long term profitability and stability of this model comes from. So track it, pay attention to it, see where people drop off, and if you see patterns, adjust your delivery to address them. So those are some of the most important numbers you need to know if you want to create, fill and scale a successful leverage live experience in 2026. Pricing, goal planning, time to results, time on list, and completion rates. These numbers matter and when you track them and use them to make smart decisions and everything gets easier. Now if you want me to walk you through how to structure your offer, how to nail your delivery so you're getting great results and sky high completion rates, how to plan it, fill it and scale it, all of that good stuff. Make sure you jump in and save your seat inside the Pivot project. And just a reminder, if you're listening to this as it goes live, our early Bird rate closes midnight Friday, Australian time. We've only got a couple of days left to grab that epic 50% discount. And don't forget, we start next week. As I'm recording this, there are still a few spots available for the live experience, but they are limited. So if you're ready, click the link below and let's get this done together. I'll see you inside.