How to "Experiencify" Your Courses & Disrupt Online Education with Marisa Murgatroyd

For business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business, pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Now, here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

All right, we are back, and I'm happy to have everybody back for another episode. If you've been a longtime subscriber, I want to thank you very much for staying around and tuning in. It means a lot, especially with some of the feedback I've been getting about the episodes, or as we like to call it on Bacon Wrap business episizzles about how just really useful these are in not only just opening your mind to what is working and not working and some of the journeys of some of my guests. And I get a lot of listeners tell me that, you know, I walked away from that podcast actually able to implement multiple things on here, and that was worth more than courses that I've paid money for. And I take a lot of pride in that. And I want you guys to know that whenever I invite a guest onto Bacon Wrap Business, it's always because I have authentic curiosity about who they are, what they're doing, how they've done something remarkable, something that is a little bit out of the ordinary. And that's because I value my time as much as I know you value yours. And if I'm going to be spending half an hour, an hour with somebody, I want to make sure I walk away with some really good epiphanies and insights that I can use in my own business and that with my clients. And I love letting you, my listeners, eavesdrop on these conversations that, honestly, I would love to be having anyway, but I just get to share them with you. Now. For those of you who know my backstory, in 2008, I launched my very first information product online. And that was my real foray into this digital publishing, digital marketing space. I knew very little about it. I followed some instructions and I was just like, all right, if you create a course, you throw together some videos and some text stuff, throw it in a membership site, sell it to people, and obviously everybody's going to get results and love you for that. And as I matured as a digital entrepreneur, and especially in the information space, I realized what a lot of my peers who'd gone before me realized is that so few students actually take action on the information in there. And if you don't take action, you don't get results. And if you don't get results, you don't continue to buy. And quite honestly, that aspect is one of the things that has kept me from creating another digital product, another digital course, because I just know all the time and effort that goes into it. And then sometimes it's unrewarded with the lack of attention. And it's rare that I come across somebody who has made really innovative advances in this industry as my guest today. And that's why I invited her on to talk a little bit deeper about how she kind of cracked the code on getting digital course creators to have their clients really engage and get results from their programs. So I want to introduce you just in a second to Marisa Murgatroyd. She's the founder of Live youe Message and she's the creator of the Experience Product Masterclass. She helps entrepreneurs sell more online programs and obviously get better, faster results for their students. She started her career as an artist.

She.

She was told by her father that she had no marketable skills. And then she figured out how to build a mid seven figure online business anyway. And she's shown over 5,000 students how to do it. And many of my friends I know who have been through her courses and curriculum have attested to me like, yeah, real deal, she kicks ass. She knows how to make this work. So without any further ado, I'd like to introduce Marisa to Bacon Wrapped Business. How are you?

Good to see you. I am great. Well, I'm looking forward to bringing both the sizzle and the steak or the bacon.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's how it is on this epicizzle. See, everybody else has episodes. We have episodes.

They just do epicizzle with the EP a shizzle.

EP A shizzle.

You know it.

So yeah, so I love this, as I mentioned in the introductions, info products, million course creators out there and it can be super frustrating to put your soul into a course and then either, you know, you realize that how many people actually don't go through it or don't get results or they, you know and whatnot. Take me kind of through your evolution in this business and you know, when did you start kind of in this, you know, whether it's just with marketing in general or getting into the teaching and infospace and then the course creation. And I want to find out how you stumbled across or just created this experience product and gamifying the results and what's led to so much success.

Yeah, for sure. Well, I actually started out somewhat similarly to you in that I just created a product because I heard if you create a product, if you Record some videos. If you throw it on a membership site, you're going to start making money while you what?

While you sleep?

Right, right. I realized that when I tell my.

Internet marketers, we work 18 hours a day so we can make money while we sleep.

Well, and I tell people, before you can make money while you sleep, first you got to be able to make money while you're awake. You know, And I think that this whole idea of automated passive income is a bit of a misnomer. And a lot of people who've been there down the road trying to create that realize that. But the truth is, is that I never even thought that I would be creating products or programs or courses. And it was actually my now husband, then boyfriend is the one who encouraged me because he thought that if I started creating products, I'd have more time for him. And I was, at the time, I was running a branding and website building agency, and I still run that agency. But he thought, hey, if you create more programs, then you have this scalable business model and we're going to be able to spend more time together. Which didn't quite come to pass until recently. Now we're on the other side of the building and the grinding and doing that. What happened is in I think about 2013, maybe 2012, I built my very first online program. And it was very similar to you in that I put my heart and my soul into it. I tried to give everyone every bit of knowledge that I had around growing an online business into one program. There was about, I know one person for sure who went through the whole thing, and she actually built her business and got tremendous results from it. But the vast majority of my students got stuck somewhere along the way and overwhelmed and gave up. And I realized that it's not just me, that the statistics show that up to 97% of people who buy online programs, courses, don't complete those programs and don't get the results. At the time, I didn't know that. And I went up to one of my colleagues and said, this is the problem that I'm having, and this is what I'm seeing. Is this normal? And she told me something that became that kind of call to action. And she told me, marisa, maybe some people just aren't meant to succeed. And I didn't believe that for one second because I genuinely believe that everyone is meant to succeed. Given the right environment, the right circumstances, the right education, anyone can succeed. But I also could not deny the fact that the vast majority of people are not succeeding in this format. And that turned out to be the summer of 2016. And something happened that changed my perspective for good that summer. And for those of you computer geeks, you may know what that thing is, basically, Pokemon Go came out and had this spectacular 200,000, $200 million first month. People were so obsessed with this game that there was footage of grown adults in New York City double parking their cars in the street, running into Central park to catch some rare Pokemon as a virtual creature on their cell phones that had just happened to spawn in the park. And there were so many people that they were literally stampeding through the park, all looking at their phones. And I was like, what in the world is going on? And then I had this, like, insight. What if I could get people that excited about achieving their biggest goals in life and overcoming their greatest challenges that they're literally running through the streets to take action? Is it even possible? And that was a question that drove me to start experimenting and beginning my search. So that led me to look at where in the world are people's attention being captured. And I looked a lot at games and I looked a lot at apps, but not just games and apps. I looked at adult learning theory. I looked at psychology of motivation. I looked at gamification. I looked at all of these factors and started to experiment with making products in different ways. And what I found is that the results skyrocketed. Just by experimenting with a few different things, I was seeing way more people, like, up to 80%, sometimes sticking through the program all the way through and getting the results.

I'm just curious, what were some of the early things you tried in the very beginning on that? It was like, oh, wow, that worked like, you know, it's like, I'm sure it took a little while for your stuff to evolve to where it is, right? But, yeah, what were some of those early wins? Like, oh, wow, that worked.

Yeah. Well, one of the first things that I did is you change one of my programs to a five day live virtual format, where I basically did it five days straight, three hours a day. And it was kind of almost a call and response program where I had people, you know, constantly doing feedback loops. I was like, are you getting this? Unmute yourself if you're getting this and tell me I'm getting this. And everyone would unmute themselves and say, I'm getting this. I would have timed exercises right there on the line. I would have them be sharing right there in the line. It was like the education and the curriculum and the coaching all happening combined in one format, how many people approximately.

Were showing up to those I was having about.

I think that first experiment I had, I think it was between 60 and 80 people on the very first one. And I remember how excited they were and how many people stayed all the way through the end. And after having done a lot more experiments, we consistently see anywhere from 10 times to 30 times the results of the average industry statistics for information based products. Obviously the results depend on how complex the thing is that you're trying to get people to do and how naturally like fun and enjoyable it is, or how much resistance will come up around it. The bigger the challenge, you can still increase at least tenfold, at least to 30%, 40%, 50%, and sometimes you can get up to 80 to 90% engagement in results too.

That's killer when it comes to gamification especially and just trying to create more engagement. The stuff that I know I've seen, I've not been inside your course or anybody else's or at least that I know of that has built a product, you know, based on your ip. But the obvious stuff that I think a lot of us see that are just pre built into membership programs, for instance, are the sometimes little badges and sometimes just the little hell, here's how far you are and you know, some aspects like that. And those are just like absolute training wheels. Like I'm really dying to see, you know, or hear some of the other aspects of how you experience. Did you create that word experience?

Ify yes, experience. Ify yes I did experience.

If I. Yeah. So as it evolved, what are some of the things that have been just super powerful in getting people to engage and take that kind of action?

For sure. Well, actually there are 10 core experiences that I recommend you stack together to create what I call experience escalation, which is the feeling of someone being so hooked into your product that they're almost compelled to keep going through it. And it's very different than getting someone addict to Facebook or Instagram because you're getting them addicted to achieving a goal that they already set, that they wanted to achieve, and overcoming challenges that have held them back up until now. And these 10 experiences are the opposite of the 10 standard experiences that most product creators have learned to do just by default and watching other products that are not very well designed. And those create what I call the downward death spiral, where a series of unintended, unconscious, slightly negative experiences stack together to create overwhelm, frustration, people giving up, walking away, and often refunding, or at least not choosing to Buy from you. Again, not choosing to refer from you. So I'll share a few of the experiences so you can get a sense of it. I want to start with experience number one, because I do think that that frames every other experience. Because if you don't get experience number one right, it's really hard for you to really experiencify your product because if you're thinking about a game and not to say that your product is a game, even if you're using gamification. Gamification is a word that's very misunderstood. It's not about making your product fun, it's about using game theory and game principles in non game activities. So I've had people apply this to financial services, tax returns, even overcoming trauma. So before you think, oh my gosh, it's not relevant for my corporate audience or whatever, it's completely relevant. So the first principle is what I call mission. And your mission is what is someone going to be, do, feel, have, overcome or achieve through your product? And it needs to be hyper specific. So specific that you could basically film someone crossing the finish line to Mission Accomplished. I like to say it's so clear, it's almost binary. It's either I've done it or I haven't done it. There's no room for uncertainty.

Can you give me an example?

I was about to. Yes, for sure. So first of all, I teach a template to help you craft your mission statement. I call it the Mission Possible template and I stole it from the Mission Impossible movies.

I like that, Mission Impossible.

So it basically goes, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is blank in that instantly. That sentence structure instantly forces you out of your own head of what you want to teach, deliver and offer into the shoes of your audience, of what they're actually going to be saying yes to and what you're asking them to do. So for example, for our flagship program, the Experience Product Masterclass, it's your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to design, market and make $2,000 or a whole lot more from an experience product in 12 weeks or less. So instantaneously you know exactly what you do, what you're not going to do and how long it's going to take and when you've achieved it. And this does a couple of things. One, it makes the outcome tangible and real. So someone's not going to keep playing the game if they don't know what winning looks like. So this is actually stating a very clear win state. Right. Which ties into principle number 10, mission accomplished but it's a very, very clear after state a win state of what things will look like once you've achieved it. Second, it allows you to simplify your product creation because so many products take the opposite principle, which is what I call too many masters, where their program is just about, say, transferring knowledge or transferring a skill. And that's not what most people say yes to, because you can find any of that on Google or on YouTube for free. You don't need to pay, you know, money to learn a skill or to learn something. Right. You pay money to figure out how to solve a very specific problem or achieve a very specific outcome and do.

It quicker with less risk and more certainty. Like that's really what people are paying. Like, you know, you can get from, you know, one island to another by swimming, but you'd rather take a boat.

Absolutely. And adults, the way they learn. If you look at adult learning theory, adults learn based on relevance. So they've got to see, how is this relevant in my life right now? How am I going to apply this? It's not just learning for the sake of learning. Abstract knowledge, reading a textbook. They want to know how they can apply this in so many programs, including my very first one, all about conveying expertise or doing this knowledge transfer, giving someone everything that you know about a topic. And that just creates what I call the thud factor. It creates overwhelm. And I realize that the thud factor is not just the sound of a lot of information landing on your doorstep, but it's the sound of your hopes and dreams collapsing in the floor in desperation, essentially. So people don't want everything. They just want the shortest, simplest, fastest path to a particular result or outcome. And structuring your product around a very clear mission allows you to do so much, allows you to simplify product creation. Anything that does not relate to getting someone to that mission, just get rid of it. Any. Just general overviews. People used to spend whole modules just talking about what you're going to learn.

Yeah, totally. And then do you. So I assume that's the first thing I see. Typically that's almost like the welcome, right? Like when I log into my dashboard, that's probably the very first thing, right. The mission, I imagine. Is there anything that you do in order to get a response? Are you having them click something, acknowledge it, do anything, or is it just kind of stating it?

Yeah, so I actually start before you even get into the membership site. So a lot of people talk about basically that the most important moment in your relationship with your customer is the moment that they buy. And I actually don't believe that that's the case. I believe the most important moment is the moment right after they buy and what you do to either move towards the expectations that have been set and help deliver on the promise or not. And so there's another experience that I call constant wins, which is creating something that every single time someone engages with you, they feel like they're winning, they feel like they're moving forward towards that overall mission. So what I do is after they go through our buying sequence, I go right to a welcome page. On the welcome page, I reinforce the mission and many of the other core principles of the experience formula and I give them their very first assignment. Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to, you know, choose your minimum target and stretch goals for your product over the next 12 weeks. So they're instantly in a training, a quick, easy training to define how much money they're going to make in the program. And I actually give them exact templates. If you've never made any money before, here's what to do for the minimum target and stretch. And the minimum is always 2000 because that's the promise of the program. If you've made some money before, here's how much to do. And if you're kind of more successful, here's how much to do. So it's a training that you cannot fail. No matter where you are, you can't fail. And it's also creating what I call a future self vision. It's actually having them visualize success at the end of the program with that very, very first training. So obviously it's not necessarily like a linear structure for the course where I'm not saying let's talk about your product idea first. The very first thing that I have them do is figure out how much money they want to make in that time period. And then we reverse engineer everything else from that point. Right. And they have not gone to email, they've not gone to the membership site because as soon as they go into email, what happens?

Rabbit hole, they get something else. There's something from Aunt Norma or whatever. It's, you know, one of the things you said, and I actually do agree on the surface level, I was thinking, oh yeah, of course, it's like right when, you know, like you said, the most important is after they buy, but like you said, most important is like right after they purchase. Right. So one of the things I did, which for multiple clients, in some of the consulting that I do, especially for whether they're info products or especially like a SaaS. Here is a live example of one I did as a SaaS with a client. So that moment after they buy, like you mentioned, it's so important because their emotional state is at such a peak. Like you know, everybody's got all that dopamine rush, especially on an expensive product like a $2,000 product, they go buy and they're like okay, cool, now what? You know, it's super high attention. So one of the things we did before they even got to log in or thank you message, it just said, you know, thank you. All of your credentials are being created. Please answer two short questions because I wanted them in this peak state. And the first question was more of a softening question, I don't really care but it was nice which is where did you first discover us? Or you know, where did you kind of hear about us? And oftentimes they'll say well Google or such and such, affiliate or whatever. But the second question was really great for feedback, very selfish feedback which was what was the number one reason or what was the reason you decided to make this investment today? So what do you get them to do is it's just an open ended question and they kind of reinforce why they bought and what's been amazing for that. Not only is it like a little micro commitment, you know, they're writing down why they were excited. But then when we looked at the spreadsheet of responses, the amount of sales copy ideas, headlines, bullet points, etc. That we got from that was so amazing because they'll tell you like one of them was in the real estate investment space and he's like I'm tired of killing myself trying to find motivated sellers. And I saw that, I'm like oh that's going to be an email subject headline and something else like tired of killing yourself trying to find motivated sellers. And that outperformed everything else by like 2 to 1. So that was just a little thing. It kind of accentuates what you're saying is like how important that point is. But then at the same time something that we did on our side, it was utilized that point for some really great feedback.

Yeah, definitely.

So along those lines, so after the mission, the mission possible, what are some of those other. What did you say? The 10 core experiential escalation something?

Yeah, just the 10 core experiences that create experience escalation for sure. When you stack them together. Alright, because any one of these is very powerful and when you stack all 10 together it's like, oh my gosh, you get this compound effect where people really feel like. I had so many people tell me they were addicted to the program, you know. Yeah. That you said that. I just found myself cruising through modules and lessons and exercises. I did more in, you know, the 12 weeks of this program than I had in the last 12 years. I mean, I've heard all of those kinds of things. So it's really about stacking this stuff together. So another piece, which is experience number, I think it's nine. Right. Is unstoppable momentum. And unstoppable momentum is kind of an emergent factor that happens when you structure your program in a way that you start with small, simple wins and actions and escalate slowly and surely to bigger actions and bigger wins. So it's well known that there's something called the skill challenge ratio. And the skill challenge ratio is that people are comfortable when they're 4% more challenged than their level of skill.

4%. Nice.

4%. So if you're constantly having people stretched and challenged, but not so challenged that it's so far beyond their skill level that they want to give up, that's the ideal scenario. That's why I start. People with simpler actions, then that might get them 4% out of the comfort zone. Then the next day another 4%, another 4%, another 4% where I'm slowly inching them up in their level of skill and more importantly, their level of self belief. So often people teach in a linear fashion, so they start at the beginning. Now the beginning could be hella boring or it could be complex and difficult. Right. So I want to start with the simple. So for example, you know, in our experience product Masterclass, the very first module is called your light bulb moment. And it's about creating your idea to market plan, which is very basic details, like what's your price point? When are you going to launch? How much money do you want to make? What kind of product are you doing? Like a one to one, a one to few, a one to many product. It's basic details. Now I do that before going into the nailing your offer, which is what is the product actually about? Because that's a lot harder than these basic details. And so I actually want to ramp people up with easier things before we get to the harder things. Because if we go instantly into their offer, it's like, whoa, okay, too much. And I wouldn't have built enough momentum to get them through that. So I want to build enough momentum to get them through the point where they're at the harder stages. So this is kind of an emergent factor that's related on how you structure your program to ramp someone up from mission to mission accomplished in this kind of steady, consistent way, because it will get challenging, but you don't want to start there.

Right. So what are some of the other core points?

Yeah, unstoppable momentum kind of goes with constant wins, and I sort of referenced that. So this is where people feel like they're winning almost every step of the way with you. And one of the things that I've completely obliterated from all my programs is trainings that are just information transfer, where there's no action, no activity. It's just framing, it's just mindset, it's just context. Now I just build the framing and the mindset and the context into a training. And there's always an action to take. There's always a win associated with the training. So at the end of every training, I say, you know, your next mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do this. And that is the action they're taking. Now, on occasion, there genuinely is a mindset training, but I might just say your next win is to say out loud, you know, I got this. I can do this. I'm launching this. And it could be as simple as that. Usually it's a much bigger win. Like, nail your product name, choose your product price point, write a guarantee for your product. It's more specific than that. But even if I do something that is much more of a training that's just like framing and mindset, there's an action associated with it. So no one ever interacts or engages with us when they're not winning. It's not just about consumption. It's about what they do. It's not about learning. It's what they're doing with the information.

Yeah. I mean, and it sounds obvious. You never want somebody to just finish a module and go, oh, that was nice. What's next? Yeah, like, to the next one. Because it's like, now each one of these things has an action. I love that. You know, one of the things that just this conversation makes me think about, because I was having a conversation with somebody else the other day, just offline. And when I look back at the very first product I created, and it was a success, and most people's first product out of the gate is not. And it was actually, when I look back at why it was a success, I subconsciously. I didn't do this on purpose, but I subconsciously, instead of Focusing on the money I was going to make and the outcome and all of this other stuff. I had no technical knowledge. I didn't never writ sales copy before. I'd never done anything. So I just personally focused that every single time I achieved something that was a win, I was like, oh, I wrote my first piece of copy today. Oh, I set up my first opt in form. I figured out WordPress today. And because I was so focused on skill development, I was able to have a lot of little micro wins, which, as you mentioned, they compound. And as long as I was having those little compounding wins, I didn't care that it literally took me eight months. Even though I was profitable from day one, I didn't take any money out of the business for eight months. And that was a whopping fifteen hundred dollars that I put in my pocket. But I didn't feel like a failure on that because now I had had all these new skills and because I was so focused on that, it built my confidence. Nobody gamified that for me. Nobody purposely did that. I kind of did it naturally. But as I start to look back on that, that is why I was successful. And even more interestingly is on future projects, I think I didn't do that. I got focused on the end result because I saw how much money I could make. I'm like, well, this needs to make $100,000 for instance, or half a million dollars. And if it didn't happen quickly enough, I got really discouraged and I kind of like lost interest, etc. Because it wasn't the little micro wins that we were talking about that are so psychologically important.

Absolutely everything that we're talking about is a great way to motivate yourself, motivate teams. Anytime you need to get people into action, it's great. I mean, I use this stuff in marketing all the time as well, which is really interesting too, because if you can get people into action before they've even bought and get them results in advance, they're a lot more likely to buy.

Like they say, an object in motion stays in motion. Right?

It's like that's exactly it. And psychologically, people are more likely to take actions consistent with past actions. So if they've been taking action, taking action, taking action, it's easier to keep taking action than to stop taking action. And one thing that we do as part of this constant wins and unstoppable momentum duo in our program, we actually have two tracks. We have what I call the core track and we have the overachiever track. And we have a pretty custom robust membership site. Now you don't necessarily need that. You can do that platform independent. But when people check off a training, they get one experience point, one XP. And when they take an action, they get two XPs. And in the overachiever track, instead of XPs, they get triple XPs. So I call it porn for overachievers. And so on the core track, they check it off and it goes, you know, ka ching. And on the overachiever track it goes bom chicka wamp wamp, right. Whenever they check things off. And it's fun. But what I did is I realized that even for things that are slightly more advanced, like anything, that's just not 100% essential. For example, writing your product origin story, it's great for marketing, but it's not 100% essential to get to the outcome of making $2,000 doing your visual product branding. A lot of people want to do that, but it's not 100% essential. Especially if someone's starting with a smaller one on one program instead of a full scalable offer. All of those into the overachiever track, writing a bonus or doing guarantees. It's stuff that's good to have, but it's not 100% essential.

Right. So there's kind of like a, I hesitate to use this word because it probably doesn't encompass it, but a minimally viable product track, like, listen, this is going to get you there. This is going to definitely good enough. And most people, but if you want to make it freaking awesome. Yeah.

And part of that's related to the time commitment because it's a seven to ten hour a week commitment. Now I say if you only have seven to 10 hours, do the core track. You know, focus on the minimum viable product. Now if you want to build a product the size of epm, you can expect to be able to do that in seven to ten hours a week. And we've had people spend as much time as they had available full time commitments to this. Many of those people made six figures in this time frame. Some of them made multiple six figures. So if you don't have a lot of time or this is your first product, or you feel at the edge of your comfort zone, stick to the core track. Because what was happening at the beginning when they were all one track is that some people were like, wait, this is way more than what I have time for. So I just simplified it further. But some people who are more advanced want the more advanced stuff. And this is a way to even segment within audiences for the very same product and to make it easier, more complex, and give people a little bit of a choose your own adventure way through the program and just to kind of normalize the challenges people face and give them an out while still hitting the win.

Absolutely. And it also sounds to me like, because you touched on this about. So you've built your own platform. It sounds like in order to host these sites and these membership communities. Right. Like, that's not really where I want to go. But you do have your own tech platform if somebody wants to use that. Is that correct or am I wrong?

Yeah, we have our own tech platform. We're primarily working with, you know, people. Like, we built the platform for Josh Turner for his appointment generator product. We've built, you know, some bigger platforms for people. We have not made it available kind of direct to consumer yet. You know, we probably will at some point in the future. But I teach in a way that it's technology independent. Like, even if you run a program on a Facebook group, and I actually recommend that as a viable option when you're first getting started, you can still integrate these principles. And I give ways to do it.

Well, that's one of the things I like, is that it's not like, hey, that you have to have all these wing ding tech, like I mentioned, like, oh, some of these membership sites have all the badges and all this stuff. It's not about that. It's really sounds like it's about the way you structure the training in a way that just plays psychologically into the way that people learn and take action and feel like they're winning as opposed to just feel like they're drinking from the fire hose and like, oh, crap.

Like, exactly. So at its core, that's what it is. I mean, some technology can enhance the experience, but it's not essential. And I don't believe in investing in a lot of technology and a lot of infrastructure until you've proven your model.

No, absolutely. I know that even to this day, I don't buy a lot of info products these days anymore, but I have definitely bought and consumed a hell of a lot of them in my day. And I know that feeling. I've got a penchant for execution. Right. Like, I wouldn't have had the success I've had if I sat around and did nothing. But I've also experienced that as well. I've sometimes purchased a course I was really excited about, and I get in there and there's 200 modules and I'm the type to where like, okay, I really want to go through it all and understand the lay of the land before I start on it. And that's actually not the best thing to do because you start to consume it all, you're like, okay, okay, can I get it? But then drinking from the fire hose, you end up quenching your thirst, and then you get really frustrated on it, like, all right, screw it, I'll come back to this. I'm not going to do it. And the more robust these things are, the more, I guess, traditional info products, the more exhausting they really can be. And I'm speaking from firsthand experience, so it sounds like you've designed it in a way to help overcome those challenges from the get go.

Yeah. And you also raise a really good point about talking about how you are oriented towards implementation. So the point is, is that you've got to understand that about 70% of the population is extrinsically motivated, meaning they're motivated by external reward and validation, and just 30% are motivated by intrinsic reward, which means their own kind of source of motivation. So entrepreneurs like you and I, who've had a good amount of success, often are intrinsically motivated. And now these are the people creating programs who are for people who are not motivated in the same way that they're motivated. So if you don't realize that and you're trying to create the program for yourself, like, I don't go through all that many programs myself, Right. I just figure things out. But that's one of the biggest problems and the reason why there's such a huge failure rate in online courses, because it's very different to be a subject matter expert than it is to understand how do you get a result for another person. That's when you become a facilitator, you become a teacher, you become a trainer. You become someone who's getting them results where it's not even about you and your expertise. That doesn't even matter. It's really about the experience you're creating for them and the outcome you can create for them. I've got on my wall, one of my students made me this piece of art that says, I am not a teacher, but an awakener. And she has a beautiful little piece of artwork that I've got there on my wall. And it's really a different role. So you've got to get out of your expertise and you've got to get out of some of your core natural habits to understand who you're really helping and how you're going to help them and exactly how you can shortcut and as much as possible, guarantee their results as long as they take the actions right.

You know, it also makes me think this is just a little. It's not exact parallel, but I've got a close friend of mine who I'm helping to go from employee to consultant. And I see it really easily. I see it super clear. I'm kind of like, you know, you get to that point where you're unconsciously competent, like, well, you just do this, this, this is this. And he's like, oh, that sounds amazing. What the hell did you just say? And so I went through and I laid out all the steps and I could have laid out 10 times more, but I was like, this is. I'm going to lay out a minimally viable game plan for you to where it's really like we've been talking about. It's designed to get you quick wins just enough so you can actually go get like, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to get one client paying you. It's not your employer. Then when I showed it to him, he's like, oh, wow. This is actually really concise and clear and it's not full of all the fluff, but every single thing is. Now, as you're saying it and I go back to it, it's like, oh, yeah. Each of these kind of has an action associated with it. So in some degree I'm actually doing this kind of naturally. But I love the structure and the framework that you're giving to this aspect. Are there any of the other 10 core experiences thing that are like, really? I think we've covered like two or three. Are there any others that are really high leverage?

All of them. But I will say one that I think is really oftentimes overlooked. And it's the experience of normalizing challenges. So what this is is that along the way on the path from mission to mission accomplished, people are going to face some pretty hard challenges. They're going to come up against their own internal resistance. Things aren't going to go as planned. And what happens then? Because here's what happens a lot of times in marketing, and this is the opposite experience is people have this whole everything is awesome approach where it's push button, easy, it's fast, your grandma could do it, all of these things. And then if they get into the work, they're like, well, this is harder than I thought it would be.

There's this tension between their expectations, what's actually required of them right and what's required of them is work. So being able to normalize the challenges and the natural bumps that they're going to face along the way on their journey. And the best way to do this is you're kind of listening all the way through. I oftentimes recommend an earn while you learn approach where you actually deliver live before you pre record things and you get to listen to how people are responding or even if you're pre recording, you're watching the Facebook group and things like that, you're seeing what people are challenged with and then you just address it in subsequent trainings. And the number of times people said, oh my gosh, it's like you're reading my mind. This is exactly what I needed to hear. You know, where I spend a lot of time building up their self belief and their mindset. I don't always just get right to the point in the training because I have to think about a training. It's almost like farming where you've got to till the soil before you plant the seed, right? And then once you plant the seed, you've got to water the seed. So it's like I might spend, you know, half the training or more tilling the soil getting ready for them to receive. So even if the lesson's relatively simple, they may have all kinds of things going on that prevent them from receiving the lesson. So really understanding that dynamic and that you've got to normalize all the different challenges and help them create the psychology and self belief along the way and to realize that these challenges are, like I said, normal, that anyone in this situation would go through it. So they don't think that something's wrong with them or that they're not getting it or start kicking themselves for whatever it is, you know.

Absolutely. In the intake form that you filled out prior to getting on here and we were talking about some of the topics that you could chat about, you mentioned a couple other things that I kind of want to shift over to as well. I mean, this is so fascinating. But you also talk about two things here that really got my attention. How you gamified your way to 700 plus pages of testimonials for your online course and how you gamified your launch to get up to 1.5 million in sales. I'd love to kind of explore some of those because I find those really intriguing.

Yeah, for sure. Well, let's start about the testimonials. So the last version of EPM, you know, 2018, we had 700 people go through the program. And we actually got 700 pages of testimonials, not one testimonial from every person. Some people submitted five to 10 page testimonials. Right.

And basically we actually create a mission accomplished process right in our membership site. So when someone has completed the goal of making $2,000 or a whole lot more, we call them Smash the Button. Basically you smash the mission accomplish button. And I won't tell you everything that happens because some of it's a surprise when you get into the membership site. It does some cool things, some very custom functionality there. But the other thing it does is it takes you to a story page. And if you want to claim your mission accomplished in graduation bonuses, you've got to submit your story, which is how much money you made, how you made it, what your biggest inner transformation was, your biggest outer transformation and all of that. And the bonus is really valuable. Like if you hit mission accomplished, you get a thousand dollar bonus, which is a program called Speak, how to use talks and webinars to grow your business. And it's me co facilitating with Don Crowther who launched a webinar product, a similar webinar product with Jeff Walker. So you basically get this training for free when you hit smash the button and you share your story. So we've basically built the process of sharing their story right into the program by creating graduation bonuses and mission accomplished bonuses. So even if someone doesn't hit mission Accomplished, they can still graduate by completing at least 80% of the core track trainings, which also include half of the group coaching calls and things like that. And when they do, they get a certificate sent to their door that gives them lifetime license to use the term experience product to describe their product and, you know, a seal they can use on their web pages and things like that.

Very nice. So that's something you've obviously trademarked. And it could say, like, I could have the, you know, Brad Costanzo's like, you know, how to succeed in business without really trying experience product.

Yes, you could. Cool.

I like that. That's awesome. Yeah, I love the. In essence. Yeah, Tell us your story, tell us how this worked, and then you'll unlock the bonus. You don't just get it totally for free. We want to hear your story. It can be good. You know, obviously they can say, well, I didn't really like it if they want, but I have a feeling most people really liked it.

Especially if they hit the outcome. For sure.

Yeah, exactly. So is that kind of how it works? Like they hit the outcome and then it Allows them to kind of like unlock.

Yeah. So they hit the outcome. Some surprises happen which I won't share what they are. And then it redirects to the congratulations page. Now share your story to claim in order to claim your bonus.

Love it.

And then we have the fields actually teach them what's a good testimonial, what's a bad testimonial. And they submit it. And over 700 pages in just one class. But combined, the previous class did 500 pages of testimonials. There were about 500 students in that one. And so every class I think I've had probably 1500 pages of testimonials for.

This program, which is amazing.

Charts right from three years of teaching it.

Do you have them go through and answer like a kind of predefined survey questions in that.

Well, it's predefined form questions and I give them examples of how to do it well versus not well.

Nice. That's perfect. Are you asking like 20 questions? Is like five?

It's more than five, it's less than 20. It might be about falls right in there. Yeah, probably about 10ish. I do have basic details like which marketing campaigns, because we teach six marketing campaigns. Which ones did you use to get the outcome? You know, how much money did you make? Very specific questions like that. Then there are more. Your biggest lesson kind of questions, your biggest inner shift kind of questions, that sort of stuff. And of course, yeah, we'll ask for them their address as well so we know where to send their certificate.

Yeah, that's killer. Now what about the gamifying the launch?

All right, so these same 10 principles. And don't worry, I'm going to give you a link to grab a Checklist on all 10 of these principles at the end of the session. Awesome. Applied to marketing and marketing. Because the truth is, and I've got a friend who's a very well paid data scientist and she discovered that the fastest way to turn a subscriber into a buyer and to shortcut the buying process. You may have heard that it takes five to seven impressions in traditional one on one sales. And then you may have heard like 15 to 30 impressions online. But it's really getting to like 150 to 300 impressions these days. Really. Ads and Facebook and retargeting and everything else makes sense. But one of the ways to shortcut that is to basically data hack it. If you can get people to do three specific things in a launch and in your marketing materials, they're going to be a Lot more likely to want to buy from you because they've actually already taken action, you've already given them wins. And so I do things like I gamify the comments functionality in our launch. So when someone leaves a comment and I actually tell them in the videos that when you leave the comments, we have a surprise for you waiting. And when they leave a comment, we actually have applause and confetti just run down the screen. So you have confetti just flying down the screen and applause like so they feel good just for the comments. And it's really interesting because in the first launch that I did, the very first thing I asked people to do was write their product mission, and we got a good response, like hundreds and hundreds of people. But I realized that even that was too big of a hurdle for most people. So when I went just to leave a comment with your biggest takeaway, all of a sudden, and you're going to get a surprise for it, we've got thousands and thousands of comments on our launch materials because I just lowered the bar for that initial engagement, that initial feedback loop, that initial win, that initial point of contact from. Not like you actually have to spend the time to craft your mission statement, which could take someone a good amount of time to just leave your biggest takeaway. And a surprise is waiting for you.

Right, and the surprise is all the confetti stuff.

Yes, the confetti and the applause and people loved it.

You don't need a whole lot, right?

No, no. It's just. Yeah. And it's kind of showing the principle of, you know, constant win. So it's actually showcasing the principle. Another principle in the experience formula is peak emotional experiences. It's the opposite of mental paralysis, which is a lot of times what happens in launches with talking heads and a lot of information. And I used to be a documentary filmmaker, and so we do a lot with just very surprising openings to our videos. It's not what you would expect when you log on. I do not start with a talking head. I start with these almost like these pastiches that surprise people that have a very specific tone that get them watching. And if you look at the kind of histographs of our audience views, usually you see an instant dip right when people come on and there's a video and they didn't realize there was a video or count the time. Ours actually, through this initial opening, which is usually a couple, two, three minutes long or one to three minutes long, that's a really surprising opening. People stay. You can see it's almost like there is a drop, but not nearly like a fraction of a drop. 20% versus 80%, which is what most people see.

So explain to me an example of like this opening is. What did you say? It's kind of like as opposed to just you coming on there. Hi, I'm Marisa, I'm here to teach you stuff.

Our first video, I talk about, it's like the experience, product revolution. It's really like dramatic music. And I'm talking about how you're in a dying industry and giving all these examples. And the footage, it's stock footage, it's almost like a music video. And the way I'm saying it and what I'm showing is getting people viscerally involved and understanding that the whole industry and market is shifting. And it's so compelling that people really watch. And then I don't shift until like three minutes into they seeing me. And hi, I'm Marisa Murgatory. Da, da, da. Like that basic stuff doesn't happen until three minutes in. So I've already grabbed them. And so overall, if you watch the view rates, you know, we keep a good percentage of people to the very, very end of the video. And it's partly by that first, you know, few minutes. And a lot of people don't understand how to grab people within the first few minutes to create that peak emotional experience, to really go beyond the mental paralysis of, oh, another talking head, another person talking about stuff that I don't have time for, you know, using this sort of stuff in the video to be super compelling. Right.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Because I mean, these days, attention, I mean, it's been like this, it's just been on a dramatic drop off, like the attention spans of people. And like, you don't have. You used to have like 30 seconds and now it's probably like three seconds to really grab my attention and show me something different. And the like you said, the minute I see somebody just kind of jump on, like, hey, I'm Brad, I'm here to teach you stuff. I'm like, yeah, I'm out.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a sales pitch. Nothing here for me.

Yeah, you get what's called mental. Opt out. If they've seen it before, if they've heard it before, they're done. You know, you have to grab them with something new and different from moment one as soon as they start to watch it. I really think we've shifted into an attention economy. It's why Facebook and Instagram are the powerhouses. They are because they Figured out how to monetize people's attention, basically. And whoever can hold attention the longest will make the most money, but also have the most. Well, I'm not saying that Instagram and Facebook is having always positive impact, but you have the potential to have a positive impact when you can grab people's attention.

Well, I mean, they're grabbing attention and it's having an impact on their bottom lines, right? So, yeah, it's like anything. This is supply and demand. Anytime something is super rare, it becomes super valuable. Attention is super rare. So. And it all starts with attention. So you grab that, then what you can do with it is up to you if you're good at this. So you've taught this for what now? Three or four years?

It's going to be the fourth cycle.

Wow, that's awesome. Is there anybody you can mention names if you want to shine light on somebody, if you don't, but you just want to kind of talk in general terms? It's totally up to you. But have there been any star students, clients, customers, et cetera, who've just really taken this run with it and just hit the ball out of the park?

So many. And one of my favorite stories is Kat Walters. Kat Cory Walters. So it's my favorite story for two reasons. One is she actually met her husband in Experience Product Masterclass.

That's awesome.

It was one of my first live your message couples. So I'm stoked about that. But the other is her story is phenomenal, is that she was a single mom of two and she was trying to make a physical product business work, basically purses. She had a creative background as an art director and all this kind of stuff, but she was not able to really sell that inventory. So she was down to like, her last few dollars. And she was really like, should I really invest two grand? Should I do it? Should I not? But she just felt compelled. She felt like this was something that she hadn't seen before. And she even went through. She had no idea what kind of product she was going to create. And she went through our bonus module, niche down profits up to help her choose her niche, and settled on an Instagram product helping people really kind of pimp their Instagram feed and all of that. And she did the Experience ification so beautifully, like with elaborate sets, all kinds of stuff that was just super fun and super interesting. And this product was. It was like a $197 product. She did something like $12,000, I believe, don't quote me on that, but about 12,000 in the program. Then by the end of that cycle or that year, she did $50,000. And three years later, that just one program. All she's doing is marketing it on Instagram. $500,000 for the one product. Like $197 Instagram course, and not even.

Like a full funnel suite with all this other stuff. I mean, it's literally just like one primary product.

Just one primary product. That's so good. It's almost all by referrals, her products, and all she does is feature it on Instagram and that's it. And she's blown this up. She has no team, you know, she's a single mom. Well, now she's not a single mom anymore. She's got a husband, 3pm and, you know, it's just a remarkable product. And she does it so beautifully that everyone's like, you've got to take this course. And they're sharing it with their friends.

Do you want to share her URL in case anybody on here wants to go take.

I think it's. I believe it's katwalters.com k a t walters.com.

Great. Well, look that up. This is great. So right now we are recording this in August 2019, and you are about to be launching a new masterclass, is that correct?

Yeah, we've been doing it once a year, and we launch it in October. It takes off in. You know, people begin the program at the end of October 2019. So, yes.

So it starts end of October. This will be out before that. So when all y' all are listening, it should. Hopefully registration for some of Marisa's stuff will be open. But so the class starts at the end of October. And then how long of a program is this?

It's 12 weeks. So it goes through November, December, January, basically. Okay. With break weeks for the holidays, of course.

Yeah, of course.

Yes.

Big homework on December 25th, obviously.

Yep.

Five hours of work.

Open your.

And you mentioned this earlier. You said it usually about. Did you say about 7 to 10 hours a week is what people should.

Yeah, it's about seven to ten hours a week. But when it comes to making a product, you know, you can spend more if you want to make a big product or if you want to do something simple and do a beta product, which I recommend. If you've never done it before, you want to keep things simple.

No, absolutely. I like that you said that. There's so many people who have courses and whatnot, and they really. They gloss over that because it's almost like, just buy the Course and then find the time to go through it and whatnot. But you know, seven to ten hours a week is a, is a real investment of somebody's time. It shouldn't be hard because if you just stay off of Netflix a couple hours a day, you can do some good dedicated work on this. And you know, as we all know, new projects, entrepreneurship of any type takes sacrifice of time, money, investment. And if you do it, it's worth it. Right. If you've got somebody to kind of help get you over the obstacles and through the, you know, through the path, who's kind of done it before and seen success. This is one of the things I actually like and really respect about what you're doing here. Unlike a lot of folks out there who are just, you know, they've got, they're spinning out a new product every six months as opposed to taking the time to really go through this, refine this, see what works, see what didn't work. I mean, you've obviously been doing this for several years and I guarantee that it's probably morphed and changed as you've gotten your own feedback of, oh, this might work better, et cetera.

Absolutely.

Having somebody like really double down and become a master of this specific craft of experience. If I, and did I say that right?

You did.

You know, the course I see is like super duper valuable. Especially, you know, I say this to a lot of folks where I'm not going to go out and buy most information products these days. Especially if somebody comes around and says, yeah, I've got this. Let's just say it's a 12 week program, there's 200 video modules, et cetera. None of that appeals to me because that's just too much damn information. I want to know if I'm getting something, how much of this is actionable, how much can I implement right away? Can I see the results? Or am I just getting an academic? Am I buying something academic like, oh, that's great theory that not going to do anything for me. So I think this really helps kind of bridge that gap between a robust product that teaches you everything you need to learn, but something actionable that gets you into momentum and gets you seeing those wins.

Yeah, it's really about the step by step. Just do these steps in this order and you will design, market, launch your product and start making money.

Nice. What's the name of the masterclass?

It's Experience Product Masterclass. Because I'm not teaching you how to build information products, I'm teaching you how to create experience products, which is a whole new breed of products.

I like that experience product Masterclass. I do remember seeing that. And that in itself is like a little pattern interrupt, like, ooh, what is an experience product? I like experiences, and I like products. You combine them both. I like them both.

Yeah.

This has been fantastic. Marisa, what's at the end of every episizzle? Remember, these are not episodes. These are episizzles. I ask a very specific question of all my guests. I have a feeling I know what your answer is going to be on this one. But the answer is like, what's a nut that you're trying to crack right now? And that's not necessarily just, oh, I just want more customers. I just want my launch to do well, et cetera. But is there any specific nut out there you're banging away on? Like, man, I'm trying to figure this out, meet somebody specifically, learn something, find something. Is there anything out there that's kind of been a stubborn nut that you just can't crack that my listeners or myself might be able to kind of offer some value in exchange for all this insight you've given us?

Yeah, well, I got the big nut, and then I got the little nuts. Let me share the big nut first. The Brazil nut. Okay.

Share the Brazil nut. Yep.

The Brazil nut is basically, you know, I really want to reinvent online education, not just through my students, but around the world. So results in engagement become the norm and not the exception. So doing this and teaching people how to do this. And I've been on stage, you know, for the mindvalley, Momentum Mastermind for launchcon, for a lot of different places, teaching experts how to do this, too, because everyone realizes the future of their business based on how well they can serve their clients. And I can see a lot of distrust in the market now because people have been burned by products. And that pains me because there's still so much transformation and so much opportunity. Forbes anticipates that the online education industry is going to be a $325 billion a year industry by the year 2025. And that's not far away. It's already over $200 billion.

Well, that's the one thing that really has the chance to disrupt is the entire broken primary, secondary, and college education system, because it is the one thing that needs to be disrupted terribly. And this is the kind of stuff.

That can do it, and I love to disrupt.

So that's the Brazil nut. Now the peanut is really making, you know, trying to get 3-4x ROAS on paid traffic into this program. So that's the nut that I have the peanut that I'm working on now.

Nice. Are you buying traffic to this?

We are buying traffic into this right now and we've just started in the last couple of months. It usually takes about four months to even be profitable when you're starting Evergreen funnels with cold traffic to get the return on A.D. spend the ROAS. So we're in the middle of that. So like I said, that's the peanut.

Nice. Are you working with somebody on your team that is doing a great job? Is there anything that. Are you looking for other resources there? Whether it's other media buyers or other insights that might help out? Is there anything specific that we could.

Yeah, well, I mean we have Mike Hill's ad team and he's doing a rocking job that he hasn't taken a client for two years. He took us because he loves what we're doing and believes in our message. So we have that. I'm always looking for people who've cracked the code to just talk to them about what have they done each step of the way. How have they, you know, everything from sales teams to technologies to small optimizations, micro optimizations, when the process of hiring a direct response copywriter and funnel optimization expert, if there's someone listening who, you know, fits that bill, full time role there. So that's kind of what I'm looking for right now is to crack that smaller nut.

Love it. Brazil nuts and peanuts. Cracking nuts. That's fantastic. This is awesome. And for, you know, it kind of brings us to the end of the episodal here. But for all the folks who have stayed on with us and who are interested in either refining the current courses they've got, because I can imagine that this is an awesome opportunity for people who have courses to take your masterclass and go back and see where, I mean, you know, they may not have to redo everything from the ground floor, but to use a lot of the principles and a lot of the things in there to go, oh man, how can I just make what I've got a lot better and revamp aspects of this without having to start from scratch? I guarantee there's a lot of folks out there who are just, you know, been dying to do this and they don't want to just throw up another info product, but they want to do something that's going to be remarkable and it's actually going to get results and that they can be really proud of. So I encourage Everybody to go check that out. Obviously, I'm gonna have a link here in the show notes that you can go to.

Yep. Liveyourmessage.com bacon there you go.

Liveyourmessage.com and I'm just writing this down. Bacon yes.

I'm gonna actually give you my viral product checklist, which is the 10 core experiences that will create the experience escalation and make your product super hooky and addictive and exciting for people to want to not just buy, but go through to the very end and get the result, as well as the 10 principles to avoid if you don't want to send them down the downward death spiral and learning. This is the difference between having a super successful program that starts to sell itself or having a program that sits on shelves or goes unopened or ends up being frustrating for you to continue to market and for people to consume.

Right. And you know, you just said something awesome there, which is like it continues to sell itself because the more you can put something out there and if it gets a launch revenue, that's cool. But if it's not continuously generating not just sales but also feedback and excitement, you're going to get bored of it. But I'm willing to believe I have not had a course that does that. It reinvigorates you when you see all these people excitedly going through it and just getting, like, results and coming back. It kind of reinvigorates you as the course creator to go. All right, let's double down on this. Let's have some fun.

Fun.

Because it's easy for us entrepreneurs to get bored.

Absolutely.

Well, all right. Liveyourmessage.com Bacon and Marisa, thank you so much. It's been so awesome to reconnect with you after a couple times that we've hung out at Christian Michaelson's event and etc. And I just really, it's been fun to hear much more about what you do, how you do it, who you do it for, and how people can really get results. And I look forward to watching you disrupt education all over the place.

Thank you. I look forward to disrupting it in all the best ways.

All right, thanks so much for joining us.

Later. Go out there and live your message.

Thank you. Okay, this episode is almost done, but our time together doesn't have to end. At least not yet. Subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next episode and head on over to baconrapbusiness.com where you can find more bonus material. And you can leave me a voice message with your question. If it's good, I'll read it on the air. And if you have a business problem you'd like my brain on, send me an email to ask Brad at baconwrappedbusiness. Com. Tell me more, and I might be able to give you a second opinion on what's keeping you stuck. See you on the next episode.