The 3-Question Test That Tells You if You’re Ready for Q4

Hey everybody, I'm back! Happy Monday Momentum! I hope you can find me. I had a little technical difficulties this morning, so I had to restart the stream. So if you're watching, let me know that you're here. I think it finally showed up, but I went ahead and turned it off because I was impatient and I couldn't see it. So welcome back! Let me know in the chat that you're here so I know that we're streaming in all the right places, we have all the things going on. You know, sometimes, um, technology is I've got a love-hate relationship with it. I really love it, but when it doesn't work the way I think it should, I really don't like it, and it's one of those things. So today we're going to talk about— I've got a little test for you today. It says I'm still having trouble. What is happening? What's happening? Okay, I need you guys to talk to me. I'm having issues. Team, what's going on here? Is anybody with me? Hold please. I don't know what's happening. I'm seeing comments. It says nobody's live. We're on YouTube is all I know. I think Facebook is having some problems. So, um, I— because everyone that I see here is on YouTube and I keep having some issues, um, this morning. Hang on, I think— okay, I think Facebook is having issues. I'm gonna try one more thing and then we're just gonna go YouTube. I'm just gonna have, um— it's resolved. Please check with Facebook. I don't know what to do. Let's see if I can see myself. You're about to view a stream on Facebook. You know, listen, this is what happens when tech doesn't go our way. Facebook is down this morning. I cannot, um, I don't know what's happening on Facebook. Um, But we're here, we're on YouTube, that's all that matters. Um, so we're just— hey team, just send everybody to YouTube today because I don't know what's happening. Um, and yeah, um, I'm gonna tell them send everyone to YouTube. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Okay, can we share? I wonder if we can share. Oh wait, my Facebook thing just— the little green check just checked. I might be on Facebook now. Do you guys ever just like, come on, today is Monday, we need things to go right? It says I'm live on Facebook. Um, that is an old version here. It says I'm live now. What's happening today? I just want to make sure I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing. Okay, I think I'm live now on Facebook. Okay, I'm here. We're on Facebook. It took just a little bit to— I don't know, I got this error. So I'm on StreamYard, just to tell you what's happening. And so I'm streaming on YouTube and Facebook, and I got this error that said my stream was having trouble on Facebook. And so then it gave me this error, and then I start panicking because I'm like, that's where a lot of people watch me. Is on Facebook. All my YouTubers are here. They were here from the get-go, and then I had to get back out and get back in. But now I have a green check mark where it says Facebook and one by YouTube. So I think I'm in all the places. Goodness, you don't ever want to start your Monday off like this, do you? Like with technical problems right out the gate. So, um, let's talk about it. So here's, here's what I want to talk about today. Um, I want to talk about Q4. Now hear me when I say this. It's August. It is August. Technically, we're out of our summer months, even though it's hotter than snot outside and it still feels like summer months. But every year, every single year, I see business owners go into Q4 with the best intentions. And by early to mid-November, you hit a wall, like you're just hitting a wall and you start winging it. You're stressed out, you're missing out on sales. But Q4 is the single most valuable time in your business. But the truth is, it's also the fastest moving. And without a plan, you're going to hit a wall. And today we're going to do a quick Q4 readiness check. It is August. It is 106 degrees here today. And I know you don't feel like you want to be planning Q4, but if you don't start now, you're going to hit that wall. You're going to feel stressed. You're not going to be planned out. You're going to be winging it. And what happens when we wing it is that we don't follow through because we're not planned out enough and we get in the weeds. And when we're in the weeds, we start cutting everything that we haven't done yet. And so what I want for you is I want your story not to be, I'll figure it out as I go. Sarah, I've got August boxes that I'm dealing with. I don't even have October planned out yet for subscriptions. I don't have time to think about Q4. You don't have time not to think about Q4 right now. And if you've had— if you've gone through any Q4s in your business, you know how important this time is. These last 3 months of the year can really make or break our 2025. And I don't say that to— for you to panic, but I say that to help you prepare for them. There was a time in my business, and, you know, there was a lot of years in my business that I was constantly winging it. I was constantly winging it with my subscription boxes. I was panic buying because I wasn't planned out far enough. Then I was into Q4 and I wanted to do all the things and I had all these intentions to do all the things and it just creeps up on you so fast. Like it is August right now. It is August 11th right now. And before you will blink and you will be in the middle of October, I promise you. And if you don't have your promotions planned, if you don't have your product ordered, if you don't have um, your marketing plan on the schedule, it's not going to happen for you. And then you're going to look back at December 26th and you're gonna, you're gonna be mad at yourself again because maybe you did this last year and you told yourself, I'm gonna do better next year. And you're going to be December 26th and it's going to feel like crickets in your business and you've missed out on the biggest opportunity that you had to make sales. And now you got to wait another 9 months to do it again. And then we get busy because life is busy, business is busy, and you get into the same position next year. And I want to stop that cycle for you because I don't want any more of this figure it out as we go. Whether you're a new business and this is your first Q4, I don't want that for you because it's going to be stressful. Whether this is your 10th Q4, I don't want that for you. And what is it that you don't know that you don't know about going into Q4? We wing it, we do the best we can, and we just finally breathe and we're out of it. But how could we do this better? No more last-minute promos, no more over or under ordering, no more making graphics at midnight while you're eating out a tub of ice cream and so that you can post them the next day. Like exhaustion is real and you don't make good decisions when you're exhausted. So if you've got a piece of paper, Post-it note is fine. I've got it. I've got a 3-point questionnaire for you today and I want you to rate yourself. Okay. I love that Beth says she's already planned out for Christmas. And Angela, yes, I'm here for tough love. Like if I didn't— I've made so many mistakes over the last 12 years that I have been a small business owner. I've made so many mistakes and my goal as a business coach is to help you not make the same mistakes. I've learned from those mistakes and I'm here to help you. So grab a piece of paper because I want you to score yourself on a couple of these things and you don't have to tell me your score, but I need to know. I need you to know where you're at. So here's question number 1, and I want you to rate yourself 1 to 5. Okay. Do I know my Q4 promotional dates? 1 to 5, 1 being I have no clue and 5 being they're all on the calendar. 1 to 5. Do I know my Q4 promotion dates? Score yourself. And if you want to, for accountability purposes, you can put that in the chat right now. Okay. Number 2, 1 to 5, score yourself. Do I know exactly what products I'm promoting and how much inventory I need for the rest of the year? 1 to 5. 1 would be, I have no clue because I don't have my promotions on the calendar, and 5 would be everything's ordered, everything's accounted for, I know exactly what I'm selling and when it's going to be here. Okay, score yourself 1 to 5. Number 2 is, do I know exactly what products I'm promoting and how much inventory I need? Okay, number 3. It's only a 3, it's only a 3-question test this morning. It's Monday. We're only doing 3 questions. 1 to 5. Do I have my marketing plan ready for each of my Q4 promotions? 1 to 5. 1, I have no plan, and 5, yes, I know how much ad spend I'm gonna have, I know how many emails I'm gonna send, I know when I'm going live. 1 to 5. Do I have my marketing plan ready for each promotion? Be honest with yourself. Don't lie to yourself, because when we lie to ourselves, that's where we get in the weeds. Just be honest with yourself. Okay, now based on your points, 12 to 15. If you had 12 to 15, you're in great shape. You might need a little fine-tuning over the next few months, but you're in great shape. You scored yourself between 12 and 15, great shape. If you scored yourself between 8 and 11, you started, but there's clearly some major gaps that we need to get outlined. Right? And if you're below 8 on this score, you're still winging it. It's going to cause a lot of stress and a lot of missed opportunities for sales. And so that's what I want to talk about today, because we've got to have accountability. Most of us don't even follow through on training in the library. Am I right? I heard a stat last week that got me just really— it was really interesting. The stat was only 6 to 7% of people that buy courses actually complete them. 6 to 7%. And you know, there's one thing that we've been focused on really heavily over the summer. Well, it kind of hit me this summer. We've got this brand new world of AI, and it's been creeping up on us slowly, but now it's hit us like a sledgehammer, right? AI is everywhere. And so in this world of AI, how do we dial back and not lose our personality, not lose our connection, not lose the robot response to everything? And that's really important to me as a business coach, because for me it means more personal touches. It means more accountability. It means more of this let's go together. And so what we've been working on, and you've already seen kind of the first leg of it, was how do we connect in a deeper way in this world of AI. Okay. You saw the first part of our mission here in July inside LauncherBox. It was called Let's Launch Together. How could I take our members and do something together with them and show up for them in a way that I haven't shown up before, in a more personal way, and one that holds accountability and one that walks people through a course they may or may not have even looked at. And so that was our first milestone was Let's Launch Together, and we saw so much progress with Let's Launch Together. And some of you are just now launching from our time together in July. Some of you that have launched have had your best launches yet. And I'm so excited about that. That tells me that's what you need. And so now, knowing what we just tested inside Launch Your Box, we're going to have more accountability sessions like that coming forward. What about let's grow together? Let's actively grow our audiences together week by week for an entire month. Let's build an opt-in together. Let's actively do the work that we need to do week by week to make progress progress and keep moving forward, because that's where the personal touch comes in, and that's where the accountability comes in. If we do it together, we're more likely to follow through. So that was milestone number 1. Today we dropped our initiative number 2, and I'm going to tell you about it because it ties right into Q4. Okay, so initiative number 2 is how do I help people make progress in a personal way. There's only one of me, there's thousands of you, right? And so we put together— my ads just started running last night, you might have seen them— this brand new Q4 Ultimate Planning Workshop. I have never done anything like this before. There are two offers tied into this one offer. This is— does not come with Launch Your Box. This is a separate thing. It's for someone that wants to go real deep, get real clear, have accountability, and move forward and have the best Q4 yet. Okay, so it is an entire day with me from 9 to 3:30. You and I are going to be on Zoom together. There might be 30, 40, 50 people with us, hopefully, um, and we are going to map out your entire Q4. Not only are we going to map out, we're going to go through everything that you need to have your best Q4 yet. We're going to go through promotional dates and we're going to get them on our calendar. We're going to go through what those promotions are and which ones you want to select. What did you do last year? What do you want to do this year? We're going to go through those together. We're going to create assets together, email swipe files, graphics. We're going to do all of that together. We're going to talk about the inventory you need. When do you need to have it in house, what you need, how many pieces. We're going to forecast all of that together. And it's the first time I've ever done a workshop like this. And let me grab— let me grab my, uh, my backpack. Um, we put together this really incredible workbook because I know accountability comes with writing things down and having resources and having those things together. So we have this amazing workbook that we're going to work through together on that day so that when you leave at 3:30 that day, you have everything locked and loaded. You've asked me all the questions. You've worked with people. We're all doing the same thing. And you don't have to scramble through Q4 anymore. And it was challenging for me to put a price on this because this is my time that I have to do. This is my team. Do you know how many hours my team has put into this at this point? I have to pay all that payroll, right? So we think about what value does this have? It has a lot of value, but it's hard for me to put a really high price on it. So I priced it at $297. And let me tell you why. If you signed up and paid $300 to come to this one-day workshop and you got everything you needed to have your best Q4, what would your ROI be on that? 10x? 100x? More than that. It could possibly 100x the value of that investment just by clearing your schedule for one day, sitting down, and going through step by step by step what you need to do for Q4. And so that is our initiative. And then the other part of this— my team has dropped the link in the chat here for you. If you want to get signed up, spots are limited. This will be on Friday, September 5th. We are going to go through everything together and it is like your ultimate accountability session with me. I am going to cover ads. We're going to, we're going to go through our marketing budget. We're going to talk about the types of ads, how much to spend, what our goals are, and how to figure that out. But I'm also here to answer all of your questions. Sierra, you're going to get me for the whole day. You're not going to pay me and then get somebody else on a call. You're going to get me all day from 9 to 3:30. We have a lunch break in there. And so we're going to work through everything that you need to, to be set up for Q4 in the most efficient way. And if you pay $300 to be in that room and you walked away with a plan like that, Possibilities are so great for you, so great for you to double, triple, 10x, 50x, 100x the investment that you put in yourself. And not only is it for this year, but this is a process that all you have to do is rinse and repeat for next year. So once you build these assets out with me, once you create this plan, then next year you already know, you already have this, you already know what to do. Tina's asking, is it for newbie or established membership? If you have product to sell and an audience, this is for you. We are— it doesn't have to be subscription box because none of these promotions are subscription box related except our gift subscriptions. But if you have product to sell this workshop is for you. And what if your is all digital? That's your product. Stephanie says, what if it's all digital? That is your product to sell, and we can set up promotions for your product to sell. So whatever, if you have a physical product or a digital product, Q4 is for you, and we're going to map that out together. We have limited spots, links in the chat. We did one more thing. We did one more thing in this initiative over the last several years. People ask, can I get a one-on-one? Can I get a one-on-one with Sarah? Can I get a one-on-one with Sarah? And I've said no, no, no, no, no, because I felt like I give all my time to our memberships, Launch Your Box and Scale Your Box. And what I've realized in this digital world that we are fully shoved into, in this AI world that we're fully shoved into, that's what people need more than anything. That's what they want from us. And so I figured out a way to offer that. Here's the, here's the link. It's a really horribly long link. It is on that page, you'll find it at the bottom. Shereen, the workbook is with our workshop. So you'll get the workshop, you'll get the workbook with the workshop. We need the, we need the link over on YouTube team, please. I'm offering limited one-on-one sessions. And I've curated a very special— I'm gonna pull it up here for you— one-on-one experience. Um, I don't see the Q4 on the home page. That's a problem. Um, that's not good. Let's see. Let me find a link real quick. Team, can you drop me a link in the chat? And is there a way we can get this link on the home page? That's where I went to go find it and it's not there. Um, can you drop me a link in, um, the group chat? Let me grab the link here. Um, let's see if I can copy and paste it. The link is too long because it has all this other stuff on it. It won't let me copy and paste this. Um, but here's the thing. I have created a one-on-one subscription box experience with me. Um, it will only be a limited time. Right now I'm only doing it, um, this fall with this offer. So this will be the only time that you can register for it. Um, but here's the, here's the situation is you're going to get 3.5 hours with me And so if you want me to look at your box, if you want me to review your website, if you want me to look at your socials, and then we sit down and we create a full-on marketing strategy for your business individually, one-on-one, that's what it's about. That's what it's about. And so those two offers are on this page, and I'm going to grab them for you real quick, um, and I'm going to show them to you. Had a little— we've had all kinds of technical difficulties this morning, so let me get— let me grab this real quick. And then, um, you know, my computer restarted this morning, so all my passwords are out of, out of my computer, so it's going to take me forever to get logged in here. Hold please, I can't get anything that I need and this is not where I want to be this morning. I'm going to grab this. I want to show you the difference, and if you choose to grab one of the one-on-ones, um, you will also get the Q4 planning workshop, so it's together. I can't get into this Facebook must be really having some problems. So let me find the link for this offer, 'cause I can't get it from Messenger. Let's see, sales page, here we go. I'm cooking on all cylinders now. Questions that you have about Q4. Questions that you have about these new offers and who they're for, because I want to make sure I answer that for you. Because we don't need to do business alone anymore. We don't need to figure things out on our own. And if you're not going to do it on your own, are you more likely to do it with someone else, with me, with other people doing the same thing? And that's what I want you to understand is How can we do this together to hold ourselves accountable, make progress, and maximize the most important season of our business, which is Q4? And if you've not been through a Q4, we don't understand how important this is. Or if you've been through a Q4 that's been completely stressed out, you're eating ice cream in the corner, rocking back and forth, your hair looks a mess. We need to do this. You need to do this for yourself. I'm gonna walk you through this here. This is the sales page. The links are correct now in the chat. Thank you, ladies, for that. But all you have to do is reserve your spot and block this day off on your calendar. And then I was gonna show you, here's, here's the plan for the day. Morning, we're gonna do promotions and assets. Midday, we're gonna do content and campaigns. And afternoon, we're going to do launch strategy and inventory. And if you need someone to walk through that with you, this is your sign to get signed up. What does $300 mean for your business right now? What would a $300 investment in yourself mean for your business right now? This is the one-on-one strategy I was talking about. I wanted to click on it because there's very Specific deliverables that I wanted to walk through: 3.5 hours of one-on-one strategy. Let me, let me zoom in. 3.5 hours of one-on-one strategy. Pre-session questionnaire so that I Study before you get on. A complete review of your subscription box, your website, and your marketing. Your choice of focus area. So you're gonna get an opportunity to decide if you wanna focus on email retention, pricing, affiliate, whatever that is. And we're gonna learn a lot of what you're gonna need as I review all your assets. Same-day delivery of your session notes. You don't have to wait a week after we get off the phone. I'm going to give you an action plan same day, and you're going to get a seat in the Q4 planning workshop. There is very limited availability, and people have asked me to do this for a long time, and I have said no. So this is what it is. I'm going to test out this cohort of people doing one-on-ones to see if I want to continue doing it in the future. It may or may not be in the future, but right now I know that's what we need right now. Whether you need the Q4 workshop or you need the dedicated one-on-one with me, I am here to help with the personalization of your business. I am here to help you, handhold you, help you get things done, be accountability buddies with you as we move into the best season for our business. You don't want to walk into Q4 behind. You don't want to walk into Q4 without a plan. And you know what? It's August 11th right now. And it's going to be August 11th— I mean, October 11th real quick. And if you don't stop, settle, get still, and work through this, you're going to be scrambling till the end of the year. And I don't want that for you because I've been there. So come join me in the Q4 session. It's $297. It's a one-time thing. You will get recordings of the day, you will get the workbook, and you will get me all day, all day. I'm excited about it. I've never offered a workshop like this before, so grab the link. I cannot wait to work on your Q4 with you guys, um, for the day. And go ahead and block off September 5th on your calendar. We're gonna have a great day together. If you scored less than 8 on my little quick test, I either want you to come to my workshop Or I want you to sit down and make your plans. But if you want somebody to do it with you, then just join the workshop. But you can't— no matter if you come to the workshop or not, you can't leave August without a plan. We're going to create that plan together on September 5th. So I guess you can't leave September 5th without a plan, okay? Whether you do it with me or you do it on your own. I don't want you going to Q4 scrambling. If you want to go into the busiest, most profitable season with your best year yet, come join me. I can't wait to do this with you. I can't wait to see what this will bring for future workshops, and I'm really excited about it and worked really hard on planning out this entire day. It's going to be the best day. I'll see you guys there. If you have questions Drop them in. Um, it is Friday, 9/5. We need to fix that, team. Cheyenne says, I don't know if this was addressed, but it says Thursday. Is it Thursday or Friday? Because it says Thursday, 9/5. You know what, typos get the best of us. It's Friday. It's on my calendar Friday on the 5th. We'll fix that and, um, and we'll go from there. This is for product selling. This is not for your subscription box, Rena. So if you have products to sell, this absolutely can be your first Q4. This is not to launch your subscription box. I just want to make that clear. You can sign up for a one-on-one, but I need to— I need you to have your website done, your box that I can review, and your socials. So if you're not there yet, it would be better spent when you have that done. Okay. All right. I'll see you guys soon. Have a great day.