Process for marketing, using the chatterbox concept Not significantly. I've appreciated the learnings. Learning how to present what I do in a way that resonates with my micro-niche. I've got a foundation for expanding my AM training business
Your GRADUATION Story
I'm determined to stay focused with an unusual amount of challenges since enrolling in the program 12 weeks ago. My sister passed and my husband is recovering from surgery and despite my level of technical know-how, I still managed to show up. I completed all my milestones on time and have been chattering at this point to at least 30 people. I have not made a single sale yet so, I'm resisting the thought that I've failed.I feel like I'm pushing through a maze of emails, offers and marketing mayhem because I know there is someone out there somewhere who needs my offer. I believe my Home & Body Detox System will greater impact and potential save peoples lives.
Your MISSION ACCOMPLISHED Story
This EMP program has reignited my passion to fulfill my God-given purpose to level up and continue serving my niche: woman who want to take charge of their health & well-being by any means necessary.
Seek out "no's" so I can get to yeses. I know I can complete what I start. Market till they drop I see that I can create a mini-course and start small.
I hope to maintain the momentum after the program ends
I knew I needed accountability and support to launch my business and I got it through EPM. I had to pivot and redefine, I had to lose courage and gain it back to arrive at the starting line where I am right now. I am launching soon, but have not yet! Know why? I'm part of the #CouragePod. I am not intimidated by the zeroes I have so far in terms of income to date - I'm going to keep going, dammit.
What is your biggest takeaway from EPM?
Persistence, persistence, and - oh yeah! - don't give up.
How did EPM help you become successful?
Clarify what I am offering and how, helping me to take SPECIFIC action, step by step. I believe it is doable, and only EPM among all other training programs has helped me achieve that belief.
How has EPM and your success impacted your life?
I have the hope of leaving employment someday.
What has been the biggest change in your business?
I have a clear idea of what I am trying to do.
What is now possible for you because of your Experience Product?
Launching my business's first product, earning my business's first dollar, leaving employment, providing for myself - these are possible now.
It was tough to keep to the schedule and I got way behind. I had just about given up and had some health issues and family commitments along the way. The constant reminders from LYM helped get to MA.
It all began with a 5-Day Free Challenge. This was the perfect vehicle to force me to step out of the perfection treadmill so that I could finish creating my program and start helping more entrepreneurs jump to the next level of success. But I was also looking to create a great experience with something new and unique. That’s when I stumbled onto EPM. I knew that it would give me the inspiration that I needed and when I needed it. Marisa is a real star and knows her stuff. And the information is priceless. I had to postpone the launch 3 times because many tech gremlins and covid got in the way. I held back my launch date till these obstacles were cleared. It was late morning Friday, November 12th when I made the decision to go for it. Monday was Day One. I personally reached out to 45 people in just 3 days and posted on just one Social Platform Facebook. I ended up getting 12 people to sign up. It was right before Thanksgiving so most of these people were in and out throughout the week and since it was late notice many people had other things booked. But I moved ahead and gave it my all. I used my magical product development team, my mindmaps and Scrivener notes, that I created, modified, and simplified over the last 7 years to help with the content creation method of Story—Teach—Action for each day. It was a challenge creating all the emails, texts, workbooks, Keynotes, checklists, and supporting content. But with all the tools and prior trainings I had, repurposing my existing content, CRM help, and referencing EPM training content, I got through it! It was a success and 2 businesses signed up for my offer for the 6-week Group Coaching Irresistible Lead Magnet Implementation Lab at $997! In this Lab, I was able to get up close to my students and make changes as needed. It has been a fantastic experience even as more obstacles tried to get in the way—more tech gremlins…more health and covid issues … Obstacles will always appear and you just have to figure out how to keep going. And I received amazing and invaluable feedback! The ILM Implementation Lab is 1 session away from being complete. I introduced my next offer, as I saw the need for an ILM Done For You Service including Repurposing and PromotionTips and Strategy at $2497. Both entrepreneurs are taking this offer. They want to save time and want an exceptional product to attract, delight, and convert a cold audience into endless Right-Fit Clients. This is what I love about EPM. I’m now going through the trainings again at EPM on things I missed and want to add to this new service. I didn’t take the Perfection route, so I have several changes to make. But that’s OK. EPM will be a repeat resource for me as I make edits to my first Challenge and Implementation Lab and as I add new offerings. In other words, SUPERCHARGE my services for my Right-Fit Clients. Thank You, Marisa, Coaches, Support, and EPM.
Your GRADUATION Story
I've tried several courses before in trying to get my product launched, but always felt overwhelmed and couldn't get to mission accomplished. I joined the Experience Product Masterclass and everything became crystal clear. Thanks so much Marisa and the EPM staff! You all are amazing in knowing how to help people with a dream become their most powerful self!
What's been the biggest change in your business?
I have an actual plan that I know I can implement.
I successfully made it to Mission Accomplished. I learned to keep moving forward to find my niche.
Your MADE A WHOLE LOT MORE Story
I was feeling stuck in my business, I have wanted to create an online course for over 7 years, I tried lots of things and nearly lost hope in what was possible. A friend sent me a link to a fee webinar that Marissa did. I hated it at first, I thought here we go again, I had no intentions of signing up. But I kept listening and I liked what I heard and before I knew it I had signed up.... only because it was the first course that guaranteed results or your money back. I was determined to take all the steps to guarantee my money back. I was going through the process, I was riveted by Marissa's teaching style, the process was so doable as it was broken down in bite size pieces, it was so enjoyable too as each milestone achieved was rewarded with bells and whistles. I absolutely loved the way this course was structured in a way that each step built on the previous and it culminated into a course. I learnt about progress not perfection, the milestone dates forced me to stick to the targets just so I could qualify for the money back guarantee, after following the steps I found myself making my first sale, I thought I would cry in delight but instead it was a bit of a shock... I couldnt believe I actually accomplished my goal, not only that but have made over 10,000 in sales in my business just using the structure of the enrollment conversation and closing the deal. Marissa is the real deal... I look forward to continuing my journey and seeing what else is possible. I am eternally grateful
CONFIDENCE and clarity I have a renewed passion for my work I had lost my mojo but this has given me hope progress over perfection I look forward to continuing to iterate it ..... I love that word...
Marissa is the real deal, so genuine, intuitive and a master at her craft. I have done many PD courses and this is PD and business development all in one
Your MISSION ACCOMPLISHED Story
I was having an clear idea of my product but did not know how to create a course and how to get student, I had no experience in marketing and how to create the right message to make my course compelling for students. I joined EPM and get an ides on what a product has to address - the give them what they want and I realizes that not only the feature sells but the benefit is a more powerful message. I understood I had been in the how hole with my messaging , which did not at all show the path my course is leading the students to achieve their desired goal. I overcame my resistance to contact my connections and went into chatter boxing. It was a great experience to use a well designed path towards telling the price of my product and I am sure I will get better continuing with the tools and methods received and learned from EPM.
I have now a clear mission statement which targets precicely my clients and their needs. I know how to talk to prospects to get their attention I feel confident I will be successful and I got insights what it means to be an entrepreneur. I got a sales mindset which enables me to be successful. I can do what I love - educate people how to protect their vision and eye-health - and get payed for my passion
I enjoyed the well structured course, the email reminders prior to each session. The information was always in time in place. Very well structured and organized !!!
"
#STARS
Minimum goal: $3,944
Target goal: $7,988
Stretch goal: $23,964
When the Student is Ready, the Teacher will Appear.
I have been running in-person writing classes for five years with little or no traction and not earning the income I wanted. In the five years, I have taught 400 students. However, very few of them went on to publish their books. What has kept me going has been my unwavering commitment to my work.
When COVID-19 hit in 2020 and the world went into lockdown, I froze. My business had been solely built on in-person meetings and now it was not possible to run the classes. That meant that an important part of my income stream was affected. So, I toyed around with taking my classes online. I reached out to friends of mine in the creative writing space in universities around the world to ask about how they were doing their virtual classes. Their needs did not meet mine. The students enrolled in their classes had writing knowledge and their sessions were mostly story workshopping. My ideal clientele is people without a writing history who want to document their authentic stories in book form, so I needed to teach them the writing basics. I wanted an online class that was as engaging as a live class. I did run a few online classes, but I was not sure I was getting the right of input and I believed I could do better. I was looking for a class that would teach me how to create and market online products.
Robert Allen, one of my writing coaches in the past, had said this to our class in 2013: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the teacher is ready, the student will appear – it touched my core. So, during this time of wondering where to get the best coaching to help me pivot into the online space, I got an email from Brain Tracy on October 8, 2019, titled: The truth about info products. It was an introduction to Marisa’s EPM webinars. I signed up and invited a friend to also sign up for the free webinars and that is when I got hooked and paid for the EPM 2020.
I am glad I did. EPM helped take a closer look at my business model and helped me address the lingering question in my mind: what do I have to do to ensure more student success in writing books and publishing them? I discovered new concepts that I have used to design my classes. While at the start of EPM, I run an advert for my first virtual writing retreat which was priced at $512. I did not expect it to make any sales. Two weeks to the deadline, I started implementing some EPM lessons and got four students who signed up and that was my first Mission Accomplished. I earned $2,048.
My EPM Product is called the Savvy Writer Masterclass which I specifically designed after implementing lessons from the classes. The product launch date was 8 January 2021 and would run up to January 25, 2021, for the class to start 5 February to 6 August 2021. The class is a beta product and is priced at $1997. My main marketing campaigns were chatterbox and perfect email campaign.
Using the Perfect Email Campaign, I decided to make this an exclusive invitation-only product and from my mailing list of 1,000 people, I selected 150 people to whom I sent out the marketing letter. I used Marisa’s email template because the story resonated well with me and I was sure it would resonate well with the readers. I then went on Canva and created personalized fliers for each recipient and then pasted the marketing copy under the flier. Creating the fliers took me three-days but because of the price point I had put it at, I knew the investment was worth it. It meant looking up their pictures of Facebook or LinkedIn to download and prepare a flier like the one below.
I manually sent out these invitations which also asked the recipients to recommend someone else who would be a fit for the program.
It worked.
I started receiving responses from the prospective clients I had reached out to.
In addition to the Perfect Email Campaign, I also used the power of celebrity leverage. The CEO of our national paper reached out to me and I chatter boxed him about the upcoming Savvy Writer Masterclass. He signed up. He has a Twitter following of 195,000 strong. I asked him to tweet about our class, which he did, and that brought in several prospects but also the second sign-up student to the class. The CEO has committed to documenting his writing journey on Twitter for the duration of the class- that is 24 weeks of being endorsed.
Sometimes, everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
Eight days after my product launch, we had an internet blockade. January was election season in my home country Uganda where the incumbent President who has led the country for 35 years whose strongest contender was a 38-year-old musician turned politician who appealed to the youthful generation. Campaigns had been held online because of COVID-19 restrictions. The internet in the country was shut down for 7 days and that is a lot of time in the world of marketing. Some clients on my list were from other countries in Africa.
I froze.
Again.
I had to quickly pivot to alternative ways of getting my message out and find new clients during the internet shutdown.
One Sunday while listening to a radio program called Desert Island Discs, where prominent Ugandans are interviewed, the guest on the show said he wanted to write a book. I reached out to the interviewer the next day to ask him to make an introduction to the guest and I chatter boxed about the Savvy Writer Masterclass. The interviewer promised to make the introduction, which he did and asked me as a guest on his show to which I agreed. It is a popular program among the elite in my country, who are the target market for this product. I also spoke to the guest who has signed up for the Savvy Writer Masterclass. My hour-long interview on my personal story was broadcast on radio, in print, and shared on Youtube.
Once the internet was turned back on, I sent the video to all the prospective clients on the targeted email list of 150 people when I sent the next email. I also realized that I would need to improve on my live version of the class, so I am able to make changes and fine-tune it in order to upload my materials on Xperiencify for the next time. This is the way forward for me as an African entrepreneur to have my online classes hosted outside my country because I see more incidents of rising internet shutdowns, yet I am trying to grow an online business.
I followed up on the old prospects who have started signing up and we used the old school payment method of EFT because of this amount of money and based on my market, many are more comfortable doing bank transfers. So as of writing this email, I have signed up 6 students which will make me $11,982 once their payments reflect on my account. I am still waiting for more sign-ups so the number will go higher. EPM helped me develop a product that would have fewer students but bring in more income. It was a EUREKA moment for me.
My students were ready, and I appeared for them."