Monica Froese [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Empowered Business Podcast, where strategy meets action. I’m Monica Froese and I’m here to help you create, sell and scale digital products the smart way, using AI and proven strategies to build a sustainable, profitable business. If you’re ready to turn your expertise into digital products that sell and eventually grow into a thriving digital shop, you’re in the right place. Each week I break down real world tactics, unfiltered insights, and bold business moves. Because building a digital product business should be sustainable, scalable and designed for long term success. Let’s ditch the fluff, leverage AI to work smarter and turn your expertise into a thriving digital empire on your terms. Let’s get started. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Empowered Business Podcast.
Monica Froese [00:00:52]:
Today I am bringing back my peer mastermind for our Roundtable series. And this time we’re tackling the big one. You know it Black Friday. If you caught our Traffic School roundtable in episode 103, you already know these conversations are where real business owners pull back the curtain on what’s actually working Right now. We’re giving you real candid lessons on exactly what our plans are for this upcoming Black Friday and things that have worked well for us in the past. In today’s Black Friday Roundtable, my mastermind crew and I dig into how we’re using AI and timing and smarter customer journeys to build promotions that convert without racing to the bottom on discounts. We talk about urgency that feels good, offers that stand out, and how to make the most of Q4 without burning out in the process. Whether you’re planning your first holiday promo or you’ve been through more Black Fridays than you can count.
Monica Froese [00:01:43]:
Like me, this episode will give you ideas you can execute this week to make this season your strongest yet. Now let’s get into the roundtable.
Faith Mariah [00:01:53]:
Hey guys. Hey everybody. Thanks everybody for coming. We are the Weird Hermit Mastermind. I’m really excited to bring you guys this call. This group has been life changing for me and these women are amazing. So I’m really excited to share everything with you. What I’ll say about Black Friday is there’s a lot of ways to do Black Friday.
Faith Mariah [00:02:12]:
I will bet you. Like most things in our mastermind, we all do things very differently and I want to encourage everybody listening to remember, like you’re the boss of your business. The best ideas for your business will come from your brain. Someone could say, oh, I did this and I made a hundred thousand dollars and you could do the exact same thing. But if it feels gross in your body and you don’t like it and you don’t feel aligned with might not work for you. There’s no one strategy that’s just do this and get cash, right? So everybody filter the answers through your own brain. That’s what I really love about this group is you get ideas and things you wouldn’t usually think of and then you can take what someone else has done and put your own spin on it. So with that being said, everybody put their boss filters on.
Faith Mariah [00:02:55]:
Oh, wait, I forgot to have you guys intro. Monica, tell everybody who you are.
Monica Froese [00:03:00]:
Yeah, so we’re going to just do this real quick. So I’m Monica Froese and you can find everything that I [email protected].
Sage Grayson [00:03:07]:
Hey, I’m Sage Grayson. You can find me@sage grayson.com and I’m a former book editor turned life and business coach. Or as I like to say, I’m a life editor and so are you.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:03:17]:
Hi everybody. I’m Kate Kordsmaier. I am the founder of Success with Soul and so excited to be here for. I think this is our fourth one, right?
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:03:25]:
Yeah, I think so.
Faith Mariah [00:03:26]:
Destini.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:03:27]:
Hey, I’m Dr. Destini Cop and you can find everything I [email protected] and I also have a BDC brand called Hobby School.
Faith Mariah [00:03:36]:
You guys gotta check out Hobby School. It’s the best. Elizabeth Stapleton.
Liz Stapleton [00:03:41]:
I usually go by Liz. You can find things about blogging stuff over at bloggerbreakthrough.com, soon to be rebranded. And then I also talk about the legal side of online business [email protected] this.
Faith Mariah [00:03:51]:
Is the blogging queen. So if y’ all want to do blogging, definitely head over there. Ruth.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:03:56]:
Hi everyone. I’m excited to be here. I’m Ruth Pound White. I’m a business and self belief coach. You can find everything I [email protected] Tara.
Tara Reid [00:04:06]:
Hey, I’m Tara Reid. You can find everything that I do and about [email protected] Last but not least, Ms. Steph Blake.
Steph Blake [00:04:16]:
Hi everyone, my name is Steph Blake. You can find all of my [email protected], but I am a business consultant and tech nerd. It’s the easiest way to describe me.
Faith Mariah [00:04:25]:
Steph has an amazing business platform. She showed me a couple weeks ago and I was mind blown. So if you guys are not happy with your email and website, you gotta go check her stuff out. Okay, here we go. Back to the question. When do you start teasing Black Friday deals?
Sage Grayson [00:04:39]:
I’ve got thoughts about this. So I start teasing Black Friday very early. I do a Christmas in July special most years and I do have another course that’s a countdown to Christmas that’s six months long. So I need to release it in July. And I’m also talking about Black Friday plans. So I get my followers thinking really, really early and strategically about where everything is leading to Black Friday. So especially if they need to fill up their shop a little more or create some kind of big bundle or do some kind of back end stuff with their tripwires and their welcome sequen is they’ve got tons of time to do it. So me about halfway through the year.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:05:16]:
I’ll just jump in there. I was going to say I’m going to be writing my newsletters for Sunday. I send out my newsletters on Sunday and in there I’m going to be talking about here’s what’s coming in Black Friday. Because I’ve always in hobby school and also my personal brand, I’ve already had people start asking me what are my Black Friday deals? Because budget wise they’re trying to like budget ahead. So I’m going to kind of start laying everything out. Here’s what we’re going to be doing. Here are the price points just so they can get ready and start planning for it.
Faith Mariah [00:05:45]:
That’s a really good point, Destini. I feel like people are being really intentional with their spending right now. So that could be like a good strategy is like let people know what’s coming up so they can plan.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:05:54]:
Yeah.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:05:55]:
And honestly, Faith, if they had not started sending me those emails in the past couple weeks, I don’t know that I would have been like, oh my gosh, I need to start letting them know. But I started getting those emails. I’m like, you know what, that’s a really good idea. I do think people are planning ahead more so this year than what they have done in the past.
Faith Mariah [00:06:13]:
Yeah, that’s a really good point. I had not thought about that. Thanks for sharing that.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:06:17]:
I’ll say I started teasing my Black Friday offers yesterday because I sent out an email inviting everybody to this and I was like, you know, this would also be a perfect time for me to selfishly also say, hey, P.S. i’m doing black Friday this year, which is a little different for me because I have not done a traditional Black Friday sale in years, which I’m sure we’ll get to. So I say like, it’s never too early and it’s not like you have to tell them exactly what’s Coming. But just to even like, I just felt like, oh, I’m gonna tell my list, look out because these are the dates I’m gonna run a Black Friday sale this year. So mark your calendars.
Faith Mariah [00:06:54]:
That’s a really good point too, Kate, that not all marketing needs to be like some huge campaign. It’s like you can just drop it in your PS or like work it into what you’re already promoting and posting ahead of time. Anybody else have any big thoughts on this?
Steph Blake [00:07:04]:
I do. Yeah. So in my mind at least what I have seen, people aren’t thinking about Black Friday yet, actually really thinking about it. And I don’t think they actually start to think about it until November 1st, after Halloween. Then it’s like, okay, holiday season is here, Black Friday is here. I need to get my stuff in order. So like whenever I. I’ve been saying things about Black Friday for a couple of weeks now, but I don’t actually start saying what I’m sharing until November 1st because I think it just goes in one year and out the out in one year, out the other.
Steph Blake [00:07:36]:
They’re not even thinking about it yet.
Faith Mariah [00:07:37]:
Yeah, I don’t even know what we’re going to do for Black Friday. So if anybody who’s listening, like, I don’t even know. I have no idea if we’re going to do Black Friday. My brain is not even there. But what I’ll say about Black Friday is it’s just like a normal promotion for us. Like we are marketers, right? I’m a marketer. We run promotions and sales all year. So to me it’s just another month where we’re going to do some kind of cool promo for our audience.
Faith Mariah [00:08:00]:
Like we’ll probably put together something awesome. But yeah, if you don’t have it figured out, it’s okay.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:05]:
Yeah, I wanted to say that I wanted to give a shout out to the chaotic ADHD people who are like, I don’t decide until, you know, Wednesday before Black Friday. Like it is okay. Like in an ideal world.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:19]:
Yes.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:20]:
Think about it early. Tease it. I love teasing stuff. If I’m organized enough, I always think that’s a really fun way to market. And I am being organized this year. But there have been times when I have totally decided last minute. In fact, last Black Friday I decided to do like a $1 trial of my low cost membership. Never wanted to discount that membership for because it’s only $7.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:39]:
But I thought, you know what, it’s Black Friday, why not? Got loads of people in on that trial. It was such a last minute decision, but it was really fun. So you can always do it that way as well. Like if you are here watching this, don’t think that you have to have all your ducks in a row. Like the earlier the better. Yes, but it’s okay if you don’t.
Faith Mariah [00:08:57]:
Yeah, you get to decide like how you run your business. My most chaotic Black Friday, we launched a new membership and I decided to do that the week before. But one of the ways I’ve used Black Friday for me that’s been helpful with ADHD is I’ll use it as a deadline to get something done. So I had been saying all year I was going to launch this membership. I ran out of the membership and like it’s, you know, now mid November and I was just like, I am unwilling to go to January 1st without this being done. And I just sat my butt down and I got it done. And I really use Black Friday as a deadline for myself to make that happen and get it done. So the next question says, how many offers is too many? I tried a seven days of deals thing last year and it wasn’t a huge hit.
Faith Mariah [00:09:36]:
So I’m just curious, I think kind.
Liz Stapleton [00:09:39]:
Of talking about the lead up time too is how prepared is your audience? Do they know you have seven days of deals and have they really registered that? Otherwise it can be very overwhelming. I think part of like how much people are paying attention in October depends on kind of like last year and this year Black Friday super late, like Cyber Mondays in December, which previous years that’s not, you know, not always been the case. And I think it being so late last year and the way things have been this year, I think people are planning more ahead because the time crunch gets very real at once. Black Friday hits and trying to get holiday stuff done. And so I think you could absolutely do seven days of deals, but you need to really prime your audience if you’re going to do that many. And so I think it does require more lead up time rather than last minute type of promo. I did last year for the first time for Black Friday I did the five days of deals. I followed Gemma Bonham Carter’s thing like to the T and it didn’t do that great for me.
Liz Stapleton [00:10:33]:
But Black Friday is never my like biggest thing because I’m usually prepping in January. And so this year I’m really taking the mindset of like, okay, Black Friday is not going to be like the big thing, but what do I want them to buy so they’re ready for my Big things in January, you know, like it’s almost like getting them primed for bigger things later. But I do have offers and what are my overall goals that I working towards and what offers lead to that. So that’s kind of how I’m approaching it. And I am going to do some daily deals, but I don’t think I’m going to do as many as I did last year.
Monica Froese [00:11:00]:
So daily deals never have has worked for me either for whatever reason. So it’s interesting how audiences respond different. I’ve used and November is also not my biggest month. It’s one of my biggest months, but my biggest month is usually January. And it’s usually because I use Black Friday to prime for January. The way I do it is I call it a cascading method. And I’ve been doing it since like 2019. And it came from when we started seeing the big box retailers move their promos earlier and earlier.
Monica Froese [00:11:27]:
So I was like, well, my vision of Black Friday works that I want to do my biggest cash grab earlier in the month before inboxes get completely overwhelmed and noisy. And so that’s usually me pre selling what my big thing in January is going to be. It’s something that I’m going to do in January and then what that also allows me to do is have additional sales periods throughout the end of the year. So now I have something else that I could be pushing another incentive for in December when, you know, I really don’t want to be on the computer as much as the other months. Then my second week is usually something like one of my bigger programs, something that would be also a bigger cash grab that I’m going to do a Black Friday exclusive offer on. And then the actual week of Black Friday leading I announced whatever my Black Friday deal is the day before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving’s a real chill, thank you email for everything. And then I’ve tried starting on Black Friday to highlight like the deal a day thing.
Monica Froese [00:12:19]:
And for whatever reason, it doesn’t work for me. What I’m doing this year is I’m going. I am overhauling my empowered shop. And my plan is to. There’s going to be a lot of products that are going to be retired. So I’m going to do essentially like a retirement blowout sale throughout. And what I will do is highlight like one specific product every day. So I have a reason to like lead in the email.
Monica Froese [00:12:38]:
But the theme is like the retirement sale.
Faith Mariah [00:12:41]:
I gotta jump in really quick. And credit Monica just went into my brain when you were talking about the Empowered shop. I did Monica’s Empowered Shop and made my Shopify store. And that thing is great for stuff like Black Friday. We had a really successful Black Friday last year and we just did a really no brainer offer. It was 79 a year for the membership and you got a $79 gift card to the shop and it was just such a fun promo to run and really easy to put together. So if you’re looking for something like that that makes selling a lot of products easier, you gotta check out Monica’s shop course because it’s really awesome.
Monica Froese [00:13:12]:
Yeah, I’ll put the link for anyone. It’s called the Digital Shop Experience, if anyone’s interested in it. The shop definitely made me running overlay sales much easier because what I was running into before I had my shop was, oh, I wanna mark everything down 50% for Black Friday, but here’s 40 different checkout links to go get your 40% off. So that’s honestly one of the reasons my shop came into existence.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:13:33]:
So I will second digital Shop experience. I also did Monica’s program before I knew Monica and it was one of the best designed courses I’ve actually ever been through. Like it made creating a shop so easy. Like I did mine in a week and I never would have been able to do that without Monica’s thing. Now I’m not even on Shopify anymore, but I still use all of those principles. But I will say the coupon code thing when you want to do like 40% off, everything is you can’t do that if you’re not in like an e commerce platform without making a hundred coupon codes. But I will also share a dissenting experience which I love because I mean, just goes to show you, like, nothing works for everybody and everything works, but what works for you. And so this year I am doing daily deals for Black Friday, which I did last year, except I did it as an anti Black Friday sale because I didn’t want to work at all during the day Thanksgiving week and felt like, you know, I’m gonna be different.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:14:33]:
And of course I did that for a couple years. It’s not different, it’s just, I feel like it’s the same thing just a week or two before. And after talking to some folks, including the Mastermind and some other Black Friday people about it, I felt like I want to experiment and see if running this deal during like actual Black Friday Cyber Monday dates will increase sales because people are just in that mindset. Yes, it’s noisy. Yes, there’s more Competition. But yes, people are also, like, wallets out. Like, we were just saying on our Black Friday prep call on Monday that, oh my gosh, on Thanksgiving, like, the day after Thanksgiving for me, like, I get my coffee, I sit down on, like, at the kitchen counter with my pumpkin pie and I open my laptop, ready to spend. And so I was like, I wonder what would change if I change the dates.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:15:27]:
But I did have daily deals. I did five days of daily deals and then I brought it back at the day six for everything came back. I’ve done that now twice because I just had a birthday sale. Is that last week? Yes, it ended last week. What is time? And I did the same thing, except I didn’t bring everything back. It was truly just five days of deals and then it was over. And that birthday sale made 25k. And the black Friday deal that I ran last year as the anti Black Friday made 10k.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:15:58]:
So depends on what your goals are. Those numbers might be like, oh, my God, I would die if I made that much money. Or they might be like, that’s it. That’s not enough for me. So depends on where you’re coming from. But I will say that I have had success with the daily deals and it makes me wonder, like, why some people have success and others don’t. Is it something about our audience? I don’t know what the factors are, but it’s interesting.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:16:21]:
Yeah, I’m curious about that too, because I was going to share the same. Like, we were talking about this on Monday and I’m doing daily deals as well. Definitely performed so much better for me versus some sort of blanket flash sale. But there’s other options in between those two extremes. And like, going back to the question of how many offers is too many. Well, for one, I actually think if your audience is engaged and if you give them a heads up that this daily deals is coming, it can be a really fun thing for them to watch. I mean, maybe check in and see if you’ve ever experienced this following someone else where you’ve checked in every day and be like, oh, what are they.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:16:52]:
Going to do today?
Ruth Poundwhite [00:16:53]:
Like, I love that. It also makes sense that some people will check out because there are a lot of emails. But I do think, especially in Black Friday, like, thinking about how we can encourage people to open our emails. So I’m sure Destini won’t mind me saying you have a different strategy, but it’s still a daily thing. Kind of like what Monica was just saying as well. Like, I’m sending something every day I’m showcasing something every day that’s different. Even if you’re not doing the daily different deals, does that make sense? The way that I’ve said that you’re still showcasing something new every day to encourage people to have that feeling like, oh, I wonder what it’s going to be today. So there are different ways to play with this kind of daily idea that’s not necessarily doing a whole different sale every day, but playing with this idea that how can I get people paying attention and checking in every day throughout the sale period.
Steph Blake [00:17:38]:
I want to give another perspective on this because I don’t do daily deals like during things like during November at all. Because again, like I just think people are too distracted. There’s just like too much information coming in. So I actually do them in December. So I will do a Black Friday sale. I don’t know what I’m doing this year. I still haven’t figured that out. But December is usually my biggest month because I’ll do deals throughout like leading up to the holidays because I find that more people are primed to buy.
Steph Blake [00:18:03]:
Which seems crazy like starting Black Friday weekend through like Christmas or the holiday season, like the end of the year.
Liz Stapleton [00:18:09]:
Right.
Steph Blake [00:18:10]:
Especially for businesses because they want that write off. So that’s when I do it. So I do it, but I don’t do it at the time that other people do.
Monica Froese [00:18:17]:
Okay, I’ll piggyback on that too. I have had really great luck in the first half of December doing some sort of themed like 12 Days of Giveaway. Like one year Hailey, I was on a cruise and she named it like holiday hoopla and she made it trivia based. Like I just let her run with it. We ended up. I got so many sales when I was on this cruise and I didn’t even have anything but basically like she gave like a fun trivia question to reply to it and then you got like a special coupon code or something that didn’t go out to the whole list and people just loved it and we made money and I was on.
Monica Froese [00:18:45]:
A cruise, so it was great.
Faith Mariah [00:18:47]:
Yeah, I feel like this question goes with this. So I just want to throw it out there while you guys are talking. Do you find that offers with a 24 hour expiration do better than something they have all weekend to decide on? So maybe that’s why the daily deals do well for people is like the deadline is fast. What do you. Fast. What do you think?
Monica Froese [00:19:02]:
I feel like when I did the 24 hour deadline and it’s funny cause I’M actually doing something like that right now with these 21 days of GPTs in October themed around Halloween. And it’s so funny because right now that is working well. But during Black Friday, I think because there’s so much more noise, I got a lot of complaints. I missed it. And then it’s also like you’re in that predicament that you’re like, you don’t really want to give up the money because that’s the whole point of you doing this. But then it was a lot of customer service stuff too, so that’s just my food for thought on that.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:19:29]:
I want to hear from Sage and Tara, who do a little different spin. Tara shared in the chat. And I think, yeah, Sage, you did too.
Sage Grayson [00:19:35]:
Yeah, for more than 10 years, I’ve done an anti Black Friday sale. So I don’t sell over Black Friday. And my reasoning is like, it is Thanksgiving. It is our national gratitude holiday. If we want to thank our followers, wouldn’t it be during Thanksgiving week? So I thank my followers by giving them eight all new free video workshops. So Monday to Monday, I have eight all new free opt ins for video workshops. Most of these are not new. I would say almost all of them are not new.
Sage Grayson [00:20:08]:
They’re old summit videos. So for those of you who do summits, you can reuse those videos later. Just double check with those. But most of the time you can. So I have all these videos that most of my list have not seen unless they were in the summit months ago. So I make those my freebies. So eight days of freebies over Thanksgiving. But I call it thank you week.
Sage Grayson [00:20:29]:
It is one of my biggest income weeks of the year, even though I’m only leading with freebies. And that’s because, like most of us do, I have tripwires after my opt ins for my free offers. So you’re gonna opt in for a free video workshop that you haven’t seen before, gonna get a great, ridiculously low tripwire for a great product. And then once they buy that product, all roads lead to my academy, which is my everything offer, where it’s more than 60 digital courses and I have a great deal for that. So I kind of lead them exactly where I want them to go. I want everyone into my academy, but I do it through freebies. And like Steph was saying, I’m priming them for December. I’m getting them on my good side over Thanksgiving because, oh, I gave you eight new freebies.
Sage Grayson [00:21:13]:
And then in December I’m like, don’t you want to Spend a lot of money with me. That’s how I get them. And I do a 12 days of life editing where I release new courses and I also promote my academy. And I’ve got my mastermind group this year which is filling up in December. So I recommend that if it feels kind of icky and you want to stand out over Black Friday, give away freebies.
Faith Mariah [00:21:34]:
Sage has a really great workshop program about that strategy too, about the freebies of Chirp Wires. Everybody in my group that has taken it has been like obsessed with it. So I would definitely, if you guys are interested in that, I would check it out. Tara, what about you?
Sage Grayson [00:21:47]:
My anti Black Friday sale, it’s for free in the, in the art offers that we’re putting in the chat.
Faith Mariah [00:21:52]:
Oh, awesome. That’s perfect.
Tara Reid [00:21:53]:
Yeah.
Tara Reid [00:21:54]:
So last year I called it sustainable success soiree. So it was five days, it was Black Friday, the Saturday, the Sunday and then the Monday. And I think I extended it one extra day. But basically it was just my way of giving back because I did also like Sage said like wanted to do something different instead of just because I know Black Friday. I’m like a multi passionate so I’m consuming and like grabbing so many deals myself. I was like, I don’t feel like I want to contribute to the noise this year. So it was really successful like getting affiliates to promote it because it was something different. Like they’re not promoting something to buy, they’re promoting like free resources.
Tara Reid [00:22:36]:
And then one of the days I actually gave away a 30 day trial to my signature program. And then at the they like went through a sequence during that 30 days and then I gave them a coupon code that was like I wanna stay. And I think I made 20k just from that one deal. And then there was also like I made sure that any of the resources that they got for free each day there was bumps, there was upsells, there was something else on the back end that they could buy if they wanted to. And yeah, it worked out really well.
Sage Grayson [00:23:09]:
I remember your soiree. I loved it. That was such a good idea. Oh and I liked what you said. If you don’t want to promote your own stuff, you could promote affiliate links.
Tara Reid [00:23:19]:
I’ve always done the the daily deal.
Tara Reid [00:23:21]:
Black Friday deal page.
Tara Reid [00:23:22]:
I think like I use Dama’s. Damaju has a template for that software.
Liz Stapleton [00:23:26]:
Template as you pan a few of Damaju’s thing. It’s awesome.
Tara Reid [00:23:31]:
So I do that every year too because I do also love promoting other people’s Stuff like, there’s so many great deals out there. It’s just.
Tara Reid [00:23:38]:
Yeah.
Tara Reid [00:23:39]:
And I love sharing with my audience, so I think they’ve come to expect it, that I’m going to share what I’ve come across that I’m excited about. Because, yeah, I definitely love Black Friday. I feel like more as a consumer than I do as a business owner.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:23:53]:
I want to add something too, that Liz said in the chat about donating a percentage of your sales. I did this last year as well. And I’ll say for me, it had an amazing impact. And I chose what I unfortunately say is a controversial place to donate, which was Planned Parenthood. And so I got a lot of unsubscribes and nasty, nasty emails from people who care so much about life that they have to tear one down. But I got also way more emails and sales from people who said, I bought because you’re donating to this cause and it means so much to me. And then at the end, I donated a thousand doll to Planned Parenthood. And I was like, man, that felt so good.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:24:40]:
Especially this was happening last November, which was the US election. So it was a very dystopian time. And I just feel like it was so meaningful. And maybe I. Maybe you want to donate to something that is less politically charged, but also when better to pick something that really means something to you and to show your people who you really are and let them decide if they’re for you or not. And so I really love doing that.
Liz Stapleton [00:25:10]:
There’s two more support politically charged. Like, you’re gonna weed out your people more and you’re gonna feel better about your donation. I did ACLU last year.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:25:19]:
Yeah.
Liz Stapleton [00:25:20]:
I’ve done Planned Parenthood in the past as well.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:25:22]:
Yeah, I love that.
Faith Mariah [00:25:24]:
There’s two more really good questions I wanna get to, but I’m curious if anybody has any strong feelings about this 24 hour deadline thing. Does anybody feel like, yeah, I definitely have to have a 24 hour or I don’t.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:25:34]:
I will just say, I put this in the chat. If you do 24 hours, you must, must, must send at least two emails a day. Announcement email, and it’s ending email. You cannot get away with like just one email if it’s only 24 hours. And I feel like maybe that’s why the bringing it all back at the end for the last day works as well as it does because most people who do that will say, like, that was my biggest day. And I think it’s because you get the people that either missed it Totally unintentionally or thought about it and sat on the fence and then are now having like, FOMO and regret that they didn’t buy. And then it comes back and they’re like, okay, one more chance, let me get in. So I think if you were going to do the 24 hours, that probably makes the most sense.
Tara Reid [00:26:17]:
The number of times that I’ve opened something in a new tab and then was like, I’ll come back, like, I’m fully intending to buy this or sign up for this, and then I forget.
Tara Reid [00:26:28]:
And it’s like, expired.
Tara Reid [00:26:30]:
So, yes, I really love the bringing it back. I just want to say too, I feel like it depends on your audience, because I’ve learned from my audience that just based on the number of emails I get, whenever something ends where they’re like, I wanted to do this, I wanted to get this, and I missed it. I feel like I have to give them more time. I don’t know if it’s just because of my audience is a lot like me, but that’s something that I’ve learned. So I. I typically don’t do the 24 hours. Like, I think even for this sustainable success story that I did, it was like a daily thing, but you had like 48 hours or something to sign up for each day’s thing.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:27:09]:
I wanted to add a couple of mindset points to this. Firstly, there is value in just deciding. It’s very easy to go back and forth with your plans. I am the kind of person who goes back and forth so much and like, I. I know that my business does better and I get better momentum when I just decide, especially if you haven’t tested it before, you don’t know. You don’t know what’s gonna work best. Just do something, test it, make a decision. And especially around Black Friday when everything feels noisy, if you can decide ahead of time, just gonna, you know, I am gonna test 24 hours.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:27:36]:
I’m just gonna see what happens and just have that decided is very, very helpful. The second mindset point that I wanted to make is sometimes if you are doing a very juicy discount, you might have feelings about it. Like, oh, my goodness, I can’t believe I’m discounting it that much. Now, I would never suggest you discount to the level where you feel like, no, this is just not good for me, or I feel resentful delivering it. But if it’s like, this feels exciting, but also a lot, it can feel kind of safer to think, you know what? This is really a juicy 24 hour Black Friday deal. So it can be helpful in that kind of situation. And like I said, I discounted my seven membership, which I never thought I would discount, but it was Black Friday. I mean, that actually wasn’t a 24 hour one, but just the nature of it being Black Friday made me feel like, you know what, what the hell, it’s Black Friday.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:28:24]:
If there’s ever a time to experiment with something I wouldn’t normally do, Black Friday is it. And actually that’s kind of why I love Black Friday. But yeah. So kind of think about your mindset in this as well and how it helps you make decisions and feel good about your discounts.
Monica Froese [00:28:37]:
I have one more thing about the 24 hours. As we are talking about this, I realized that maybe this could be something people could implement. So right now I’m running this event in my business where I’m dropping a new GPT into my shop for 21 days every 24 hours. You can get the drop for $9 for the 24 hours and then it goes up to 29. But the week leading into it, I have something called an all access pass where you could lock in your $9 pricing so you didn’t have to be there for every drop. And remember to check my emails for 189, which was like a 68% discount if you got it at the final price of 29. So these people don’t have to go and check my emails every day. They just have to within a year go and claim all the GPT.
Monica Froese [00:29:19]:
That code out of the shop that gave me a cash influx ahead of time, gave me momentum going into it. And now to honor that I was giving that, you had to buy it before it kicked off. I only upped it a hundred dollars. So it’s still a good deal. If you’re like midway through and you’ve missed some of the drops at $9 that are now at 29, you’re still saving like $400. So that could be a way to mitigate the whole. People might forget and then like, they’re missing out. And then you have this like promo period leading up to Black Friday where you’re promoting this all access pass and getting cash up front too.
Faith Mariah [00:29:49]:
That’s a cool idea. I’m excited to ask this next question because I know you guys are going to have a bunch of brilliant things to say and everybody listening to this. If you don’t have something to sell, you need to like, listen up. Okay, so what are some things that I can sell this Black Friday If I do not have something that is 100 ready and scalable to sell, get.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:30:09]:
It fucking ready, let’s go.
Liz Stapleton [00:30:12]:
And you can always pre sell it for Black Friday, right? Like, I personally don’t pre sell anything Black Friday because that’s too overwhelming to me. I’m usually doing summit stuff, but I know lots of people do and see a lot of success with that. And so if you want to confirm that your offer is good, Black Friday could be a great time to pre sell it or pre sell it now and try to have it released by Black Friday. Like, there’s a lot of options. Maybe it’s not meant for Black Friday. I’m not doing a Black Friday sale for my legal templates. Cause I’m doing a sale this month. Because people need their legal templates in place for Black Friday, right? So pre sell it and then kind of decide when you want that launch to be.
Liz Stapleton [00:30:44]:
Just make sure you’re super upfront and honest and committed to it.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:30:47]:
Also, affiliates, like we just been saying, if you’re really not going to get it ready and you can’t get yourself to just do the thing and pre sell it, which, come on, you can then do the affiliate deals. And I mean, this is something. Actually, I’d be curious to bring this to the whole group because only half of us were at our little weird hermit prep. We were talking about, should you promote your affiliate offers and your own offers during Black Friday or does it dilute your own offers and you should just stick. If you’re going to sell your own thing, you should only sell your things and leave the affiliate stuff for another time, honestly.
Monica Froese [00:31:24]:
So I don’t always do affiliates just because of time constraints because it can be a lot to collect everyone’s affiliate information. And although AI should actually make this easier for us now. So I don’t always. But I never felt like it diluted my offers. I am very cautious of what I will choose to promote, so it doesn’t conflict with my offers. Like anything that can enhance. I don’t know, I guess I don’t feel like it takes away as long as it’s enhancing their experience that they’re having with me as well.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:31:48]:
I will say I just dropped the chat that Damas BFD makes this really easy because you just send a form to anybody that like, you could send it to your list. I would send it to y’ all and say, hey, if you have Black Friday deals, whatever, fill out this form. They fill out their information and you just display it on your site.
Faith Mariah [00:32:07]:
So, oh, I get that. That’s awesome.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:32:09]:
Easier to collect.
Faith Mariah [00:32:11]:
Yeah.
Liz Stapleton [00:32:11]:
Yeah. I’d say the only downside of it is when people do the 24 hour deals because then you have to fill it in four or five times and put the dates of it access. So like. Because I did daily deals last year and I know other people did and so like we each were like refilling out the form several times for each of the offers. So that’s the only downside to domestic.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:32:30]:
Is it’s like you had to fill out someone five times. Yeah.
Liz Stapleton [00:32:34]:
And vice versa. Vice versa to mine. Yeah.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:32:37]:
Right.
Liz Stapleton [00:32:37]:
Because it’s only one deal at a time. So I might go and try to tweak it in case people have additional offers.
Faith Mariah [00:32:42]:
But it is.
Liz Stapleton [00:32:43]:
Yeah.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:32:43]:
I create a landing page where all my offers are on one place. So I just filled it in one time for that. Although I get that it might not be as compelling to have a general come to my sale, but yeah, that’s what I did.
Liz Stapleton [00:32:55]:
Yeah.
Steph Blake [00:32:55]:
I have all of my affiliates in airtable and then I just use software and put them up on a landing page.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:01]:
That’s the BFD system.
Faith Mariah [00:33:03]:
Oh, I didn’t know that.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:04]:
I don’t have it.
Liz Stapleton [00:33:04]:
Yeah, it basically is.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:06]:
Yeah, it’s the same thing. So it’s like a Softr page that displays your airtable things in a cool, you know, pretty.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:33:12]:
Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:33:12]:
For anyone who doesn’t know what software is, I actually. I get the gist of it, but can you guys explain? I feel like a lot of people don’t know.
Liz Stapleton [00:33:18]:
So it’s basically taking the data that’s in an airtable and like creating like a web page for it. So like it can dynamically update based on whatever the airtable dates are and things like that. So you’re not having to go in and manually turn offers off or on. It’s a dynamic kind of display so.
Faith Mariah [00:33:34]:
You can use it like on the front end. So like if you want to customize like the front end of.
Liz Stapleton [00:33:38]:
And you can add like search filters so they can search through the things.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:41]:
Did you love Monica at my 38 birthday page?
Monica Froese [00:33:45]:
I did.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:46]:
That was Softr.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:33:47]:
It was.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:48]:
Oh yeah.
Monica Froese [00:33:48]:
I had no idea.
Monica Froese [00:33:49]:
Okay.
Monica Froese [00:33:50]:
And is it only. Can it only be fed from airtable?
Liz Stapleton [00:33:53]:
No, they do lots of different databases now. So I think Google Sheets is one. I think they have their own database stuff now. They’ve expanded quite a lot. Huh.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:34:02]:
Who’s a saying in the chat? Google Sheet and spread Simple. Sounds like a similar setup.
Faith Mariah [00:34:07]:
Yeah, that’s what we use for my events and it works really well.
Liz Stapleton [00:34:11]:
Yeah.
Steph Blake [00:34:11]:
I have a whole software training that I did, so if anybody wants it, it’s in the chat.
Faith Mariah [00:34:15]:
Oh, awesome. I’ll add too. If you guys don’t have anything to sell, to really audit that thought and question that thought and think about anything you’ve done this year, whether it was maybe a free challenge or I would have had this idea where we were going to do like a Faith Maria All Access Pass and it was going to be all the summit presentations I’ve done, like, in a pack. If you have anything that you have done, like, can you repackage it? Or if you’re going to release maybe a bigger course later in the year, maybe just do the first module and sell that as a one off. Like, really start thinking about, there is something I can sell. Right. Our brains love to tell us, like, I don’t have anything to sell. I don’t have anything.
Faith Mariah [00:34:53]:
I don’t know what to sell. They love to, like, indulge in confusion because they’re programmed to conserve energy. So I would really question that thought and be like, there is something I can sell. There is something I can sell that my audience will like, that is not going to be overwhelming to me. And then to kind of see what comes up. If you’re just kind of open to new ideas.
Steph Blake [00:35:14]:
I was gonna follow up to that to just see what else you can repurpose and bundle together. Bundles are one of my favorite things to do on Black Friday. Not like a bundle that you may be thinking of or like you’re hosting a bundle, but like, what resources do you have that you can bundle together and like make it available only for Black Friday, right? So, like, if you have this training and this training. This training, right. Or if you have an interview that you did, right. Like, Sage was talking about that before. Like, there. There are so many different ways that you can repurpose things that you already have.
Steph Blake [00:35:39]:
Because I guarantee that everybody has at least one thing that they can sell. Even if it is a $5 digital product, everybody has one thing that you can sell.
Liz Stapleton [00:35:46]:
Yeah. I was going to say repurposing can be a great way. Even if you have tons of articles, people pay for convenience. Put them together in an ebook. Right. Like, that’s super simple. The other thing I was going to say is if you are going to go like the affiliate route, depending on the niche, pretty sure every one of us has an affiliate program. We’d love you to promote our stuff.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:36:00]:
Yes. We should add that to the doc.
Steph Blake [00:36:04]:
Yeah.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:36:05]:
Affiliate.
Faith Mariah [00:36:06]:
Yeah. I have a B2C audience too. And I always send my everybody that’s on my email list. They get to put their affiliate stuff in and we circulate it. So if you guys are in my community, you can look out for that too. I had one more thing that popped in my brain is if you don’t have anything to sell, you could also sell like a voxer or like a one on one package or you could sell something for like next year. I’ve seen people sell like a pass for maybe you’re going to do so many events I would be clear about what they’re getting, right? But you could do some kind of pass for stuff you’re doing next year. If you know you’re going to be running a program or you know you’re going to have group coaching or one on one coaching, you could give them a really special deal to buy early for something you’re going to do in Q1.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:36:47]:
It is truly my belief that everyone has something to sell. Everyone has something to sell. Whether you have it ready or not is another question. Go have a conversation with ChatGPT or your favorite AI tool, ask it to interview you about things that you’ve done in the past or things that you are thinking about doing and your energy levels and all of that and you will come up with some ideas. Like my favorite, you can create like a group program idea like that or one to one idea like that. And sometimes I’m not saying that everyone should do a Black Friday sale and you absolutely can opt out, but sometimes having that kick up the bum is really, really helpful. And just like, you know what, I’m going to use this as my motivation to actually get something out. I think Faith mentioned that earlier.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:37:31]:
Like the ADHD deadline thing. Use it as motivation and let yourself be creative. What do you have to lose?
Kate Kordsmeier [00:37:37]:
Exactly.
Faith Mariah [00:37:38]:
This next question says can we talk about the importance of tripwires for free Black Friday offers, upsells and order bumps for paid and best practices for those. This is a great question. I was thinking about this while you guys were talking because I think the free offers are such a cool idea. I know a lot of people would love that. But I also know Tara knows what she’s doing with those bumps and upsells. So when she’s like, oh, I made $10,000 with this free offer on the front, there was probably a strategy. So I’d love to hear strategies you guys have used.
Sage Grayson [00:38:05]:
Oh yeah, I do free offers during Black Friday week and every single one of them has tripwires. And last year I’ve been really Vocal about my $7 tripwire. So no matter what I was promoting, Whether it was a 27 product or a $397 product, the tripwire was $7 for the next 15 minutes. And those worked incredibly well for me for a long time. I have been experimenting with other levels of Tripwire lately. No time I may or may not do a training about, but that’s incredible because of getting something free. And then you make the Tripwire ridiculously inexpensive. It’s a total no brainer.
Sage Grayson [00:38:43]:
Like it’s less than you what you pay for a Starbucks drink. Of course I’m going to get that. Especially if it’s for something really, really high value or maybe something that you never discount before. And the Tripwire only exists within that Black Friday free offer. And then just like everybody else, I’ve got order bumps on every single offer. But for me my order bumps are the Tripwire prices too. So I don’t put like full priced order bumps. My order bumps are the Tripwire prices too.
Sage Grayson [00:39:11]:
And then I lead everyone to my academy which is my everything offer with more than 60 courses. So that has worked really, really good for me. I’m not sure I’m going to be doing that this year, but we shall see. So free offer, ridiculously low Tripwire order bumps and then an upsell to what you really want them to go to. What are you really leading them to? For me it’s my academy. It might be your mastermind group, it might be your membership. Like where do all roads lead to your business? What’s the thing you really want them to buy?
Tara Reid [00:39:40]:
Yeah, I think the one that did was most intentional was the one where I gave a 30 day free access because that program has like a lot of support. So I wanted people to get in there and experience it and then stick around afterwards and want to stick around. But then yes, the same with Sage. Like I definitely position bumps and I tended to do a lot of redirects. So it was kind of like a tripwire on something that they signed up for that was normally paid that I’m now giving you for free during these daily deals. And then once they signed up for the free thing, they’re redirected to a page with a 20 minute usually countdown timer and it’s 7:17 super easy. Yes. If they say yes to that then most of the time I did try to have an upsell.
Tara Reid [00:40:32]:
Usually it was more of a one to one kind of one time offer. Like you’re never going to see this again, like, this isn’t something that I typically offer. It’s just something I wanted to test and do for Black Friday, which I know somebody said earlier, like, Black Friday.
Tara Reid [00:40:46]:
I think it was Ruth.
Tara Reid [00:40:47]:
Black Friday is the perfect time to test.
Faith Mariah [00:40:49]:
I was gonna ask you, Sage, I’m curious if. I don’t know if I can ask this right now, but do you use kajabi for your bumps? I feel like you must have some genius way of doing that because I’ve never been able to get bumps to work on kajabi. I never got them to sell till we moved to thrivecart. Are you aren’t using them?
Sage Grayson [00:41:04]:
Oh my gosh. I love like the order bumps on the checkout pages for Kajabi. So more than 70% of of my sales include the order bump for me. And I think that’s because I say on the order bump that this is the tripwire price. So, like I have an order bump for a $97 product, but the order bump is for $7. So you might be getting a $7 tripwire and then the order bump is also $7. So I feel like if you’re going to have an order bump, like, yes. Make it something related or something that’ll take you to the next level that’s somehow connected to what they’re buying.
Sage Grayson [00:41:36]:
But make it the tripwire price. I don’t understand when people put like a full price thing on the order bump unless it’s like really, really good. I want that sale no matter what. So that’s why order bumps work really well for me because I make it the tripwire price and then the upsell after is also a tripwire for my academy.
Faith Mariah [00:41:52]:
I’ll say too. I was sleeping on order bumps till like a few months ago. My attitude about them was like, I’m going to sell my thousand dollar offer. I ain’t got time to like pick up change on the ground. Yeah, yeah. Which is looking back, I’m like. Because there was a pivot in our business where we started doing these volume based events, right. And so we weren’t selling a thousand dollar offer, right.
Faith Mariah [00:42:11]:
We were selling seven $14 offers. I was selling it the same way I sold the thousand dollar offer. And so in our last event, we just threw a random bump on there and I was really surprised at how much it really changed our bottom line. So I’m on the upsell bump train, babe.
Monica Froese [00:42:26]:
Now Josh got on the order bump train. I had no idea. Oh my God.
Faith Mariah [00:42:30]:
Like three months ago. Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:42:33]:
Like, no lie. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’ve made over a million dollars over the course of my business.
Monica Froese [00:42:37]:
And order bumps.
Liz Stapleton [00:42:38]:
Yeah. Right?
Faith Mariah [00:42:39]:
Yeah. I’m ready to make my mail, Monica. I’m ready.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:42:42]:
Yeah.
Liz Stapleton [00:42:43]:
Speaking of bumps, love and order bump. But something I’ve done in the past both for Black Friday and I’ll start is a bump sale, which I don’t know if any of you guys have done this, where it’s like, it starts out at one price, and each person that buys the price goes up. And that’s a really fun way that really motivates.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:42:59]:
How do you motivate people? Like, what’s the fast?
Liz Stapleton [00:43:02]:
I mean, so I did last year, I did with ThriveCart, where I just did. Okay, this is the price, and it’s limited to one person can purchase it. Right. So it was still on there, but there were no available. Another one. Bumpsale Co is. I mean, they just. They charge a fee for every transaction, but there’s no actual, like, pay for the software.
Liz Stapleton [00:43:17]:
It’s just the fee for each sale you make through it. So Bumpsale Co. And you can set it up that it goes up by, like, a dollar or $5 or whatever. So you start with the base, and they’ve got a fund calculator. If you’re like, if I start at this price and it has to go up by this price, how much will I make if I make this many sales? And what’s the final price? So it’s fun to play around with, and it obviously motivates people to, like, take action, because every time someone buys, the price goes up.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:43:41]:
Yeah.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:43:42]:
Well, I’ll just add that for my bump offers, I was doing what Sage does for a while of, like, having it be the same as the tripwire price. And now I’m like, a week into testing this, so we’ll see how it goes. It’s too early to report back, but I decided to make my bump offers actually even juicier than my tripwire price because I felt like it was a reward only for people who are already buying something. Like, anybody can see the tripwire price, right? But they don’t have to purchase it. But the only way to get the bump price is to buy something else. So now I just issued, like, global policy for all of my bump offers that they are 80% off the normal price of things. And so so far, it’s been working really well. But like I said, I’m very new into this experience experiment.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:44:31]:
But it’s also partly because I raised the price of my trip wires I was doing mostly really low $7. 17 maybe. And so now I’ve been increasing that price. And that’s also working really well too. So we’ll see.
Faith Mariah [00:44:44]:
We did one that was fun. One year, we called it the Digital Mystery Box. And the price went up every day and we would reveal like one extra thing, right. So they would see what they were buying. It was like a bonus. Right. So it was like you buy this and then you get the Digital Mystery Box bonus. And every day we’d like, reveal something else that’s in the Digital Mystery box.
Faith Mariah [00:45:02]:
And that was like the only place to get it. And I saw some of my Mastermind people. You guys have the templates and layouts for that in the Black Friday Inner Mastermind. Anybody else have any fun ideas? Monica?
Monica Froese [00:45:13]:
Well, actually, I’m kind of curious because I missed our prep call on Monday. So I don’t know what everyone’s doing and I have not heard from you. Destini, I’m very curious what you’re doing on both sides of the business.
Faith Mariah [00:45:22]:
Destini’s always percolating over there on brilliant ideas.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:45:26]:
Yeah, I mean, the. The call Monday was so. Was so good. So in Hobby school, one of the things that we’re doing, and we’ve talked about this kind of today too, is pre selling. So we’re Pre selling our 2026 annual workshop pass. This is different from the VIP passes that we’re going to be selling every single month because they’re going to have all the speaker bonuses and everything in it. This is just every single month. We’re going to add the expert presentations to this for that month because we’re doing an event every single month.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:45:57]:
So that’s one of the things that we’re going to be pre selling. And going back to what Faith said earlier, one of our really popular promotions that we’ve done in the past for our membership is doing, if they purchase like the Annual or Lifetime for our Craft and Create Club, giving them the 70 gift card to our shop. So we have a Shopify store at Hobby School. So we’re going to be doing that again for Black Friday. But if you go to the link that we have for our affiliates for Hobby School, one of the things that you’ll see that I did, I actually did this back in August because I wanted all. We have a large amount of affiliates in Hobby School, and I wanted them to have all of the information for all the stuff that we were going to be promoting plus the Black Friday. And so we put all of that together and basically handed them their creative marketing pass for all of 2026 because we have people that promote our events every single month. So that’s what I’m doing in my B2C brand, in my personal brand.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:47:00]:
I have to go back and think about what we’re talking. Oh yeah, the custom GPT. So I’m going to be promoting my creators MBA live. So I’m making some changes to it. I’m adding some kind of one on one boxer coaching in it for all the members there. But how I’m going to be promoting it is we’re going to be doing five days of free GPTs. We had a long discussion about how do you get people to open up your email. So that was one of the ideas that I’ve had.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:47:26]:
But I’m really just going to be promoting that one offer but giving away free.
Monica Froese [00:47:32]:
Are you talking about like my inbox experiments with getting them to use the.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:47:35]:
Custom GPTs similar to that. So in that custom GPT we’ll give them a quick win. Obviously I’ll give them a quick win, but I also want to kind of lead them and walk them through how the creators MBA lab can actually help them in their digital product business. So that’s going to be part of that strategy. I’m super excited about it. I haven’t done it the way I’m describing to you, so I can’t really talk about what the results are going to be, but I am super excited about what I have for Black Friday this year.
Faith Mariah [00:48:05]:
Yeah, that’s a good point too. If you don’t want to do discounts, you could do a bonus, right?
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:48:09]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. I’m not discounting anything in my personal brand. It is all going to be bonus related.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:48:16]:
I got a question for the group actually on the subject of how do you get people to open your Black Friday emails? So usually. Well, actually let me pose it this way. I feel like there’s kind of two choices here. One is to like have your subject line of your email say, you know, 24 hours only or like what the deal is like it’s just clear. Right. And it’s not like cutesy or clever. Then I think how normally my emails that get open the most are emails that have subject lines that create a little curiosity gap.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:48:46]:
Right.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:48:47]:
And so we’re not just telling them what’s in the email, we’re making them go oh, what does she mean by that? And then they want to open it. So do you find that for Black Friday specific emails you go with clear over clever or the other one.
Steph Blake [00:49:01]:
So what I do is when I say that my Black Friday offers are coming, I have a very specific subject line for all of them. So they’re all the same. So it’ll say, like, in brackets, like, Black Friday, blah, blah, blah. So they know what to look for if they’re waiting for it. And I’ll usually put, like, red emojis typically do the best. So I’ll typically have a red emoji, so it stands out in there as well. But I like to have a system. You guys know that.
Steph Blake [00:49:23]:
And it makes it easier for me, too, because then I don’t have to think of, like, a catchy subject line which is like, hey, look in your inbox. On this day, this is going to be the subject line. So then they don’t even have to guess.
Liz Stapleton [00:49:31]:
I, I, I lean forward.
Monica Froese [00:49:33]:
Steph does too, keeping.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:49:35]:
And I, and I decide, sorry, Monica. I decide ahead of time. Like, I’m sending my two emails at this time and this time, like, when I’m doing a sale like that. I also, if I’m organized enough, create an opt in, even though I am, let’s be real, gonna send the sale to everyone on my list. I do create an opt in ahead of time for the people who are really keen to, like, make sure that they know that they’re getting these emails. And I create an opt out for the people who don’t want it. But I think that that awareness building is helpful ahead of time as well.
Liz Stapleton [00:50:01]:
That just reminded me, I did that last year where I was like, if you’re on the wait list, you get, I think, 36 hours to get the deal as opposed to 24, which was a painless setup. I remember that. But I did do that where it was like, which meant I had separate pages. Now I’m like, it’s coming back to me how complicated my setup was last year because of all the things I did.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:50:19]:
Like, Liz is having a drama response right now.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:50:23]:
It’s all a learning experience, though, right?
Liz Stapleton [00:50:25]:
It is, it is. But I, you know, it was an, it was a fun experiment to be like, okay, well, because you guys were, you know, I think they got access 12 hours earlier was what it was. Like. It all ended at the same time, but they got access earlier, which, because one of my sales was a bump sale, was a big thing.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:50:41]:
Speak up, Sage. Come on.
Sage Grayson [00:50:44]:
I will say for subject line, since mine is called thank you. We I do T y w then day one, day two, day three, so they know, like, where’s day four? Did I Miss it. Like they know there’s something every single day of the week. And then I do the curiosity one for my after Christmas sale. So I’m priming them in Black Friday. I’m giving them lots of free stuff. I’m priming them so that I can sell after Christmas. December 26, for more than a decade has been my biggest income day of the year.
Sage Grayson [00:51:12]:
And it’s been great because I send an email because, like, it’s the day after Christmas, the wrapping paper is still on the floor, the kitchen is a mess, you’re still in your pajamas and you, like are feeling kind of gross. So I sent an email right in the morning that says, didn’t get what you wanted? Because most people didn’t get what they wanted. There’s a big letdown after Christmas.
Sage Grayson [00:51:30]:
Woo.
Sage Grayson [00:51:31]:
Like, your energy is tanking after the holidays. Like, it’s finally over. You did all that work. So I definitely do like the curiosity thing. Like, what is this? And play on there. There are. They are feeling a little low after Christmas. So that works really well for me for a subject line and who is it saying? Steph.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:51:46]:
Yes.
Sage Grayson [00:51:46]:
Always, always put an emoji in your subject lines because most people don’t. So if you do, you’re going to stand out in that long list of sale emails that they’re getting.
Faith Mariah [00:51:55]:
That made me think too. When you’re saying stage, you put the name of your sale in the subject line. I think something that really helps sales is like, just make it a big deal. Like you want it to feel like it’s a whole thing. Right? It’s like the anti Black Friday sale. It’s like a whole thing, right? Not just like, oh, hey, I discounted some stuff.
Faith Mariah [00:52:12]:
Here you go.
Faith Mariah [00:52:13]:
You want to have this lead up where it’s like we’re doing this and present it like it’s exciting.
Steph Blake [00:52:19]:
Yeah. That’s literally what I do. I use my name instead of Black Friday. It’s Blake Friday.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:52:24]:
I love that.
Tara Reid [00:52:27]:
Last year, late Friday.
Faith Mariah [00:52:29]:
That was good. We’re running out of time. Anybody got any hot tips they want to drop? What would you say for like, everybody listening would be just a little nugget you would want or maybe your past self something you wish you knew on Black Friday before.
Sage Grayson [00:52:42]:
If you’re selling all gear, you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket for Black Friday. You can take it easy.
Faith Mariah [00:52:48]:
That’s a good thought. It’s just one launch. It’s not a big deal. Right? Not scary.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:52:52]:
I always say that because of the Rush and the noise. You can get in your head about what you should do, what you shouldn’t do. It’s really good to make an empowered decision either way. So if it’s a no, it’s a real no. And if it’s yes, it’s like, you know, I’m going to do this my way. Make that decision ahead of time. You can save yourself a lot of overthinking.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:53:10]:
And I would say, too, along those same lines, like, it’s all just an experiment. Right? I mean, I think you saw from all of us, we’re all testing new things this year. We tried things last year. Some of us learned. Oh, God, that really overcomplicated things. I’m not going to do that again this year. Or. Or maybe there’s a better way I could do this.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:53:26]:
I’m going to try pre selling. I’m going to try this. I feel like I try to think of business as like playing a video game, and you’re just trying to see what’s on the next level. And you might die, but you get another life. Like, it’s okay. You get to try again. So the way I said that was like, you might die from doing a Black Friday sale. You might die in the video game, but you have unlimited lives in video games, right?
Tara Reid [00:53:52]:
You might die.
Faith Mariah [00:53:53]:
We have the doc with everybody’s offers. Somebody, could you drop it in the chat?
Sage Grayson [00:53:57]:
Yeah, let me grab that. So we have a ton of offers for you, and I added in all of our affiliate program links so you can sign up for our affiliate programs, too.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:54:05]:
There you go.
Faith Mariah [00:54:05]:
Yeah, this is something we want to do more often. So if you guys like this kind of stuff, let us know and definitely let us know, like, ideas for future ones. We want to, like, reply to whoever’s email you came from. Anybody else have any last final things we should talk about before we sign off?
Steph Blake [00:54:20]:
I mean, I would say don’t stress about it. Repurpose what you already have. Promote affiliates. You don’t have to discount if you don’t want to discount. There’s like a zillion different ways that you can set up Black Friday if you want to do it, and if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. That’s also okay.
Sage Grayson [00:54:34]:
Let us know what you want us to talk about next time.
Kate Kordsmeier [00:54:36]:
Yeah, put it in the chat. That’s how we came up with this. Oh, actually, I think Destini came up with this one last time. She’s like, we got to do Black Friday.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:54:43]:
Yeah, Time and wise. It was perfect.
Monica Froese [00:54:46]:
Q5.
Sage Grayson [00:54:46]:
What’s Q5?
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:54:47]:
There you go. That’s a smart one. Planning, right?
Ruth Poundwhite [00:54:50]:
Oh, is that what we’re.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:54:51]:
Okay.
Ruth Poundwhite [00:54:52]:
That’s the first thing you’re planning?
Kate Kordsmeier [00:54:53]:
Yeah, I’m planning for the new year in November.
Monica Froese [00:54:56]:
I mean, I love a good goal planning session.
Faith Mariah [00:54:58]:
Yeah.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:54:58]:
Yeah, that would be a good discussion for sure.
Faith Mariah [00:55:01]:
That is a good idea. Thank you.
Liz Stapleton [00:55:02]:
So that.
Faith Mariah [00:55:03]:
Thank you, whoever said that. We’re taking notes over here. Well, thank you, everybody, for coming. It’s great. As always, like, talking to you guys, I really appreciate everybody on the panel, like, your time and your knowledge and everybody that came to hang out. I think it’s really fun. And we just want to get together more often and share kind of what’s working and what’s not and just share kind of what we’re seeing. The space is changing a lot.
Faith Mariah [00:55:23]:
We kind of want to share, like, what we’re seeing in the space and what we’re testing in real time and give you guys a little behind the scenes of the businesses, and that’s it. I guess we’ll see you guys at the next one. Watch your email. We’ll send emails out about the next panel that we do, if you want to come.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:55:37]:
And we might be together for the next one. Remember?
Sage Grayson [00:55:40]:
Oh, yeah.
Faith Mariah [00:55:40]:
Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Destini Kopp [00:55:41]:
Yeah, that’s right. We’re going to be at our.
Liz Stapleton [00:55:44]:
In person.
Faith Mariah [00:55:45]:
We’re all going to Atlanta to meet in person, which is always. I. I love, like, that when you’re Internet friends and then you’re like, in real life and you’re like, oh, my God, we’re not on zoom.
Liz Stapleton [00:55:54]:
We’re going to miss you, Ruth. But we totally understand. You’re so far away. We’ll zoom you in. Yeah.
Faith Mariah [00:56:02]:
So maybe we’ll be in person for the next one. That’s kind of funny to think about. Yay. I’m crying in English. Yeah. All right. Bye, everybody. Thanks for coming.
Faith Mariah [00:56:09]:
Bye, guys.
