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. Welcome back to the Empowered Business Podcast.
Monica Froese [00:00:51]:
Today’s episode is extra special because we’re diving into a real student success story. My guest, Natalie Gingrich, is the founder of the OPS Authority and creator of the Director of Operations certification. She’s trained over 500 women to step into high level operations roles and she’s built an incredible business all around her expertise. But here’s what makes this conversation exciting. Natalie recently took what she learned inside of our program, the Digital shop experience, applied our power path strategy, and turned the content sitting in her Google Drive into a brand new shop launch that pulled in more than $20,000 right out of the gate. This episode is about more than just a shop launch. It’s about how a proven system can breathe new life into the IP you already have, give you a scalable revenue stream and create consistent cash injections without relying on the constant launch grind. If you’ve ever looked at your backlog of trainings, templates or workshops and thought there’s money just sitting here, Natalie’s story will show you exactly what’s possible.
Monica Froese [00:01:52]:
So let’s jump in. Natalie, welcome back to the Empowered Business Podcast.
Natalie Gingrich [00:01:57]:
Hey.
Monica Froese [00:01:57]:
Hey, Monica. So last time you were on we were talking about hiring and today we are talking about a totally different topic. We are going to talk about your shop launch, but to catch the listeners up because it’s been a few years since you’ve been on. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your entrepreneurial journey and.
Natalie Gingrich [00:02:12]:
What you’re doing today? Absolutely. First, I’m so excited to be here and I can’t wait to dive into this because it’s quite personal and you know, we have a fun friendship, professional friendship and just I consider you just such a great peer and someone who’s been a part of my journey for so long. I think we’re probably like eight years, I think right When I was coming in, you were coming in. We both transitioned out of corporate and stuff. So anyway, it’s an honor to be here and your impact on me is something I’m very, you know, it’s kindred to me because it has made a big difference along this entire eight years, but specifically most recently with the shop. So I can’t wait to dive into that. But as far as your question about me. Well, I spent 15 years in corporate America.
Natalie Gingrich [00:02:55]:
I left corporate America to be able to be a different kind of mother to my children. And I knew I was not done working. I knew that I was going to shift the way that I was working. And my first voyage into entrepreneurship after leaving my high paying executive career was something completely different than anything that I’m doing today. But it was my first step into entrepreneurship that really allowed me to kind of, you know, get my feet wet. I grew up, up with a mother who was an entrepreneur and had her own business my entire life. And so I had always seen what that looked like. And I, to be honest, was a little bit scared of it when it came to be my time to step into it.
Natalie Gingrich [00:03:36]:
But through my corporate experience and just the place that I was at, just ready to really do things differently, I stepped into it again. And I was then very grateful for having seen the work that my mother went and put into this, because it is no different. Even though it’s three decades later, it’s the same amount of heart and hustle and sometimes even a little bit of heartache in there as well. But anyhow, I had started a business and I quickly realized it was not the business that was going to be serving me. I wanted to do something on my own. I wanted to obviously be able to bring in enough, you know, income to support our family in the same way that I was supporting them when I was in the real hustle and grind, which is corporate. And then I was sensing this thing of goodness gracious, Natalie, you’ve got to do something that’s just natural to you. Because what I was trying to do was just so far away from who I was that I was looking for to really build on my natural skills.
Monica Froese [00:04:31]:
And what were you doing? I remember, but tell everyone what you were doing.
Natalie Gingrich [00:04:34]:
Do you?
Monica Froese [00:04:35]:
I do remember, yeah.
Natalie Gingrich [00:04:37]:
Well, it was a business called the More Mom Movement and I was pulling together women in our local community, which all that is truly who I am, at least who I was at that time. And it was very meaningful to me. The connection and, and all of that was very meaningful. The ability to be able to scale, it was impossible. And also remember I left corporate to be able to be with my kids more. And when can moms get together? And I was targeting professional moms. So when can professional moms get together? Nights and weekends, which is exactly why. So it just leveraged a part of my skillset that felt really good and natural.
Natalie Gingrich [00:05:13]:
The lover, the connectiveness, the empathy. But at the same time, there was a huge gap in how I was really going to make this profitable. And I think I made $2,700 in seven months that year. So that clearly was not going to be the answer to how I was going to do this long term. So very, very difficult in a big transition. Something I learned a lot from. And I really took the things that I was good at from that business and found this entirely new business model that was foreign to me, even though I had spent all this time in corporate. The ability to be able to leverage and grow a business from an online perspective with complete strangers remotely outside of, you know, I live in San Antonio, so I wasn’t looking at people face to face.
Natalie Gingrich [00:06:00]:
It was a completely new model to me. And then still be able to couple that with leveraging the skills that I am known for and good for and good at and just come natural to me, which have all been under the unsexy umbrella of operations. And so everything from project management to hiring, you know, KPIs, scorecards, those kinds of things, automations, all the cool things that maybe I only find cool, but I know you do too, because you’re an operator like no one’s business. You have a brain that is just to me is just like way, way, way high. But anyway, so I, I use those operational skills that even though I thought were unsexy, they were truly changing the people around me and I needed to step into that. So at first I did a bunch of consulting and implementation work. And as I was speaking and you and I had lots of overlaps and we were in attendance at a lot of events back in the day, the 2017s and 18s and 19s when we were traveling probably a whole lot more than we are today for business. I was speaking at a lot of those events and I was also supporting people who were hosting those events.
Natalie Gingrich [00:07:10]:
And in doing so, it gave me the opportunity to get on a lot of stages and to talk about this intellectual property. I was at an event and a sweet friend came up to me afterwards and said, number one, I want you to work for me, but you’re working for My friend and says, that would be too difficult to do, but I need you to meet me for coffee. All right. So I met her for coffee the next morning, and she’s like, I have an idea. Now, this is somebody who always has crazy and wacky ideas. And so I was like, oh, gosh, let’s just do the coffee. And, you know, nod and grin and pat her on the back. Well, she changed my life.
Natalie Gingrich [00:07:42]:
And we had coffee that morning, and she said, you have too much knowledge to just have you doing this. So I know you can’t work for me because you’re working for my friend. And do you have anybody in your network who could do what you’re doing? Like, could you train them and, like, give them to me? And I thought, no, that seems like way, way, way too big. Anyway, I noodled on that for about six months, and I went to work with documenting how I was getting results for my clients. So I really turned from a service provider, and we built a new business as a education company. And so today I have a certification company for certified directors of operations. And I’ve taken all that knowledge that came so natural to me and all of the processes that my brain just naturally writes and have put it into a curriculum that now 500 people, 500 women have actually come through our certification. So we’re celebrating a really big milestone, and we’ve been able to do that over the last five years.
Monica Froese [00:08:42]:
That’s awesome. That’s a very unique way for a service provider to turn, like, how they get people results into a more scalable. Because you can. When it’s just you. You’re limited to how many clients you can help. And you could have went the agency route, which we know a lot of people who have gone the agency route. I’ve always found that to be a very stressful route personally. And instead, you learn to scale it through teaching people the skills that come to you naturally.
Monica Froese [00:09:07]:
Yeah.
Natalie Gingrich [00:09:08]:
So just something that might be interesting to your listeners. I’ve tried all the routes I’ve done the agency, and I had never been more miserable in that moment. And no digs. There are people that are made for agency work. The thing that has to be present for agency work is you have to be an incredible leader, an incredible manager, and an incredible marketer. It’s very difficult to find those three skill sets in one person, and it was just a big challenge for me at the time. However, the other thing about scaling, like a service and a skill into something scalable is, you know, the first thing that everyone Thinks of now and even then was like, oh, you’ll make a course like quote unquote passive. I’ll put all this education and IP inside of one container and I’ll go to town marketing it so someone could just have access to it at any time.
Natalie Gingrich [00:09:58]:
Well, of course I explored that as well. That was my very first. I didn’t go initially into the certification. I first went into creating that course. That course was. I mean, I feel like this is like a dinosaur decade ago. I mean, very, very long ago. But when I put that information together, what happened is buyers were buying this content.
Natalie Gingrich [00:10:20]:
It was way too much content, first of all. But second of all, people would come to me and say, hey, who purchased your course? And I would say, hey, Monica, Jackie went through this. And then you would just trust me that because Jackie went through my course that she was going to be a Natalie in your business. And then you have a falling out because Jackie isn’t who you thought she was. And it just kind of came back to me. And I mentioned the word empathy earlier, but that, that is truly who I am. And I felt a responsibility for these people to be not only stand up characters and stand up, you know, people, but to really do what they say, like not to oversell and to truly deliver the results. And you don’t have control.
Natalie Gingrich [00:11:04]:
Like obviously you don’t have control. But there was some odd connection because they had gone through my course that they were going to be and Natalie and I don’t want to have some like crazy ego around that.
Monica Froese [00:11:15]:
But no, like it basically it made people think that you were giving the Natalie seal of approval. But the certification program allowed you to have quality control. And along those lines, do people have to renew to keep their certification?
Natalie Gingrich [00:11:29]:
So we are a high. This is like part education, part like business strategy here. But our take is I wanted to be a differentiator in the certification and education world. And so no, we do not. It’s high ticket for our audience. And so they pay us one time. They get access for life. Now every business coach has told me, Natalie, you are doing this absolutely wrong.
Natalie Gingrich [00:11:52]:
You’re leaving so much money on the table. And they are absolutely right. They are not wrong. But it’s just an ethical choice that I made from the very beginning. And I know that the investment is significant and it’s just the way that we’ve done it.
Monica Froese [00:12:05]:
Okay, so for the last five years, you’ve had 500 women go through this. So they’re certified. They’re, I’m guessing in Some sort of database where people can tap into. Now when people want someone who’s certified, do they pay you? Like if I want it a Natalie certified director? No. Now why, why would you not charge me if I want to get access to this database?
Natalie Gingrich [00:12:27]:
Yeah, well, we could. We’re actually, we actually don’t have an official like outward facing directory yet. We’re putting that together really as a benefit. It’s something that people have asked for. Other certification groups have it. I have never embraced it fully because it’s that same thing. And obviously something. This must, this must have something on me.
Natalie Gingrich [00:12:48]:
But I don’t want people to make an assumption just because they’re on this list that they’re going to do something. But anyway, we’ve worked through a whole lot to be able to have this directory forward facing as well as internal. I mean internally we all have access to it, but externally, if they want a full hiring process, we have a separate company called the hiring authority. And I would channel somebody through there. If they want to find and connect with somebody through this directory, they’re going to have the ability to do that. But at this point it’s free.
Monica Froese [00:13:15]:
Okay. So the only way you’ve made money in this business, the certification business for the last five years is those 500 women paying the one time high ticket fee to become certified. Yep. Okay. So in the certification program you have developed a lot of content. How was that content presented to people who go through the certification program?
Natalie Gingrich [00:13:38]:
So we have a drip model, so we have cohorts, so they come in and all of our content is dripped. We have 120 videos and so it is a ton of content. We’ve worked with a lot of instructional designers and everything to make sure that the learning experience is great. And we’ve chopped those videos down. We’ve re recorded twice. I don’t think in my lifetime I will ever re record all of this again. We do add to it as things change and AI comes into play and all of that, but it’s dripped and we have discipline. So which is basically like a unit in school where they would have many chapters make up a unit.
Natalie Gingrich [00:14:12]:
We have these modules which have many lessons or disciplines which have many modules and lessons underneath. And so we use Thinkific. I think all of our technology is pretty much the same Monica, who we are clearly impressioned upon at the same time. And there’s a lot of me that just follows you. So I’ve used Thinkific for the last 10 years and we house everything inside of there.
Monica Froese [00:14:33]:
Okay. And with Those videos came a lot of templates, checklists, all the things to help support them on their journey through these disciplines, I’m guessing, right? And I do not remember the first time I actually said to you, hey, you’re gating everything you behind. Not everyone’s going to be able to afford to pay for a high ticket program, but there are just some people out there that will never pay for it. Likewise, like with the membership, I liken it to a membership. Some people just don’t want the recurring costs, they don’t want to have to worry about it, they don’t have to remember to cancel it and they just want what they want when they want it. And I would say it’s a decent amount of people out there. So when I came into the shop model, I mean, honestly, for very similar reasons, I had a ton of content that sat behind gated paywalls in some way. Whether it was big courses in a membership, it was just over the years I had done, and I’m sure you probably had have done like one off workshops or trainings within that cohort.
Monica Froese [00:15:25]:
And then it would just, you would do it and it would just sit in your Google Drive. And over the years, one of two things kept happening to me. One, I had a lot of content that I just didn’t have a medium to sell it in. Or two, I’d have to create a whole new sales page. And I got to the point where it was like, okay, well you go check out 10 different times. Like, I take Black Friday as an example. The way we tried to like cobble together Black Friday sales, everything in my business, 50% off. But I mean, here’s 40 different links to get it 50% off, right? So over time it’s like I completely understand the idea of I sell one thing and I’m going to get really good at it.
Monica Froese [00:15:59]:
Which is what you did for five years. But then it’s like now you have all this content and unless I’m paying that one high fee, you’re never going to get access to it. And it’s like it got to the point where I feel like I’ve watched so many people have all this IP and not really leverage it to make as much money as they could enter the shop. Is that kind of what I finally convinced you of?
Natalie Gingrich [00:16:21]:
It’s very close. The one thing is I took your advice and I remember exactly where we were at.
Monica Froese [00:16:27]:
We were in Dallas.
Natalie Gingrich [00:16:28]:
I can see the place more than the city, but I think we were in Dallas and we were sharing a flatbread pizza.
Monica Froese [00:16:33]:
We were watching the Bills game, weren’t we?
Natalie Gingrich [00:16:35]:
We’re watching the Bills game. Yes.
Monica Froese [00:16:37]:
Thank you, Josh Allen.
Natalie Gingrich [00:16:39]:
Yes. And Texas State was also playing a really big team as well. So, anyway, we were also sports nerds. And not gonna lie, I text Monica every single time I watch the Bills.
Monica Froese [00:16:50]:
But it makes me very happy.
Natalie Gingrich [00:16:52]:
Yes, yes. And I. I do think of you all. All the Sundays I think of Monica. Anyway. But you were sitting there and I had been flirting with this because some of my friends are your friends, and I have seen them build shops, too. And so it’s always been something that I’ve been curious about. And it was like, on my heart, like, this was so serendipitous.
Natalie Gingrich [00:17:12]:
I felt like I was going to step into this shopish membership is kind of thing. I didn’t really know what it was going to look like, but it was pretty much around the same principles that you had been sharing. And I listen to your podcast and I follow you, and we’re friends and your imprint on other people around me. And so I’ve been thinking about taking this information and doing something with it is essentially what I was wanting to do. But I knew it was going to be a lot of work for my team. I knew that we were already strapped as everybody is, and we’re a super lean team. And then I go to this event and I see Monica, and Monica basically reads my mind, and she comes out and she says, nat, you’ve got all this stuff. I mean, we’re just.
Natalie Gingrich [00:17:50]:
I wasn’t even intentionally thinking about this, and she wasn’t either, but she just said what she was thinking, and here we are. So she’s like, you’ve got all this stuff that you’re not sharing, and you’re only launching, and it’s launched to launch. And that here are all these other ways. I’m like, I’ve been thinking about this for a really long time. So that lit a fire underneath me to figure out how to do this. Now, where you were going with kind of what is in our shop. There’s so many things I want to talk about, like how we built it, why we built it, et cetera, and so we can navigate all of that today. But the difference in what you were saying versus what we ended up doing is I have an obligation to the people who have paid that high ticket it for my ip.
Natalie Gingrich [00:18:30]:
And so nothing inside of our shop is actually inside of our certification.
Monica Froese [00:18:35]:
Okay, I did not know that.
Natalie Gingrich [00:18:37]:
Yeah. So where did all.
Monica Froese [00:18:38]:
Well, first of all, let me ask how many Products right now are in your shop.
Natalie Gingrich [00:18:41]:
Ah, 21. As of tomorrow.
Monica Froese [00:18:43]:
Okay. And you told me before we were recording that all of that content was already created. So what medium were you creating it in if it wasn’t in the certification?
Natalie Gingrich [00:18:53]:
Yeah, yeah. I’m so glad that actually I had you to really help me and my team because we learned from you and my entire team has really embraced you even more than me. Sometimes they’re like, well, Monica says so anyway, but we. I remember you saying, like, you’ve got stuff in your Google Drive. I promise you, you have stuff in your Google Drive. You have stuff in Dropbox. And I was like, no, no, no. Sure enough, I was telling my Alex, who’s my right hand and my director of operations, and I said, you know, you’ve got two months.
Natalie Gingrich [00:19:21]:
Just go through everything and look and see what you can find. It cannot be what is available inside of our certification. There are some adaptations that we have made, but just see what you can find. So Anyway, she found 44 things inside of my Google Drive, even in my personal drive before I had the certification. These are things and models that I was using to support my clients. And so we found templates, we found scorecards, we found trainings. And to fully answer your question, some things that I’ve created for opt ins, which didn’t really work because I didn’t have an audience back then, we repurposed some of these opt ins, we beef them up a little bit and added. I hate that word.
Natalie Gingrich [00:20:02]:
But anyway, we added workbooks and maybe a voice overlay, you know, to be able to just substantiate them, to give them some context where they needed. Of course we swiped lots of templates. But master classes, I have done lots and lots of master classes. Remember, I’ve been in business for 10 years. I’ve been building an audience for seven years. And so I used to go live. There was a phase in my life and in my business life where I would go live every single week. We went through those.
Natalie Gingrich [00:20:31]:
I have a podcast with 288 episodes. She would listen to those podcasts and say, you know what? You can create a framework out of this. You already have. Its IP is already out there, but you can add to it. Right? So we listen to the podcast, all of the presentations I’ve ever been paid to speak on, we are leveraging those, our masterclasses, opt ins, and then again, all the good stuff inside of our Google Drive, Dropbox, and even my personal.
Monica Froese [00:20:59]:
So we do in the digital shop experience, I have a whole lesson on content auditing because. And now with the help of AI, I honestly it’s even easier to find the content. But what I, I actually kind of love the fact that I create it. Both my signature courses. The first iteration before AI was a thing because I do feel like it really had to come from my brain. It had like everything about those programs was the strategy that I helped other people do in all those years of experience without AI kind of like creeping in. And I think that’s like very beneficial for us. And now we can use AI to layer things out to the next level.
Monica Froese [00:21:34]:
When I did my first content audit, I did it manually. Like it was just, it was me. There was no tools to really extract the different ideas. I had to use my brain to figure it out. But I got probably like a year in to auditing. Like different private podcast feeds, different stuff I did in the membership, different stuff I did. Like even within the cohorts for my programs, there’d be like these one off trainings I did because people were asking this question and before you knew it I was like, I have. And then still like my shop has behind the scenes, I think published 120 you can see publicly.
Monica Froese [00:22:10]:
But if you’ve searched for things, there’s probably like over 200 like actual active things. And that’s just scratching the flipping surface. And I just remember thinking, wow, I have just been leaving so much money on the table. Not to mention the amount of like how you it can help move along the ascension ladder, which is something that you had mentioned to me before we started recording. One of my examples of this is when I do free trainings or like events in my business, Challenges I usually call them, they are like good content. It is not just like this joke of free content that I’m like secretly just constantly trying to sell to you. Like you accomplished something in my challenges. And after the challenge would be over, it would go into the dust of Google Drive and I’m like, okay, yes, there’s opportunities sometimes there to turn them into an evergreen funnel.
Monica Froese [00:22:58]:
But honestly, like, it’s just a different mentality when you’re taking someone through like an evergreen funnel, because then they have to take action as they’re going through it versus if they can just get it as a workshop and consume it on its own. So I had this one in 2021 called Passion to Profit Experience and I ended up making it a paid challenge. First time I did a paid challenge and it had the highest conversion rate because people had paid to be there versus like free but it was really, really good. And afterwards it just sat in my Google Drive. And then 2022 comes along. I launched the Empowered Shop, what became the Empowered Shop. And I was like, well, why don’t we just make this into a paid like put it into thinkific, make it a shop listing because shop fine Thinkific Connect, which is very nice. And now I had like, I recorded a presentation a year ago and I had looked at numbers and was like 350 people had gone through.
Monica Froese [00:23:47]:
It was a low cost workshop that naturally just led to the bigger program. And the conversion rate on that was something like 20%. But that was 20% of people that you never would have ended up into the bigger program. Not to mention that I still made a few thousand dollars just off of the low ticket.
Natalie Gingrich [00:24:01]:
Yes.
Monica Froese [00:24:02]:
Just collecting dust before that.
Natalie Gingrich [00:24:05]:
So we did the same thing. I mean I used to do quarterly challenges and my challenges are like yours. I mean we have kind of grown up with the same expectations and we’re both just really high achievers and good educators. But these challenges are legit. And I mean we did a challenge like three or four times over the last eight years and we haven’t done it in a couple of years. But again it was tucked into good old Google Drive. And the reality is I was ranked on Google for years for the keywords of scope creep. Which scope creep? The scope creep solution was like it was a training we did you get massive results.
Natalie Gingrich [00:24:42]:
Anyway, we created, we had a toolkit that went along with it and we had seven things inside of this toolkit. Well, guess what? Every single one of those is now its own product. Or you can bundle that sucker together and you can also buy the training as a, you know, so what happened.
Monica Froese [00:24:58]:
When they would Google sculpt Creek before they couldn’t buy anything for it?
Natalie Gingrich [00:25:01]:
Like they would literally join my list. Like these are like dumb marketing things. But they would join my list and I guess just wait around until I may be pulled it out for another free. It’s so stupid.
Monica Froese [00:25:13]:
Yeah, well, I’m honestly, I want to talk about the launch of the shop. But before we talk about that, okay, first there’s two things that keep coming back. One, I want to ask you how you’re using it in your ascension ladder. Like how you’re using when people do buy from the shop to get them nurtured into. Eventually you want to get them into the certification. And then also I want to mildly push back on the whole not putting any content from the certification in the shop. Like I’m very Curious about this because there’s got to be a. Well, you already told us there is a whole lot of content in their certification.
Monica Froese [00:25:47]:
So if you pulled out some things, let’s just say, I don’t know, just for argument’s sake, you had a really nifty airtable base or something that helps your directors of operations. It would be a really good standalone product. What is your resistance when there’s so much in the certification? You couldn’t possibly. I mean you would have hundreds of products if you really broke down everything in the certification. So what is the biggest resistance you have to that?
Natalie Gingrich [00:26:12]:
Yeah, so any of our like major frameworks that people walk away with, I feel like it’s exclusivity for the people who trust us at the highest level. And I, I really. Now let me give you an example. Like we teach a 12 step hiring process. I’m not putting a 12 step hiring process inside of the shop, but we have a job description template inside the shop.
Monica Froese [00:26:37]:
Right. I did see that when I was going through this shop.
Natalie Gingrich [00:26:39]:
But it doesn’t have like context. Right? Yeah. So I teach about how to get your return on investment inside of the certification, but inside of the shop we have tangible assets or a training that I have delivered as a paid speaker or something like that. So it’s. I would say that there is not a perfect match. Like I’m not taking anything from the cert and putting it inside of the shop. Like I can’t philosophically I don’t feel good about doing that. But I mean these are topics that I think about all the time.
Natalie Gingrich [00:27:09]:
Like I think about hiring, I think about performance of employees, I think about an airtable database. Like I think about those things. And so what I have really started to challenge myself with is not to get off topic, but as I’m like, people ask me questions, whether it’s a friend or whether it’s a student and they ask me something and I’m like, the way that my brain thinks is different and I am documenting those things. I’m saying, you know what, I should put this here. Like we just had a student who’s had some trouble with ironically a hiring project. And it’s like, oh, you know what? I can take what I’ve just coached her on and turn it into a framework. I use a lot of that with.
Monica Froese [00:27:44]:
And I haven’t done this in a while. Although I really have to get back to doing it. And I can be very helpful with this too. I call them quick tip videos. Like when you answer the same Question over and over again. I’m like, okay, I’m sick of answering the question. Let’s just make it. I sell the Quick Tip videos for six or nine dollars and then there’s a bundle of them in there too.
Monica Froese [00:28:00]:
But like, think of all those looms.
Natalie Gingrich [00:28:01]:
You’Ve recorded over the years.
Monica Froese [00:28:03]:
Or even like, I’ve done a lot of private audio things that answer like common questions. I get like, what’s the difference between ThriveCart and Sendowl? And my answer actually goes above and beyond. Just like, oh, let me read from the the pages. I’m like very thorough in why I would choose one. And it’s from years of experience. And so I turned it, make it a Quick tip video that people pay for.
Natalie Gingrich [00:28:24]:
I, I really think we have to get back on track here. But I really think with the prevalence of AI at this point, the concept behind your Quick Tip videos, they mean so much more now because the one thing that AI cannot do is actually have the lived experience to give the perspective. That’s why our students love our program. Yes, the content is great, but the actual application, the theory they’re going to be able to get from AI, the practical application and the lived experience, they get perspective. They can.
Monica Froese [00:28:56]:
Well, that’s exactly it. And that’s what I tell people all the time. Why you? First of all, to extract the information that’s in my programs out of AI, you have to know what you’re ask asking it, and you’re not the expert in the field and you don’t have the experience, so you don’t know what to ask it. Therefore you’re not going to get the best answers because it’s only as good as what you’re putting into it.
Natalie Gingrich [00:29:13]:
Truly.
Monica Froese [00:29:14]:
And I wish more people understood that. But now, okay, now I want to cover how it’s an ascension ladder for.
Natalie Gingrich [00:29:19]:
You at this point. Yeah, so we remember we’ve always had one signature product and that was our certification. And you know, the market has changed. There’s no secret here. The market has shifted, the market has changed, our spending habits are different, consumers are smarter. And I have not even begun to scratch the surface with marketing to operators. So I really wanted to get our business to a place where our signature offer, the high ticket certification program, was really, really stable. The content has been completely re refreshed.
Natalie Gingrich [00:29:53]:
It pretty much got the most perfect bow on top of it. We have a program manager who is overseeing the delivery of it. And I needed to get that stable for me to have capacity to start thinking about what comes Next. And that is kind of when you and I met in, in Dallas, where that was really emerging for me. And I also was also a time when the market we. I knew like the election was coming. I knew the markets were changing. I knew things were going to be different and I knew that my business was going to have to evolve or really, really, really do something different.
Natalie Gingrich [00:30:25]:
And so I started to explore all the. I mean, we are not short on ideas and we are not short on being pressed upon by the gurus of the world out there. But the one thing that I wanted to say, authentic to me, which is something that’s important to me, you, and probably every listener here, is I wanted it to be me. I wanted it to be something that did not require a lot of labor. So this was a time in my business where I was really trimming labor. I was really being very conscientious about profit margins, as we should be. And I needed something that I could spend, still impact people. I knew that there was going to be an upfront labor cost, but the long term labor cost was going to be able to be controlled and mitigated.
Natalie Gingrich [00:31:08]:
And it was still something that I was known for. It was still operations, education. It was still coming from me. And anyway, so that’s kind of how we got to this point. So I went from a signature high ticket to getting that stable to realizing I really want to make sure that, number one, we get more certified directors of operations. But if the biggest barrier, which we talked about earlier, Monica, but if the biggest barrier is a $7500 price tag or time or you know what, maybe somebody is already a hiring genius and they don’t want to come through my program and sit through the other, you know, three modules that cover hr, but they’re already HR geniuses and so they already discount my product because they have that one thing. But as an operator, everyone’s still curious about learning. Like education is something we’re fact finders.
Natalie Gingrich [00:31:58]:
Like, we like to figure things out, we like to learn, etc. So I was like, you know what? I’m going to create the Shop. The Shop is a digital shop, just as you teach. And so we’ve got multiple products inside and we put them in three different categories. And I use that to make sure that I don’t have randoms. Right. Like, it really helps me to make sure that we have a cohesive theme and I can market it appropriately.
Monica Froese [00:32:21]:
And if I are those the disciplines inside the.
Natalie Gingrich [00:32:23]:
The certification as well, they match close the operational skills. Yes. There had to be a Close gap. Because my goal is to be able to touch more people. Because this is a lower ticket. It is not completely passive, but it can be completely passive for people. And it’s a very low barrier to entry. It’s extremely accessible and it’s available immediately.
Natalie Gingrich [00:32:45]:
We talked about this as well. Like, some people don’t like in my program that it’s dripped right. Like they want to come in and I’m telling them there’s 120, you know, video modules. You will literally be so overwhelmed, you will not want to do this. But they’re telling me, nope, nope, nope, I want to, I want to, I want to. And in this case, they get that immediate access, which is still a draw. But I think the biggest thing is the accessibility of price, the affordability and the accessibility. So now we’ve been able to expand our funnel, if you will, atop a funnel to where we can pull people in.
Natalie Gingrich [00:33:16]:
They convert way easier because the price tag is lower. And they’re getting a sample of us, they’re getting a sample of me. And that know like and trust that we’ve learned when we were young that know like and trust is starting to be built. And then, you know, they can, we have a variety. They can buy products on their own, they can buy bundles, they can buy our all access pass when it’s available. And then it’s our job, our, our team’s job on the back end to connect with these people. So we actually have a ambassador who reaches out to every person who purchases from us to talk about what could be down the road or other products that they can take a look at. And eventually we’re wanting to increase the exposure and the awareness of what the certification can do for them.
Natalie Gingrich [00:34:00]:
Now we still know we’re not going to capture, you know, even 50% of those people, but if we get one or two sales from people who’ve come through the shop now, that’s a huge, huge return.
Monica Froese [00:34:11]:
Yeah, because, I mean, you have a podcast like I do, so that’s one way people can learn. But there is something about when someone puts any sort of money investment in you and you can deliver on that. We definitely think very similar. So I’ve had so many people tell me from like the free stuff I’ve done, you know, one of the ways I get people into the digital shop experience is I have a quick win workshop on Shopify. It’s like the 10,000 foot view of why. And I had so many people that said I got so much value and actually made so much Progress on your $49 product. I can only imagine what would be in your a thousand, $2,000 program. And that’s like the seeds that you’re planting with people.
Monica Froese [00:34:49]:
Like, wow, I got so much value here. And sometimes it takes people. I have people that tell me they watch my webinar eight times before they buy from me. And we. I think we discount that sometimes. Like, how many touch. Especially now, I think the touch points are even more so you’ve just given yourself this opportunity to have so many more touch points with people because, you know, when they listen to your podcast, how do you reach out to them? You really can’t. You know, you just hope they show up every week when you release an episode.
Monica Froese [00:35:14]:
This gives you an actual, real touch point with these people. So can we talk about your launch? Because that’s what blew me away.
Natalie Gingrich [00:35:23]:
Yeah, yeah. That’s why we’re here, right? So some of the things that you taught Monica that led us to. I mean, all of this was kind of your success, too. I hope you felt that, too. I remember excitingly communicating and texting you that day, because I did feel like your hand was in this. We had definitely had a successful launch. I told you earlier that, you know, my team went through. We looked through all the things, and I wanted to launch with 20 products.
Natalie Gingrich [00:35:46]:
I know that you recommend even fewer than that, but for me, I was like, let’s start with 20, because I wanted the All Access. I knew that the base of our sales and our success was going to be on the All Access pass. And so anyhow, I wanted 20 products in there. We identified 44 products by doing that audit that we used your spreadsheet, we use everything from you, but we found 44 things. We gave ourselves six months to get all of these prettied and edited and everything made and done and shop built and all of that, but I wanted to start with 20. But I also used your concept of this roadmap, and we showed the roadmap of the additional 24 products that are not ready yet. But you know what? For me, from a. Like, I’m not having to generate new content for those 24 additional products.
Natalie Gingrich [00:36:33]:
It literally exists. My team is working on them. And I told you that we have 21 officially today because they’ve been on, and it’s one a month. It’s not like getting those first 20 ready. It’s one a month. And they’re not like overhauls. They’re truly just, you know, editing either videos or adding a workbook or adding a component. But Anyhow, so we do have the roadmap concept and I do think that it was something that was a very good selling point that I wanted to point out.
Natalie Gingrich [00:37:01]:
Now to our launch. We did a five day launch to our entire audience. This was completely warm. We didn’t run any traffic, any paid traffic at this point because we’re really validating a concept. Still, my audience, they’re not experienced with this at all because I have only sold them one thing forever and it’s always been a launch, launch, launch. And so, yes, this was still a launch, but it was a very different launch. And we teased it only for one week. Something’s coming, something’s new, it’s for everybody here.
Natalie Gingrich [00:37:31]:
And it covers the variety. I didn’t mention that earlier. The shop really covers the variety, whereas our signature certification is really for people who have two to five years plus of experience. So this is really accessible for everybody on the list. Okay, so we did a five day launch and we did a descending offer. So the first day we did a 50% off of the all access pass, which was only available through that week. And the next day was 30. The next day was maybe 20.
Natalie Gingrich [00:37:58]:
And then we did a 50 coupon and then a 25 coupon on that Friday. So every day there was a different opportunity for them to join, join us. Of course, the bulk of our sales came through on the first day and we ended up making almost $21,000 in that first push. So our goals, I mean, I didn’t know how to set these goals. I mean, this was the first time we were doing this. We’ve never offered anybody in our audience anything like this. And so either I really undershot or I mean, the feedback that we got was like, this is what we need. This is where we are as a community and this is a great way to get support.
Natalie Gingrich [00:38:38]:
We ended up selling I think a little bit over 80. I think 81. 81 all access passes in that first week. We had two people buy them at full price and then everybody else was discounted. We also had our certified directors of operations. 30% of those sales were people who have already paid me through the certification. So I thought that that was as significant. Right.
Monica Froese [00:39:02]:
That is very interesting, especially because you give lifetime access in the certification. But they still found value in the supplemental stuff you were putting in the.
Natalie Gingrich [00:39:10]:
Shop because it’s different. And I made sure to point out that there is nothing duplicative in the two. And so I actually see it now as an opportunity to upsell. When we’re done with the certification as well. We’ll be messing around with a lot of that. But we did have a handful of people who came in and bought one off products. The majority of all of our sales were the All Access Pass and fast forward. You know, I’m not pushing the shop every single week, but our goal is to push it twice a month.
Natalie Gingrich [00:39:38]:
Once when we’re dropping a new product off of our roadmap and then another is to feature a bundle. And so we looked at all the data. Me and Monica are both like data nerds. And so we looked at what was downloaded most even from the All Access Pass and people who purchased. And there’s this one thing that was an opt in moons ago, like eight years ago. It’s a business hub. It’s just a repository for all the things in your business. And the template is in ClickUp.
Natalie Gingrich [00:40:03]:
Well, that was the number one thing. And so we sold it this last. We did a little campaign, a flash sale, as Monica teaches us. And we did a flash sale. And it wasn’t wild, like it wasn’t $20,000. But it truly was so simple to do because it’s already there.
Monica Froese [00:40:20]:
Yeah, it’s because you don’t have to spin up a sales page and a new checkout page. And it that’s why I tell people to be all sell out of shop. It went from, okay, if I want to do a flash sale, I need a page, I need a checkout page, I need all of these assets I have to put together. Then I need all the images that have to go on it versus like you just have the shop listing and you can mark it down, do compare at pricing. It’s just so much easier.
Natalie Gingrich [00:40:42]:
And we’re even flirting with not even marking things down, just highlighting them and the marketing around the items that are already. I mean you mentioned the sales page. Like obviously we don’t need a sales page. We have a listing there. It’s sells itself. I mean if you’re going to be in business, you’re going to have to market and you’re going to push people to that product. And so all I had to do for that particular flash sale, it was like, why did I ever create that? And so I wrote a little story about why I built that for a practical purpose. I talked about that and I believe we had 17 people buy that obviously were not all access Pass holders, but 17 new people purchased that.
Natalie Gingrich [00:41:19]:
And it came out to like $300, something dollars. Like obviously that’s not a ton of money. But guess what? I was joking I was not really joking, but I was telling my team that pays for ConvertKit or kit for the entire month. Right. That was money we didn’t have covered. But the cool thing behind this, Monica, is those people are now in touch with our ambassador and we’re about to go into launch for our certification. We have four people from our shop launch who were not previous doos. We have four people who are very likely.
Natalie Gingrich [00:41:51]:
We’ve identified these four in our conversations and the actions that they’re taking that are they’re on our waitlist for our bigger products. If we get four basically cold people that were just lurking and hanging around on our list who convert to a $7,500 product. Get out, girl. Get out. Huge. I know that.
Monica Froese [00:42:08]:
I love how it works both ways too, because it does work both ways for me as well. I get people in my larger programs and then they’re like, oh, there’s all this supplemental stuff I can get in the shop. That’s like very enticing. So it does swings both ways, helps people get in. It’s like a two way ascension ladder almost. It’s quite awesome. So let me ask you this. What was the price point of the all access pass we started?
Natalie Gingrich [00:42:28]:
Oh, this was like, this was a lot. There was a lot of strategy, some heartstrings being pulled here because I really thought that we were going to value this like797,997. Like that was my initial goal based off of how we have anchored our brand. And my team really pushed back on me and they were like, Natalie, we want this to be successful. We want people to come in here. And so we’re going to put 20 items. We’re not going to put all 44. So let’s put 20 items.
Natalie Gingrich [00:42:56]:
And I think the value of all of those items was around right at $3,000. And so clearly we’re not going to charge that. But hold on to your little heart here. We charge. It was 497 and so we did 50%. So I think it was 298 for the first, which is where the majority of people purchase from. Or 248. Excuse me, it was 248 and then 2, 298 from day one to day two.
Natalie Gingrich [00:43:19]:
And those were 90% of our sales came in those days. But that’s how we priced it. And it was a lot. We had sold some upgrades and stuff. We just looked at all the things that we had sold over the last couple of years and to see kind of where people were actually Purchasing and it worked.
Monica Froese [00:43:37]:
Yeah. And to give people just an idea of why we do the roadmap is in both instances, mine’s called the Power Pass. It’s not open all the time. So the roadmap, the way I came up with it, I thought of like a SaaS company. We like to know what’s coming up on if I’m going to invest in your software. I want to make sure that if you don’t have the features they have right now that you’re going to have the feature. So if you’re going to give someone All Access Pass. For us, what it is, we have two things that we qualify.
Monica Froese [00:44:03]:
Our all access pass, it’s $100 and below of products and for 365 days. So anything that’s in our shop, $100 and below, that’s already there. And then anything that gets released in the next 365 days. Days, that’s a hundred and below. So if I didn’t have that roadmap, it’s kind of like, well, you know, there’ll be some products over the next 365 days versus no, this is like what our plan is, just like any software company. And now like it really increases that value of the All Access Pass. Now you said before we start recording, you had mentioned that you push back on your team. So we make our scarce.
Monica Froese [00:44:38]:
We don’t want it in the shop all the time. So right now if you go find the Power Pass, it says sold out because the reason I started doing it was for another opportunity for a cash injection just when we launch.
Natalie Gingrich [00:44:49]:
Right.
Monica Froese [00:44:49]:
That’s like what I want it. And that’s what ended up being for you too. So my mentality is if it’s available all the time, even if it’s a higher price, it’s not going to have the same scarcity as if we when we bring it back. And that’s why I do it. But you, you do do it that way, but you initially push back on that. Correct.
Natalie Gingrich [00:45:06]:
My team was like, we’re following what Monica says. Natalie. No. So in my mind I wanted it available all the time. And the way that it’s working for us is it’s actually hidden. So if you go to my site right now, you’re not going to find an All Access Pass. Sold out or not. Like, it’s not searchable, it’s not on our Shopify site.
Natalie Gingrich [00:45:24]:
They want to pull it out whenever we’re running specific campaigns. My challenge to that, and that is what we went through, by the way. That’s what we went with because that’s what felt good to them and it.
Monica Froese [00:45:34]:
Was fine for me.
Natalie Gingrich [00:45:35]:
My resistance was that I wanted it to anchor the shop. I want to show that it’s a three thousand dollar product and okay, fine, we, we sell it for fifteen hundred dollars. If someone wants to buy that for fifteen hundred dollars on a Tuesday afternoon, please do, please do. Right. But if they never see it and you know they’ll never know. So maybe somebody’s like looking and it’s like yeah, if that wasn’t fifteen hundred dollars then blah blah blah and then we run a sale to it and then they get it. So it’s really like you know, six and one half dozen of the other like matter. I don’t think philosophically.
Natalie Gingrich [00:46:11]:
I also expect that we will be using it in downsells and stuff. As we kind of build out we turn this company more into more of a product based business.
Monica Froese [00:46:22]:
So moving forward with your shop because I know I took, I took a lot of your time so thank you. Moving forward with the shop, are you going to move forward with the regular product drops like the here and there flash sales, adding more to it like past your 40 products. Do you anticipate you’ll keep adding and building upon it?
Natalie Gingrich [00:46:40]:
Yes. I don’t know if I even told you. I probably did tell you this but this is where probably the most exciting thing in my business. I’ve needed some energy in this business for a while because I’ve been doing the same thing for a long time. But you know, bringing the shop really has allowed me to look at the business in a very different way and have a lot more energy for my business right now because of the shop. Shop. But the future of the shop. Yes, we have the roadmap.
Natalie Gingrich [00:47:05]:
I’m going to continue to drop those. I like the roadmap too, which you didn’t mention this but it holds me accountable and my team accountable for continuing to make this fresh. It gives us a reason to write our list and to say hey this is new. And so I, I like it for all of those reasons and I too totally believe in the whole SaaS. I have a concept in my brain that I wish we could have pulled off before the launch because I want it to look like a sass us like the roadmap and then they can like write in and say this is what I want to learn like that that was too much for us at that time. But never know one day it might be there anyway. We have the roadmap that we will continue to deliver on these products. And then one thing that feels very creative for me was to leverage our certified directors of operations.
Natalie Gingrich [00:47:49]:
And so what we have done is we’ve gone to them and we’re doing a creator call, a call for creators, if you will. And so I’m telling them, because you have invested in us, because you don’t. And audience operators are great educators. You think these 20 templates and stuff that I have are great. Imagine if we could multiply that by 500 people’s amazing operational brains. And so we’re doing a call for creators here at the beginning of 2026 and inviting them to be able to come in and to sell products and to turn this from my shop into our like movements shop. And it’ll be a marketplace at that point. That’s truly where the vision of this is going.
Natalie Gingrich [00:48:30]:
And of course they’re going to get compensated for sharing your knowledge. They’re also going to get compensated for any affiliate sales that they bring in. And they don’t have the weight and responsibility for building a brand. I think a lot of people want to do that. And once you’ve been doing it, it is very difficult.
Monica Froese [00:48:46]:
Yeah, especially if they’re, I mean they’re going through your certification program to be a service provider. So being a service provider is very different than building a whole brand that you can sell in mass volume. It is completely different. And I do think people can underestimate that sometimes. And then they start to do it and they’re like, no, I just really want to work in someone’s. So many people have told me they thought they wanted to build a brand, but really they just want to help support in someone’s business and love being in the entrepreneurial space, but not with the responsibility of actually running what a brand like this.
Natalie Gingrich [00:49:16]:
My people are made to be entrepreneurs. They are not made to be entrepreneurs. Most of them are not made to be entrepreneurs.
Monica Froese [00:49:21]:
I honestly forgot that that was where you were going with this. I remember you telling me that. And that is such a cool idea. I love that. It probably doesn’t make sense for me to do it, but I can think of so many different people that could leverage something like, like create a marketplace for their people who they’re training. And what a cool opportunity for them too.
Natalie Gingrich [00:49:40]:
Yeah, I think it’s a source for revenue for them. But more importantly, which is very, I mean money is always the most important, but we are givers. Like these are heart centered people who have great brains, great minds, have made huge impacts and differences in People’s businesses and lives. And to be able to take that, just like I did with the certification content, and put it inside of a vessel that they can be rewarded, get seen for. I mean, I expect we will have collections that are like the Monica collection, the Lynette collection that, you know, we’ll. We’ll have collections where people can send their people. If they do have an audience, they can send their people to Lynette’s collection. And if you like learning from Lynette, then kind of like Udemy, you know, skillsoft or all of those, like, traditional education platforms, I really see that this has the power to grow into that and be very specific in operational education.
Monica Froese [00:50:30]:
Oh, my gosh.
Natalie Gingrich [00:50:30]:
I love this.
Monica Froese [00:50:31]:
Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us. I am honestly, when you talk about being, like, reignited in our business, I had told you before we started recording, I wasn’t sure when I was going to relaunch the Digital Shop experience. It is a major. It is a major undertaking. It’s a huge program. I mean, it took me months to get it to its final state that you consumed it in. And it just felt like, oh, I don’t know, like, because there’s AI stuff I want to put in. And I was just kind of meh about it until talking to you, and now I’m like, huh? I actually was taking notes as you were talking.
Monica Froese [00:51:02]:
I love doing that when I’m interviewing people of ideas now after listening to. Of things I could put into the program. So I ever took that notes as well. Yeah.
Natalie Gingrich [00:51:11]:
So thank you for this. I love it.
Monica Froese [00:51:12]:
I, like, I always tell people, I honestly interview people kind of selfishly sometimes. Like, I’m interviewing you because I want to pick your brain in a way. You know, it’s like I’m asking you this question for my benefit, really, and then everyone else can listen to it. But I love it.
Natalie Gingrich [00:51:25]:
Well, honestly, Monica, I can’t. When you do go to. To sell this again or share this again with your people, I mean, I have been in this game for a decade. I have gone through lots of programs. I have gone through programs that didn’t deliver. I’ve gone through. I mean, I’ve experienced all the highs and lows of what it is to be a consumer on this side of education. And the experience was great.
Natalie Gingrich [00:51:47]:
Not only did I do this, but I, you know, my team also supported me through this. And it’s hard to ever say this because you never hear that. You know, I think people come in and. And they’re excited to Buy. And then they buy and they’re like, inundated with like, oh, my gosh, this is actually going to be too much. I’m just not going to do it. Like, we came in, it was consumable, we were able to take action. I love all the theory, but if you don’t give me practical application, I am out.
Natalie Gingrich [00:52:09]:
I’m an operator. Like, I don’t function with pie in the sky. So anyway, it was just. To us, it was very complimentary to what we actually needed to get this done and all of the resources that, I mean, you, you mentioned the audit, the Power Pass. I mean, there’s so much good information in there that allowed us to have. I mean, a $20,000 cash injection is. Is no small feat around here. Like, I got chills just saying that because we needed that $20,000 significantly and we did it off of content we already had.
Natalie Gingrich [00:52:42]:
Did we have to work and make it pretty? Did we have to build a Shopify store? Yes, but we already have the skills to do those things. And you teach them what we didn’t know about the Power Pass, we learned it. You suggested some apps and we purchased those. And it just. To me, it was just like a bundle that. Just not to reuse that word, but it was just a capsule that allowed us to come in to know exactly what to do. I trusted you, so I knew I could do it. And of course, the additional container, I think I paid a little bit more to be able to come into a container and ask you questions on a monthly basis, and I did that a couple of times, and even that was helpful.
Natalie Gingrich [00:53:15]:
So anyway, I just can’t say enough about the experience that we had and the content that you delivered. And then I think most importantly for anyone who’s considering a shop or even reigniting a shop or, you know, going down the same or similar path, to me is the fact that this can truly bring you a lot of joy off without having to re. Scratch the surface. I mean, you. I’m building upon years and years and years of experience. I mean, I’m. I’m almost in my fifth decade. Right.
Natalie Gingrich [00:53:43]:
Like, I’ve got a lot of great content upstairs, and this is now a vehicle that we’ll be able to leverage. And if I ever want to get rid of the certification, I now have another arm of our business that we can do something completely different with.
Monica Froese [00:53:55]:
Exactly. I consider my shop sort of the engine that hums under everything. It keeps that consistency, whereas before that consistency with the launch model, that ups and downs and that Is stressful. It is extremely stressful for any business owner. It became insanely stressful for me once I got divorced because it was like, well, okay, without his paycheck here, this is like I always knew my bills were gonna get paid when I was married. That was never Easter.
Natalie Gingrich [00:54:23]:
Famine with the launch model.
Monica Froese [00:54:24]:
Yeah. And when suddenly you’re thrust into a situation where it’s okay, but if that launch doesn’t perform, what does that mean for my actual life now? Yeah, yeah, no, I’m not interested in living like that. That’s way too much stress. And this has helped me even things out. And gosh, that alone has been such a blessing, honestly for me. And that’s.
Natalie Gingrich [00:54:45]:
Oh yeah. I mean we dream, we’re about to, we’re actually having a meeting in a couple of weeks to really think about how we can almost look at this as that engine that hums. And I mean we haven’t started running traffic. We haven’t done. I mean we have not even. We really just set up the shop. We haven’t marketed the shop. I mean we’re talking.
Natalie Gingrich [00:55:04]:
I’m really excited about where.
Monica Froese [00:55:05]:
Well, I honestly, I started dabbling in to be on my email list and then I got really sucked into like, okay, I have to get on the AI train because if I don’t like with what I teach, I’m going to be left behind, which I’m not gonna let happen. And so now I’m like circling back because I started running like cold traffic. And honestly my ads were super profitable. But I mean like with anything with ads you can get out of the gate fast sometimes and then if you’re not like optimizing and my attention, I just didn’t have the attention to optimize it. But I have no doubt that it is absolutely like a low barrier even to running ads. Like I used to run ads all the time just to opt ins and when I was running just to shop listings, I mean we were getting four, four times our return of ad spend almost out the gate. So I do think I just need the time like any anyone does to, you know, focus on it. I could see that being I’m gonna write that down on my sticky notes.
Monica Froese [00:55:58]:
I could see that being a whole nother add on to the experience. Once I kind of nail that down, that’s where I would hope for it to go actually. But there’s so much. When you have a warm audience and if you have an email list, there’s so much potential just there.
Natalie Gingrich [00:56:11]:
Yeah, I mean if we can generate, I Mean, we made a Little bit over 300 the first time we did something. If we could put together, you know, a bigger bundle anyway, if we can bring in 800 to a thousand. I know that these are small numbers, at least for our business, but if we can bring in 800 to $1,000 every single month on warm audiences, can you imagine what you can do?
Monica Froese [00:56:32]:
Exactly. And it’s stackable. That’s really how I view it. And that baseline ends up just going up and up and up like. Like anything. I always said online business is like a snowball. Same thing with the shop. I mean, you had a big enough audience to be able to go out the gate right, with that big launch.
Monica Froese [00:56:48]:
But as you. The more people that know about the shop and then they’re expecting and that snowball just starts growing and growing. Before you know it, your baseline went from two grand a month to five grand a month. That’s always my goal behind my shop.
Natalie Gingrich [00:56:58]:
Just for full transparency, our list is 4,200 people. So it’s not like we’re talking to 42,000 people. You know, like big is, you know, definite, definitely relative to what you think. But I have a very small audience compared to my friends and peers, maybe even you. But I mean, we were still able to generate $20,000 off of a small. And you know, we’re getting 50 open rates around here, so it’s not like even the full list. Saw that.
Monica Froese [00:57:24]:
Yeah. That’s awesome that.
Natalie Gingrich [00:57:26]:
I’m so excited.
Monica Froese [00:57:27]:
I am so excited too. What a great case study. Thanks. All right, well, how can people find the shop that we’ve been talking about?
Natalie Gingrich [00:57:35]:
Yeah. So it’s the shop4ops.com and shop for ops. And yeah, I mean we’re gonna continue to pour into it. And another way, if you’re, if you’re an operator and you’re listening to this and you’re curious about us, we have a podcast or I have a podcast every single week talking in third person here, but have a podcast called the Ops Authority. That’s also our website as well.
Monica Froese [00:57:57]:
Awesome. Well, I’ll be sure to link to that. And honestly, lots of solopreneurs listen to this. So we, we are the operators in our business. So there’s a lot of great tools. I was just going through your shop before recording and there was stuff I was like, I saw the business hub. I’m like, I want the business up.
Natalie Gingrich [00:58:11]:
Yeah.
Monica Froese [00:58:11]:
You know, cuz I’m like doing. Body wants the business. I know. We’ll link directly to the business hub too. In the show notes because it it’s apparently very popular. But thank you so much for sharing this with us. I really appreciate your time.
Natalie Gingrich [00:58:21]:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Monica Froese [00:58:26]:
If Natalie’s story lit a fire under you, here is the good news. What she did isn’t a one off. She used the exact system I teach Inside the Digital Shop Experience and combined it with our Power Pass strategy to launch her shop and bring it to over $20,000 right out of the gate. And she’s not alone. We’ve seen students go from 0 sales to $5,000 months, double their revenue in less than a year, and even hit six figures in 12 months, all by unearthing the content they already had and selling it in a streamlined e commerce shop. That’s the power of the Digital Shop experience. It takes your digital dust collectors, the trainings, templates and workshops sitting in Google Drive and turns them into a shop that makes daily sales a normal thing. No more feast or famine launches, just consistent revenue that stacks over time.
Monica Froese [00:59:13]:
So if you’re ready to stop leaving money on the table and finally give your content the attention and sales it deserves, join us Inside the Digital Shop Experience™. You can get all the details over at digitalshopexperience. Com because your next $20,000 cash injection could be hiding in content that you’ve already created. I’ll see you back here next week.
