In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you my five biggest lessons from having a million-dollar program. (That’s right! The Take Off program has now achieved over a million dollars in sales which completely blows my mind!)
I wanted to do this episode to share with you some of the insights that I have gained from having a program like Take Off.
I also have a very special opportunity for you at the end of this episode, so make sure you don’t miss that!
Let’s dive on into this episode…
You read that correctly… the Take Off program is a million-dollar program! It has had over 570 students in its lifetime. (It’s almost at 600 students actually so we are definitely nudging close to that 600 student mark.)
In that time, the Take Off program has brought in over $1 million in revenue for my business!
I started the Take Off program in 2014, and I am so glad that 2014 Tash built what is now my million-dollar program.
That being said, it has NOT been smooth sailing by any stretch of the imagination, and there have been some really big lessons for me in creating, launching, relaunching, evergreen funnelling and relaunching and relaunching the Take Off program.
I wanted to share with you my five biggest lessons from having the Take Off program, launching the Take Off program, running the Take Off program, and all the things in between.
Let’s dive into lesson number one…
1. Relaunching
I should have relaunched the Take Off program the minute that I finished the first round
I’ve talked about this quite consistently throughout my last five or six years of being in business.
The reason why I talk about this very consistently is because I can see it was my number one mistake with the Take Off program.
When I first created it in 2014, I launched the program as more of a self-study program with some live calls included. But very quickly I realised that people didn’t need a self-study course when they were in this stage of business, what they needed was mentoring.
I very quickly converted it into a group mentoring program, and we had a live round for that first round of the Take Off program.
Once that was starting to come to an end, there were a lot of people in the program who were asking me what they could do with me next, and where they should go from there.
We had a lot of successes in that first round of the Take Off program, so I started thinking about how I needed to create something else for the graduates of that program.
I got very distracted for a period of about six to nine months, creating and launching Pilot School (which was my program for Take Off graduates). BUT I only had thirteen graduates of the Take Off program, and only maybe eight of those thirteen people felt like they were ready for the next step at that point in time. Then five of them purchased the passive income program called Pilot School.
By the time I went back to relaunching my million dollar program (which was towards the end of 2014), a bunch of people sent me confused messages because they thought I didn’t work with startups anymore.
It was really, really confusing for my audience.
What I wish I had done was launched the Take Off program, run the Take Off program and relaunched the Take Off program.
If people wanted to keep working with me after the Take Off program, I could have sold them VIP one-to-one packages. I could have worked with them in that VIP one-to-one way and created way more income for my business, gotten way better results for my business, and not distracted my audience from the fact that I was creating and launching the Take Off program, and helping people in startup.
Pilot School had a completely different niche, and I basically un-niched my business as soon as I had completed the Take Off program, which was a big mistake.
My lesson number one is to launch the same program over and over again.
That creates that compound interest effect. It creates momentum.
2. Narrowing down which part of the journey I’m here to help with
Specific journey for million-dollar program
Rather than getting caught up in what people would do after the Take Off program, I needed to accept that my role was to pick people up at point C, and drop them off at point F. Not take them from point A all the way through to point Z with multiple programs that went one after the other.
Instead, I needed to really narrow down on that one part of the journey.
Pick people up at point C, drop them off at point F.
They can continue working with you in a VIP capacity if they want to keep working with you, but it’s also very legitimate for people to acknowledge that they’ve gotten what they need from working with you, and now it’s time to move on to working with another person.
We are told over and over again as entrepreneurs that you want to hold on to each and every client for as long as you can – get as much money out of them as you can and get a recommitment from them, if you can, over and over again.
But that actually shouldn’t often be through group program after group program after group program.
Actually, in doing that and wanting to hold on to people for the entire length of their journey, I slowed down my business growth and stopped my ability to impact more and more people quickly in my business.
Acknowledge that we don’t need to hold on to people forever.
You can pick people up at point C on their journey and drop them off at point F. That is totally fine.
Our job is not to see them through all the way to the end of the journey.
By focusing on just that C to F journey, I would have:
- Created so much more impact
- Grown my business so much faster
- Made so much more money
- Helped so many more people get their business off the ground
It eventually took me four years of running the Take Off program to recognise that I’m actually neglecting that part of my niche and the Take Off program (that has become my million-dollar program).
That’s actually where I have the biggest impact, I get the biggest results, and I can make the biggest change in people’s lives.
It definitely took a long time for me to learn that lesson and stop getting myself caught up in shiny object syndrome and trying to create program after program after program to continuously mentor those people through that journey.
I understand people want to hang on and have me mentor them through the next part of their journey.
I’m a very unique person in the way that I teach business and the way that I teach marketing and sales and consent-driven marketing strategies – I totally understand that. But if I had waited until I’d got the Take Off program rocking and rolling, and really launching at scale effectively before I’d created that next program (and that next program, and that next program), then I would have done a much better job of:
1. Growing my business
2. Helping as many people as possible
3. Creating that epic profitability and scalability in my business
4. Really ensuring that I was focusing down and not burning myself out by trying to create and manage and launch multiple programs all at once
3. Live delivery first time around
I have definitely learned that lesson and applied it to a bunch of different things that I’ve done since then.
I’m so grateful that I learned that lesson.
The first time I created the Take Off program, I was working with a mentor who was more about passive income and creating a self-study program – an information product.
The intention was not to actually have live support calls in the Take Off program (eventually).
In the first round, she recommended having three or four calls just to answer people’s questions and make sure they could get through the process, and then turn it into a self-study program for $2,000.
It was very early in that process that I recognised that people needed mentoring through this phase of business.
Sure, there are other courses and programs where it might be appropriate not to have live support calls, and for people to do that as a self-study journey. But creating an online business, going through those early stages of startup and getting to the point where you’re making consistent sales at scale, that requires mentoring.
There are just too many choose-your-own-adventure parts of that pathway for me to be able to confidently and in integrity say to people that they are likely to get the outcomes without live support calls.
I think that the mentoring component of the Take Off program is critical.
That was a big lesson for me in my million-dollar program.
Deliver the program live first so that you can walk people through that process.
I pre-recorded all of the Take Off modules. By the time we got to module five, I recognised that I put too much into each module, so what I needed to do was re-record the Take Off program for the second round.
In the second round, I still realised that I hadn’t quite got that process right, and so the third time I ran the Take Off program, I actually ran it as a live program.
That’s where the current format and structure of the Take Off program came from.
That was a very powerful live round of the program that actually gave me all the insight and information that I needed to really pace it out appropriately, and ensure I was covering off on the key decisions that people needed to make along that journey.
If I could rewind and decide that I’m not going to pre-build the Take Off program, instead I’m going to deliver it live the first time around, I definitely would do that.
I’m glad that I eventually did do a live delivery and was able to walk through and get all of those lessons and really secure and nail down what that process was.
4. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries
There have been several times throughout the Take Off journey that I have required a little tightening of my boundaries, and just reaffirming those boundaries.
That being said, the more successful my million-dollar program becomes, the more I need to encourage people to creep closer to those boundaries.
People join the Take Off program and assume that they can’t ask me questions.
They join the Take Off program and assume they can’t ask things that might be slightly out of the box. They join the Take Off program and assume that they’re not going to get any time with me.
But that’s actually not the case.
Something that I’ve done in the Take Off program – both in the last iteration and this current re-recording of my million-dollar program – is that I have a module on boundaries, and I talk specifically about those boundaries.
I encourage people to be a squeaky wheel, because my boundaries are my responsibility.
I explain to them where my boundaries lie and what I can and cannot help them with. But I also tell them that if they’re not sure, they can just ask.
I have to encourage people to do so because the more successful the Take Off program becomes, the less that people expect to get that support from me. But they do actually get it.
It’s something that I have definitely learned a lot of lessons about over the years in running the Take Off program, and I’m continually renegotiating those boundaries with myself and also with my Take Off students.
5. Continue to do sales conversations with people
This is something that I assumed I could let go of the minute I started the Take Off program.
Looking back, I now recognise that one of the reasons why I was so keen to have a group program and a course, was because I thought it was going to get me out of having to do sales conversations and sales calls one-to-one.
It was something that I still wasn’t 100% confident and comfortable with at the time of launching the Take Off program.
But when I don’t have that opportunity for people to message me one-to-one and then jump on a call if we need to, then I know that I’m missing out on useful, powerful information about what people might be assuming about the Take Off program, what their resistance points might be, and the unique and individual circumstances in which maybe it’s is or isn’t a good fit (it’s a bit of a grey area).
I would say that at least 50% of the people who join the Take Off program still email me about it first before joining.
I encourage them to do that.
The more I encourage that, the better my conversion rates are.
We can’t account for every single individual circumstance on our sales page.
I think it’s important that people feel really confident and comfortable with their decision to purchase, and that little bit of extra access to me in the sales process reflects the level of access people get to me inside the Take Off program, so therefore, I think it’s appropriate.
I wish I could go back and tell myself when I was first starting the Take Off program, NOT to avoid having sales conversations with people from me. Instead, I would tell myself to do this through the lens of using the high connection, high conversion strategies that I already have and that already work so well to maximise conversion into the Take Off program.
You’re not just leveraging your time in the sales process, you’re leveraging your time in the delivery.
Still giving people some one-to-one connection with you – whether that’s in written form or on sales calls – is going to supercharge your ability to sell at scale.
Don’t resist it, Tash.
I wish I could tell myself that, but I can’t go back and tell 2014 Tash that, so I remind 2021 Tash of that quite consistently.
I also share that insight with everyone who asks me about creating and launching online programs.
They are my five top lessons from having sold over a million dollars worth of spots in the Take Off program over the last seven years.
I also wanted to use this podcast as an opportunity to let you know that I’m going to be diving back into having a program where I help you create and launch your leveraged products and services in your business.
If you are now looking at creating your own group program, membership or online course (or something along those lines), then I would love to invite you to jump onto my VIP Alert List for my new program Leverage and Launch.
This program will be opening its doors and kicking off in June 2021, but if you’re on the VIP Alert List, you’ll get access to a special opportunity when I open doors to the VIP Alert List, and there’s an extra juicy discount for people who are on that VIP Alert List as well.
You can join this VIP Alert List at tashcorbin.com/leverage.
If you’re reading this at a later date, that link will direct you straight to the sales page.
Make sure you come and join us in Leverage and Launch.
The Leverage and Launch program will be my most comprehensive program to help you not only build a leveraged product, but also pre-launch, runway, and launch, as well as review and refine your group program.
It is a super-comprehensive program.
It’s going to be a VIP group program, and spaces will be limited in the first round.
I’m only launching it once in 2021, so spaces will be limited in that first pilot live round.
That will be super discounted and there’ll be limited spaces so make sure you jump on that VIP Alert List.
If spaces sell out with the VIP Alert List alone, I will not be doing a public launch of this program in 2021.
Make sure you go over to tashcorbin.com/leverage if you’d like my support to create and launch your own group program or leveraged product.
As always, if you have any questions or lightbulb moments as a result of reading this episode, head on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, and share using #podcastaha and the episode number (271).
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
