🔥 Launch Without Social Media — Listener Hot Seat!

Amelia Hruby [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. Hello, and welcome or welcome back to Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. I'm Amelia Hruby and on this show, I share stories, strategies, and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.

Amelia Hruby [00:00:45]:
Last week on the podcast, we talked about how to launch your next big thing or small thing or anything without social media. And in that episode, I laid out my three step process for launching basically anything, be it a business, a course, a product, a book, whatever you like without social media. In that episode, we talked through those three steps being creating a clear container, developing clear communication, and doing clear outreach. And I've been excited to hear that that really resonated with some of you out there.

Amelia Hruby [00:01:21]:
I have also heard some folks who are like, but Amelia, where's my timeline? Where's my checklist? Where is my 10 step plan to launch? And so as we kick off this episode, I want to offer a few reflections around the idea of launching itself before we dive into today's listener hot seat, where I am actually going to do the heavy lifting joyous work of designing a few social media free launches for some lucky listeners who have shared things they are launching this spring. So I can't wait to get there.

Amelia Hruby [00:01:59]:
But before we do, first, let me remind you that this show is paired with an amazing free resource called the Leaving Social Media Toolkit. It has been downloaded by over 2,000 people who are thrilled to discover that it includes a five step plan for leaving any social platform, a list of 100 ways to share your work off social media, and a creative marketing experiments database to help you plan quarterly or seasonal marketing experiments to grow your business and share your work off social media or on social media. I don't really care how you use it. It's meant to serve you.

Amelia Hruby [00:02:38]:
If you've got the toolkit and you love these episodes, I also wanna invite you to join the Interweb, our annual membership for creatives, small business owners, writers, artists, freelancers, basically anybody who wants to make money online without social media. It's an annual membership that provides workshops to support your business and marketing development, offers quarterly gathering so you can have more community around doing business with no or minimal social media presence. And it's generally just full of, like, the most awesome, coolest people that I could hope to encounter on the Internet or in real life. So if you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you. This quarter, we are talking all about how to launch without social media, And if you're listening when this comes out, you are not too late to sign up and come to our May community call where we will be going deeper into these ideas, answering all your questions and doing some more of the hot seats like the ones I'm gonna share today.

Amelia Hruby [00:03:43]:
So all that shared, let's go ahead and dive into a few of my clarification points around launching and then our listener hot seat. Okay. My beautiful Off the Grid listeners, let's talk about what a launch really is. I think that at its core, a launch is a period of time when we're sharing a new business or a new offering or a new enrollment period for an existing offering. And the way it works is that a launch creates an inflection point that encourages people to buy now.

Amelia Hruby [00:04:28]:
One of the things that we see in sales psychology is that if something is on sale forever and ever and ever, people will put off the decision of deciding to buy it. And so with a launch, we make something available only for a predetermined period of time in an effort to help signal to people, "Hey. Your opportunity to buy this only lasts this long, and it's ending soon, and now it's ending right now, and maybe you should buy it at exactly this moment before it ends." Right? These are the sorts of messages we hear around launch cycles.

Amelia Hruby [00:05:03]:
So I think that launches are very popular because they create these time sensitive inflection points that get people to buy. And in doing so, we can really use a launch period to accelerate and enhance our sales. And that's kinda tempting. Right? That's why there's all this messaging within the online business space that launching is one of the best sales strategies because as the messaging goes, you just do, like, a week or a couple weeks worth of selling, and then you can make your whole income for the whole year with your giant launch. Right?

Amelia Hruby [00:05:42]:
Launches are sold as a sort of sprint where it's like, if you go all in for a limited amount of time, then you'll make maximum income and you're done. And I get it. That is really tempting. It can also be really exhausting. Not all of us can all out sprint for any period of time. And for some of us doing that sprint is not going to yield those giant results that many online business coaches promise launching in their way will provide. So this is where I think we have to distinguish between what is a launch and what is all of the messaging that we have taken in about what launches mean and are supposed to do. And once again, this is where we at Off the Grid start to deconstruct this question of our launches as successful and sustainable as people suggest, and do we have to do launches in our business?

Amelia Hruby [00:06:44]:
So I would argue that there are many ways to sell the things that you create and launches are only one strategy. Just like there are many ways to share your work and social media is only one strategy. So if you don't enjoy doing launches, you don't have to. You can design an entire business where you never have to launch. And in fact, with Softer Sounds, I did just that. I mentioned in the last episode that I had worked a previous job where we launched a course over and over and over again, and it really burned me out on launches. That was my last job before I started Softer Sounds. And so when I started Softer Sounds, I was like, I'm gonna launch this business, and then there will never be another launch inside of this business. And the way that I did that is I selected a business model that is based on having a dozen or a few dozen clients that I work with in the long term as we create their podcast.

Amelia Hruby [00:07:45]:
So I share that to say that you do not have to do launches. I think that launches work well for offerings that are time sensitive or things that are brand new, or they can be ways to drive additional traffic and sales to an offering that may be available more of the time, but needs these inflection points in order to get people to actually press purchase. So hopefully that gives you a little more perspective on what is a launch really and why might I want to choose a launch as a sales strategy for one of my offerings or products.

Amelia Hruby [00:08:25]:
The second thing I wanted to just reflect on, clear up, speak to before we get into our hot seat is this idea of the launch timeline. I definitely heard from a few people who had legitimate questions about like, "Wait, but what? How am I supposed to move through these three steps, Amelia? Like, what how much time should I spend on each one when I get to the marketing plan? Like, I hear that I'm supposed to launch in one week, that I should have, like, a wait list for a week and then an open cart for two weeks and then, like, procrastinator sale at the end for 48 hours. Like, what is your recommended timeline? What's the best practice here?"

Amelia Hruby [00:09:04]:
And to that, I really have to say, I don't think there is any formula that will guarantee you a successful launch. I think that formulas are very tempting because we want that security. We want that guarantee that if we do the work of the sprint, we will get the success that we're desiring at the end. And in my experience, business just doesn't work that way. Frankly, life just doesn't work that way. There is no guarantee that putting in the energy and effort will yield exactly what you hope to get out of it.

Amelia Hruby [00:09:42]:
And so I think that the best way to launch is the way that serves you and your ideal client or customer community the best. And I think that it takes many experiments and iterations to know how that might work. And in my experience, as soon as you think you've really figured it out, it kind of changes and you gotta do something different yet again. And that's why here at Off the Grid, I'm just so insistent that creative marketing is a practice of experimentation. So I don't have a launch timeline to give you. I feel very confident telling you that if you want to launch without social media, you need to go through the three stages of creating your clear container, clear communication, and clear outreach, and that within outreach, there are some suggested paths you can begin with depending on whether you are a service provider or a product maker. Like, that's what I walked through in the last episode.

Amelia Hruby [00:10:42]:
But within that, how much time you spend building your offering, how many emails you send to your network to try to sell it, how long your cart is open for your brand new course. I think that those are decisions that have to be made in relationship to your business, your personal capacity, your community's needs and desires, and so many other factors. Right? The way I try to guide all of us on this podcast is to offer higher level frameworks that we can fill in with our own circumstances, experiences, and desires. I don't presume to know what you want for your business or your life, and therefore, I cannot tell you exactly what launch plan might give you that.

Amelia Hruby [00:11:28]:
But part of what I'm doing in today's episode is getting more specific because I'll be working with examples from real life listeners telling me more about exactly what they're selling, exactly who it's for, and exactly what they hope to get out of it. That's where we can really start to get more clear on a timeline and on the marketing strategies to choose, etcetera. I think it'd be really disingenuous to try to tell you all of those things without speaking directly to you about your specific business and life and community. So I'm not doing that. And I totally understand if you still wish I would, and I hope that we can meet in this space of questions over answers and that we can cocreate the launch plans that you need, desire, and deserve to have the business that you are dreaming of. Okay? Okay. So all of that shared, let's go ahead and get a little crispy and dive into this listener hot seat.

Amelia Hruby [00:12:32]:
First, you're gonna hear from Leah, who is a Softer Sounds client of mine, talking a little bit about her work and a workshop that she is launching this month.

Leah Kern [00:12:42]:
Hi, Amelia. I love the work that you do so much. Love the podcast. You already know that though. I am Leah and I run a business, Leah Kern Nutrition. I am a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor. I also host the podcast Shoulders Down and I have been on my journey to leave social media. I will be fully off by March 25th, which is my birthday.

Leah Kern [00:13:06]:
And as of right now, I've peeled back how much I'm on social media and how much I'm using it as a marketing channel quite a bit. I have a newsletter and a podcast, which are my two other main ways of nurturing my community. And I also am semi-active on my blog. So that's hopefully some helpful background information. In terms of the thing I wanna launch without social media, I hosted a cannabis and intuitive eating masterclass last year. And I am wanting to host again this April. And I will be off social media by then. So I'd love to hear your tips on launching this cannabis and intuitive eating workshop without social media. Thanks so much. You're the best.

Amelia Hruby [00:13:55]:
What a great message to kick off our launching without social media hot seats. I love this one because as you just heard Leah share, she is selling a workshop. And workshops are something that you almost always have to launch because they're happening on a specific date and time, and you're only selling them for a specific date and time. And so when we want to sell a bunch of tickets or seats in a workshop, we need to focus on selling them for these few weeks or months or days that they may be available, and that is a launch.

Amelia Hruby [00:14:30]:
So how would I launch this workshop without social media? Well, one of the things I heard in Leah's message or know from working with her is that this is the second time that she's taught this workshop. So the first thing I might do is look at the list of people who took it the first time and send them an email that's like, "Hey. I'm doing this again. If you wanna join, I'd love to offer you half off to come again this year. And if you have friends that you wanna join, I'd love to offer them 20% off," or something like that. So I go back to the people who already said yes in the past, see if you can incentivize them to return and get them to bring friends. That's like a great way to kick off a launch cycle. And that's all happening behind the scenes. Right? Like, at that point, you're not even marketing this more broadly, you're just talking to people who have already worked with you and know you.

Amelia Hruby [00:15:19]:
So after I'd done that, then I would probably start thinking about who do I wanna share this with who doesn't know me yet, and how can I get some new people to get to know me through this workshop? And so for that, I would think about a couple different things. I would think about any existing marketing channels that you have, so that may be a newsletter, that may be a podcast. I know Leah has both. So I would definitely announce it to my newsletter and share it on my podcast. I also might do a little bit of content marketing or write some sales emails around that. So it's one thing to announce it to your email list. Say, "Hey. I'm doing this workshop. You wanna come? It's on this date. It costs this much. Register now." That's announcing it.

Amelia Hruby [00:16:01]:
But then you might wanna actually sell it. So send, like, three emails about the why that people would wanna take this workshop. So, you know, "If you feel this way, I can help you unpack that in this, this, and this way. Come to the workshop to learn how" or "Here is the, like, juiciest thing we're gonna do in the workshop. You definitely wanna be there to learn about it." So, again, there, I'm just distinguishing between that, like, workshop announcement and actually selling it, bringing in those deeper motivations, helping people discern if it's right for them, etcetera.

Amelia Hruby [00:16:33]:
I also might do that on my podcast. So, you know, I might create some content around the topic of this so that people are, you know, excited to come in. Maybe I would take one tiny piece of the workshop and record it as, like, a 10 minute preview and put that on my podcast. That'd be kind of a way to use some content marketing here. From there, then we branch out into people who don't know you yet. So because this is a workshop about cannabis and intuitive eating, I think that that's something really kind of niche and interesting within the intuitive eating space. So I might try to find some communities of intuitive eaters that I could get this in front of. Maybe I do a newsletter swap and one of my friends sends it out to their email list. Maybe I'm a guest on a podcast, and I share this with them.

Amelia Hruby [00:17:17]:
You can also do this in the cannabis space. So identifying, like, oh, there's this great newsletter about cannabis news. I should place a classified ad there. Or, oh, I love this YouTuber who is always, like, reviewing cannabis products. I should see if I might be able to sponsor an episode or be a guest on an episode, something like that. So those are ways that I would go about advertising this workshop.

Amelia Hruby [00:17:40]:
So just to do a very fast recap, I mentioned doing a sort of, like, exclusive presale slash discount code for people who came before and offering them something special to invite their friends to come with them. Then I would think about announcing it to my email list and podcast, and then writing sales emails that are selling it to the list and doing a little bit of content marketing, sharing the content on the podcast. Then I would look to a broader audience or to people who do not know me yet. And I might try to collaborate with other people in the intuitive eating space and the cannabis space either by purchasing ads on their newsletters or podcasts or YouTube channels or considering a guest spot or a promo swap or something like that with them.

Amelia Hruby [00:18:27]:
So those are just a few ways that I would launch and sell a workshop like this. When I think about timeline in this instance, you know, I would probably announce it at minimum a month out, maybe as much as two or three months out, and then I would be selling consistently throughout that time and then really focusing on, like, the final week because that is when the most people tend to commit to coming to something. So making sure that I've got some great stuff lined up for my email list or my channels at that point. Okay. I think I could do a whole hour on how to do this, but I'm gonna stop here and let's dive in to our next listener hot seat.

Mathilde Froget [00:19:03]:
Hi, Amelia. My name is Mathilde, and I am launching a membership this spring. It's been a long time coming, but it's really alive for me. I want this launch to be slow, to be ongoing. I don't wanna go into a dopamine, you know, peak and hit of a launch, and I want this membership to be kinda always open. And this is a membership that help women integrate and heal, control mechanisms, perfectionism, performance issues, and help them really tap into more open their capacity to receive, to receive and move into action, aligned action for their lives and and really expand into love and or all areas of their lives.

Mathilde Froget [00:19:49]:
So this is what I'm launching. I would love some of your, experience also with membership and good tips on how to do this without social media, though, I guess, speaking engagement in a workshop. But I'm really open to to hear, your experience and how to draw women into trusting a membership and investing in a membership. Thank you so, so, so very much. Thank you for your work. It is so valuable, and such a gift.

Amelia Hruby [00:20:19]:
Let's talk about memberships. The first thing I wanna point out here is that Mathilde did something really beautiful, which was point out how the sales cycle for this membership needs to align with the content of the membership and the community that this membership is for. So this is a membership about releasing perfectionism, about connecting with ourselves, perhaps even about slowing down a bit to do that. And, therefore, we don't wanna launch it through this really, like, dopamine infused, as Mathilde put it, like, hyperintensive launch cycle. Right? That's really misaligned with what the membership is about and who it's for.

Amelia Hruby [00:21:02]:
And that goes back to what I shared at the beginning of this episode. Right? Like, our marketing and sales strategies have to be in conversation with the work that we're doing and the people that we're serving. And so, you know, when I went to launch the Interweb, I looked at a lot of advice and even timelines and formulas for launching memberships, and they were all pretty centered around these, like, big splashy sort of content and press marketing cycles followed up by these really intensive, like, one week open carts. And that was just deeply uninteresting to me. And so that's why the Interweb is always open for registration, and I am always sharing about it here on this podcast. In fact, you heard me mention it at the start of the episode. And if you like this episode, you should join so we can do a listener hot seat for you in our Interweb call in May. But that's neither here nor there.

Amelia Hruby [00:21:57]:
Let's go back to Mathilde's question. So how do you launch a membership in a way that is not doing that intensive, fast paced, dopamine inducing launch cycle, and instead is inviting people to trust you and join at a different pace. I think the first thing to consider here would be whether or not you want the membership to be open for enrolling or registering or joining all the time, or whether you do want to have launch seasons where people can join and then the doors close for a period of time. They can join, they can close.

Amelia Hruby [00:22:39]:
Just because we don't wanna do that super fast paced intense launch, doesn't mean that we can't have these open and close periods. We can just do them at a different pace and in a different way. And I find that not all containers are well suited to be open all the time. Sometimes we do need to close the doors so everyone who's in there can do work together or so that we, as creators, can kind of step back from selling and say, "Oh, okay. Not selling right now. Gonna focus on working with the people who are here, who've shown up, who said yes, and then I'll go back to selling in three months, six months, a year, whatever it may be." So I think that's the first thing to consider. Is this membership going to be always open, or will you be going through periods of open for new members and close to new members? That will determine kind of the pace and timeline of your marketing.

Amelia Hruby [00:23:29]:
In terms of just more broadly, how to market a membership, I think that speaking engagements and guesting on podcasts and offering a free workshop every so often are all great ways to get to know new people and help them get to know you and your approach. And Mathilde mentioned some of those in the message or you mentioned some of those in your message, which I really appreciate. So I think that what's important here is that the ways that you're marketing are more connective. They are more nurturing. And in fact, when you're getting in front of new people, you're doing so in a way that's already inviting them deeper. So this is why I go to something like guesting on podcasts because if somebody spends half an hour or a full hour listening to you on someone else's podcast, they're already going to know so much more about you and your approach than they would if they simply saw a classified ad in a newsletter or, like, haphazardly skimmed a quick post on a website. So I think that's what's most important here is how can you be getting in front of new people in ways that really give them the time and a deeper chance to get to know you.

Amelia Hruby [00:24:44]:
And then I also think this is where you do create that really beautiful, rich, free workshop or something like that, and you advertise that in newsletters. You try to get that a little more out in the world, and you try to kind of wrap some people in through that sort of free or low cost offering. And then when they've arrived, they're spending that time with you and really getting to know you, and that's gonna get them ready to join the membership. And I think that when you do that, it's really helpful to have some sort of time intention around that. And what I mean by that is at the end of, you know, this work shop or this conversation or this free offering that you've given and created for them, saying something about joining now or joining this week or joining by the end of the month. Because we wanna give people those cues that now is the time to make the decision.

Amelia Hruby [00:25:39]:
When you're doing a slow launch, it's really about creating those inflection points that ping people to join now. Now is the time. This is my moment. We have to get that across and encourage them and invite them. And that doesn't mean we have to, like, put countdown timers on everything or, like, falsely them into believing this is urgent when it's not, but we need to really, like, create that resonance and that need in them and be like, "Yes. This is something I really want right now." And maybe they want it right now because they will get an additional session with you if they join right now, or maybe they want it right now because you are offering a bonus to people who sign up in the first month or a discount to the people who sign up in the first month or something like that.

Amelia Hruby [00:26:22]:
There are a lot of options here, but just to recap some of the things that I've shared, when you're doing a slow launch for a membership, I think your first decision is to think about whether your membership will be always open for enrollment or whether you will open and close the doors. And then from there, I think you're identifying the ways that you can get in front of other people in a more long form way where they can get to know, like, and trust you all in one podcast episode per se. And I would recommend some type of lead magnet or low cost offering that you are advertising more broadly to a larger audience, perhaps through paid newsletter or podcast ads or through newsletter swaps or working with collaborative partners who are gonna share your work if you share theirs, and putting that free or low cost thing in front of that broader audience so it invites people in to that opportunity to get to know, like, and trust you on your own terms or turf, perhaps.

Amelia Hruby [00:27:21]:
And then from there, again, thinking about that pacing and timing, when you're doing that slow launch, how are you creating those inflection points? Are you offering bonuses or discounts or additional support, or are you gently closing the doors and saying, like, "This isn't gonna be available for the next season, so you need to join now if you'd like to be with us for the spring or the summer or whatever it may be." So hopefully that's helpful, and thanks so much for reaching out.

Amelia Hruby [00:27:48]:
My final impulse here is just to share a little bit about what I've learned from having the Interweb and having it be open all the time. And it's been an interesting experiment because the Interweb is always open for enrollment. And I think that that is a mixed success. I would guess that I would have more members in there if I opened and closed the doors and really pushed hard that it was only available sometimes. I think that what that would do is kind of push people into making the decision to join us and not putting it off. And also I think it would take some of the lovely listeners from this podcast, you dear listener may be one of them, who just like love the free show and are like, "I spend 40 minutes to an hour of my week with Amelia and I don't really have any reason I need to like upgrade for additional cost or community." But like, I think that there are ways that I could press on that and I could change from being always open to a launch structure that might in fact make me more money.

Amelia Hruby [00:28:54]:
But that's just not where I'm at with this offering right now, and this offering is not my primary business. So I have not wanted to put myself on a launch cycle, which means that we're not launching. We're just always open and people join when they can. And I would guess that we're averaging four to eight new members a month just on that really gentle, always open for enrollment, always mentioned on the podcast sort of strategy. That's just my experience. It's not indicative of anything else. And let me say, like, I'm creating this weekly podcast that's bringing those people in.

Amelia Hruby [00:29:32]:
So maybe that share pings something or kind of points you in a direction of wanting to leave enrollment open or not. But either way, I think that, again, these are all choices that you can make in conversation with yourself and with your community and what they need. Okay. Thank you, Mathilde, for this question. Thank you, lovely listeners, for listening. Let's go into our next hot seat with Bailey.

Bailey Lang [00:29:58]:
Hi, Amelia. This is Bailey Lang over at The Writing Desk. I have a couple of things that I'm launching this spring, and I would love to get some feedback from you on what a social media free launch plan might look like for those. The first one is a 30 day writing challenge that starts in April.

Bailey Lang [00:30:16]:
So launch for that is already kind of underway, but that is gonna be a month long challenge for people who want to start building some sustainable writing habits. And the second thing that I'm launching will start sometime after April. That is going to be a twice a month writing power hour. So people who want to join a writing group, but maybe haven't been able to find one can pop into a Zoom call with some other writers, spend an hour getting some writing done, doing some writing exercises, and getting a little bit of community with other writers. That's also gonna include a members only newsletter and maybe some other goodies as time goes on. So I'd love to to hear from you about some ideas for getting that launched.

Amelia Hruby [00:30:59]:
Okay. First things first, Bailey is a Lifestyle Business League member whom I adore, so I'm so grateful for this message. And since Bailey has already kinda launched the writing challenge for April, I am going to go ahead and skip over that one and take us straight into the writing power hours and how to launch those without social media. And I love that in the context of this episode because we've already talked about launching a workshop and launching a membership, and now we have this sort of hybrid workshop membership. So you'll notice some of these strategies coming together in how I respond to this.

Amelia Hruby [00:31:38]:
So I think going back to how I responded to Leah, a great way to launch something like this is to start by offering it to everyone who has already worked with you, either as a client or who is just on your own list. So I think that when you're a business owner who's already developed a list and you're launching something that, you know, has these specific times, like a workshop or a power hour, like, it's great to just announce that to the people who are already paying attention and invite them to join, perhaps with some type of discount or promotion or bonus to really invite them in right away. And then from there, your job is to get your work or your offering in front of new people, and that's part of the launch.

Amelia Hruby [00:32:19]:
And so because this is a workshop slash membership, because there are these live workshops, but they're ongoing, I think something interesting here could be to invite people to come to one for free, right, or to host one that's explicitly for people to come get the vibe of what it's about. So there are a lot of ways to sell something like this. One way to do it could be in season. So it's like you sign up for the spring season of writing power hour, or you could sign up, like, once and then you're part of it in an ongoing way, like, forever until you quit. And if I was doing it seasonally, I might do a free writing power hour the week before every season starts. And then with that, I would kind of host it how I typically host it and at the end invite people to join us in the season.

Amelia Hruby [00:33:06]:
You could also do this in an ongoing model where you host one a quarter. It's like, "Hey, This is our free one for spring, and if you like it, join the writing power hour. It's this ongoing thing we do all the time with the twice monthly workshops and the newsletter, etcetera." So I think that that's another great way to get people in and excited and to say yes. And then I think some of the other things I talked about are also relevant here. Guesting on podcasts, doing, you know, perhaps speaking engagements, thinking about where are writers hanging out, and can you advertise there or put your work there or be present there in some way? All of that stuff is happening for that nurture component here as well.

Amelia Hruby [00:33:47]:
So I guess the reason I needed like five minutes and 10 minutes to answer the past two questions is so I could really succinctly talk about this one. But I think what we're hearing again and again is that when you have these kind of focused containers of, I know I'm launching a workshop. I know I'm launching a membership. I know I'm launching this workshop slash membership, and you already have a business with some type of email list or community that you've gathered around it, then there is a bit of a road map that we can follow for our launches. And, again, this is not a formula. You have to create your own road map. But once you do it once, then you have the road map, and you just keep kind of adding to this map, drawing in new features, changing the route a little bit. Right?

Amelia Hruby [00:34:30]:
So if you have a business, even with a tiny list, and you're launching something new, like a workshop or a membership, then I think what you get to do first is announce it to your existing audience, really try to hook them with that announcement and also perhaps some dedicated sales emails or pitching or content marketing there, and then your job is to go get this offering out in front of new people in your launch and to say, "Okay. Who are the people who need to know about this? Do I have some friends who know those people who would just put this in front of them for me? Do I need to buy a spot in a newsletter that's gonna get this in front of the right people? Can I be planning to guest on podcasts so that that's coming out at the time I need it to to get this in front of those new people?"

Amelia Hruby [00:35:19]:
And from there, building a sort of time line for when these things need to happen and building that in consideration alongside, like, how fast or slow am I launching, how long does this need to be on sale before people buy it, etcetera, etcetera. So now that we've kind of explored this road map, let's go into our next listener hot seat where we're gonna hear about a course and how to launch a course without social media.

Amelia Hruby [00:35:45]:

Sarah Diedrick [00:35:47]:
Hi, Amelia. My name is Sarah Diedrick, and I am a sex and pleasure educator. And I've been wanting to share a course around desire, how desire works, the different desired types, how to untangle our desire from cisheteropatriarchal norms and the sexual staircase, which says that all sex should lead to penetration. So I want to kind of open up that space of desire and also share and educate around desire discrepancy when couples have a mismatch in their desire, how can they navigate that and compromise.

Sarah Diedrick [00:36:30]:
So I love desire. I love the topic of desire. I love educating on it. I love learning about it, and I want to give folks a really comprehensive, perspective on desire and also help people eradicate, maybe not totally eradicate, but soften any pressure or stress around their desire. There's a lot of shame around having low desire, and I want to give folks a space where they feel seen and held in whatever season of desire that they're in.

Amelia Hruby [00:37:09]:
Okay. The 90 second limit cuts Sarah off a little bit on this message, but I just wanna start by saying, wow, this course sounds amazing. I want to take it. I really hope you launch it so we can all take it together.

Amelia Hruby [00:37:26]:
The first thing that stood out to me listening to this message is that Sarah's messaging is so strong. She very clearly knows who this is for, how it's gonna help them, and the transformations that they will hopefully experience by the end. So I think when all of that is so clear, you're in a great place to write a stellar sales page. And I think to sell a course like this, what it needs is that beautiful, stellar sales page that really explains what the course is, clearly tells people how it's gonna help them, walks you through everything that's included, and then offers probably some different payment options for that.

Amelia Hruby [00:38:12]:
So I think once you have that, then it's gonna sell really well through a series of emails to your own list, to Sarah's list in this case, or to Sarah's colleagues' lists. I think this would be a great place to ask people you know, like, "Could I write something to your list about desire in the course?" You know, whether they're an artist or an audio producer like myself, you know, like, how could you come up with some different ways? Like, "Oh, here's how desire ties into these things. And I'd love to share this with the people paying attention to your work and see if they might come pay attention to my work."

Amelia Hruby [00:38:48]:
I also think one or two, like, really strong pieces of content on your website could do beautifully here, whether that be an essay or a photo essay or a podcast interview, just like places that people can really, like, hook in and get to know the work here before they purchase the course, I think that could be really special and important because this is also the kind of work that people are going to reflect on before they buy. Right? Desire is really personal, and acknowledging that there's a desire gap in a relationship is really personal, and it may take us some time as people who wanna buy this to read that on the sales page and then be like, "Oh, yeah. That is me." And then, "Yeah, I do want help with that." And then, "Yeah, Sarah is the person to help me with that." Right?

Amelia Hruby [00:39:42]:
So we have to make sure that there's enough space in a launch cycle for a course like this for people to go on that whole journey with themself, I think, and that there are enough touchstones along the way. So I think this could also sell really beautifully with a type of free resource. You know, maybe it's a audio meditation that's available on your website, and people can download it, and then they get a series of emails that's selling them the course, and the emails are really good, like, really pointing out the exact things that people need help with and how the course helps them.

Amelia Hruby [00:40:16]:
And some of this, of course, will depend again on whether this course is always available or this course is only available at certain times. Right? So is it a self guided course you can take any time? Is it cohorts where people are gonna move through it together, and so you have a certain start date and they have to join by a certain date? You know, I think that those are also factors here, like they are for all of the different types of offerings that we've talked about today. But I hope that some of those ideas are helpful, and I really just can't wait to take this course. So, Sarah, if you're listening, follow-up when it's live and we can all sign up. I would love to share it on the podcast.

Amelia Hruby [00:40:56]:
Okay. Now that we've done four hot seats, we are gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna come back with a hot seat about launching a new business. So if you're tuned in because you wanna launch a business without social media, make sure you stick around. That's what's coming up next after this very short and sweet and wonderful break.

Amelia Hruby [00:41:20]:
Are you feeling fed up, burned out, or totally sick of social media? Are you wondering if your business might be able to be successful without it, or if your creative work would still find its way out in the world without you posting it on Instagram or TikTok every 10 minutes? If you could relate to any of these musings of mine, I wanna invite you to join me in the Interweb. The Interweb is an annual membership for creatives, artists, small business owners, freelancers, influencers, entrepreneurs, and creators who want support sharing their work and making money without social media. When you join, you get access to on demand courses taught by biz friends across the Internet and quarterly live events with me, Amelia.

Amelia Hruby [00:42:07]:
There is a whole hour long class on how to launch without social media inside the Interweb right now. And if you're listening when this goes live, we will have a Q and A exclusively for members on May 14th. If you love this podcast, I hope that you'll head to the show notes to learn more and sign up so that I really can see you Off the Grid and on the Interweb. Now let's get back into today's episode.

PJ [00:42:35]:
Hi, Amelia. My name is PJ and I'm trying to start a business that's multifaceted. And it's grounded in this work that, I'm a trainer in something called nonviolent communication. I'm also a professor at a university, and I you know, honestly, this is my exit strategy for a job that doesn't match my values. And so as I as I think about launching these this business, it's something that I wanted to match my values and that is grounded in non violence and compassion and connecting with others. So at its core, I'm looking to, help people have difficult conversations about things that really matter, especially about issues of equity and social justice.

PJ [00:43:21]:
And so I'm trying to launch onto Insight Timer, a meditation app. I'd like to start a podcast and, start writing on platforms like Medium and Substack. I don't know. I'm I'm really struggling to get off the ground, and I wanna do so in such a way that matches my values. And so your work in the podcast and and other things really speaks to me. Thanks for the opportunity, at least, to reach out to you. Bye bye.

Amelia Hruby [00:43:50]:
As a former academic, my heart goes out to you, PJ. So much love for everybody trying to find a different path forward outside of the university. It's real. Listening to this message, the first thing that's coming to mind is that I think PJ is falling into a common trap of people who want to start a business, which is wanting to start a business and then creating a lot of content. And there's nothing wrong with this. Perhaps I shouldn't call it a trap. The trap is staying stuck in content creation mode. So I think that when you wanna start a business, but you don't really know what it will be, doing a lot of writing, doing a lot of speaking can be great because it can help you figure out what's at the heart of this for me. What do I really care about? What would I want to offer?

Amelia Hruby [00:44:46]:
But if you stay in that mode where all you're doing is writing or speaking or just kind of becoming a content creator, your business doesn't really have the offering as an engine to make money. And, of course, people do make money as content creators, but as we know from everything I've ever shared on this podcast, that requires having a very large audience. And in many cases, it's gonna require selling ads to promote things to that audience that could land PJ or any of us back in that trap of feeling like the work we're doing isn't aligned with our values again.

Amelia Hruby [00:45:20]:
And so, again, I think that when we wanna start a business, while it may be helpful to create and share content to kinda publicly be exploring those ideas, we don't wanna fall into the trap of becoming a content creator if we never meant to be a content creator. And so what I think is really missing in PJ's business launch and for many of us, I you know, this has happened to me in the past as well, but it's like, what are the offerings? That's what we have to figure out here because the business won't make any money without offerings, and we can't actually launch the business until we know what it's selling. And so listening to PJ's message, I'm really thinking about what are the ways that people create offerings around nonviolent communication or these other things. And so this could be workshops. It could be consulting.

Amelia Hruby [00:46:08]:
Let me tell you, I know lots of academics who left universities, but started their business by consulting for those same universities, doing workshops or trainings or one day things, and then eventually worked their way out of that system. Right? Because we start our business with the network we have. So I think that when you wanna launch a business like this, your first step is to think about, "Okay, what is the work I wanna do?" In this message, I'm hearing nonviolent communication. And then what is the shape of ways that people sell that work? And so that's where I'm thinking about, okay, maybe it's a workshop, maybe it's a training, maybe you're writing a book. That's another way to do this. So I think that it's then coming up with what is the offering and then, of course, figuring out the pricing. And then the launch is when you start selling that to people. You know, I make that sound like it's like three easy steps, no big deal, and it absolutely could take months or years or any amount of time.

Amelia Hruby [00:47:07]:
But I think that with this kind of work, what could work really well is thinking about the network you already have and what can you create for that network, and how can you launch and sell it to them by sending emails, by pitching yourself, perhaps for RFPs, requests for proposals, and kind of putting yourself out there in that way. And that would be my instinct for how to create a business that might support you financially coming out of a university role rather than going simply the content route. Like it could make sense to write a couple really good essays, to release a few meditations on Insight Timer, to have a podcast, like, any one of those things could make sense as a sort of way of signaling to people, like, this is what I do now. This is how you can find my work if you're interested in hiring me. But I don't think that those things are the focus. I think the focus when you really wanna make money from this business is going to be working your network and developing offerings for people who are interested in some way.

Amelia Hruby [00:48:08]:
So thank you, PJ, for this wonderful question. I hope many people are out there launching businesses without social media, particularly, you know, these types of businesses that could be service based businesses working with other businesses or institutions. And don't get caught in that content creator trap. You should only be a content creator if you want to be a content creator. It's a glorious job, a grueling one, but a glorious one, if that's what you set out to do. But don't get stuck there. Don't set out to do one thing and then become a content creator. It's like quicksand. We gotta pull ourselves out. Okay. Let's go into our penultimate listener hot seat with Valentina.

Valentina [00:48:50]:
Hi, Amelia. Nice to meet you, and thank you for all your reference. My name is Valentina. I'm an astrologer and writer, and I specialize on the first Saturn return, aka 30 year old crisis. So I, in the early stages of my business, I have just created a freebie, and I will post graphics on Pinterest to drive traffic to the freebie that's located on Gumroad. And then I'm thinking about specifically what I want to launch. I don't know if it has to be a newsletter, a course, an email course, coaching sessions, individual coaching sessions, group coaching sessions. So it's all connected with the first session return. And right now, just building my email list, but I would appreciate your thoughts about this project. Thank you.

Amelia Hruby [00:49:55]:
Yay. We have another new business owner or someone kind of launching a new business. And what I love in Valentina's share is that Valentina has already started creating content, is building a list by offering a free resource and driving traffic to it from Pinterest. But now we have to sell something. Right? Ready to take that step into creating an offering, starting a business. And as we all heard Valentina share, like, is it a course? Is it a coaching? Is it a this? Is it a that? Like, there are so many options for what it could be. So I think that in the realm of astrology, there are some traditional paths to take. You can offer a 1-on-1 reading. You can offer a workshop either live or prerecorded, and you could offer a course either live, you move through it with a cohort or self guided, and you can take it any time.

Amelia Hruby [00:50:50]:
So when you're kind of in this moment of "I've been building my list, I wanna sell something, but I'm not sure what it is," I think this is where you really get to ask yourself, like, what feels most supportive to me? And maybe the reason I'm getting this question is, like, you don't really know, And I think that's okay. The only way you're gonna know is by experimenting and trying. Maybe you try out offering three one-on-one readings. You know, just offer a couple, see if people buy them, do them, see if you like them. Maybe you try creating a digital product. Maybe you try doing some coaching. I can say over the past few years, I've been trying out a lot of this stuff in my own business.

Amelia Hruby [00:51:33]:
Like, I didn't know if I liked coaching until I did it. And what I learned was I like coaching that it's more like consulting than it is like coaching. I like coaching where we like work on one specific thing for a specific period of time, not necessarily like a really long coaching container where we go like deep into a bunch of amorphous questions together. I'm glad other people do that. It's just not for me. Similarly, I learned that I'm happy to sell some, like, prerecorded workshops and courses, but I don't really wanna lead people through a live course right now, and that's okay. Right? I don't have to. We start our own businesses so that we can offer things that are aligned with our energy, our capacity, our desires, what we enjoy doing.

Amelia Hruby [00:52:12]:
And so I think Valentina is in a really beautiful position to, first of all, reflect on what is interesting to you. Try the thing that seems the most interesting right now. Try it in a way where you're, like, kind of limiting the scope of that engagement. Right? Like, if you're gonna do one-on-one offerings, offer them for a month or offer, like, three of them. Or if you wanna offer a workshop, just do one one time, see how it goes. Right? Like, I would not suggest someone's very first offering be some, like, 12 month container with three coaching sessions and two live workshops a month. Like, keep it small and simple for yourself when you're just starting out, and do some experiments to learn what you enjoy and what works.

Amelia Hruby [00:52:52]:
And that's the intersection we're always trying to find in our business. Right? Like, what's the thing you really enjoy doing that also made the amount of money you wanted to make for the amount of energy you had to put in? And so I really encourage Valentina and all of you listening who may be in this position of, like, I got my list built up a bit. What comes next? To do some experiments. Pick three things that you wanna try in the rest of this year and try to sell those things and fulfill those purchases and see what you like the best. And when you have that information, then next year, you may be ready to actually create like a sales and offering calendar that's like more built out and explains what you're gonna do over the course of the year.

Amelia Hruby [00:53:37]:
Or maybe you learn like, "Oh, I love doing this coaching session, so next year I'm gonna try a group coaching or next year I'm gonna try a coaching package." Right? You just keep iterating and learning over time. And if you love your business, it will hopefully be kind of fun.

Amelia Hruby [00:53:52]:
Alright, let's go into our final listener hot seat for this episode. This one comes from Interweb member, Sarah of Hawthorn Mountain Tarot.

Sarah ? [00:54:04]:
Hey, Amelia. It's Sarah. I'm a long time listener, first time caller, and I'm a fiction author, tarot reader, and creativity coach. I like to think of myself as a creativity alchemist. And this spring, I'll be working on the official launch of my three month creativity coaching program, Feed Your Flame. I did a soft launch last fall when I rebranded my business, Hawthorn Mountain Tarot, and what I mean by that is I've been quietly advertising Feed Your Flame to my own email list since October. There's a little box advertising it at the bottom of my monthly newsletter each month, and I've been working with a couple of clients since then, fine tuning the program. But I know I need to do an official launch if I want to really get it out into the world. I get overwhelmed just thinking about all of the options and strategies for announcing and marketing the program, and I keep kicking that can down the road. Any ideas to help me focus and get to work? Thank you.

Amelia Hruby [00:55:03]:
Listening to this message, I can tell that Sarah has already come to the Off the Grid School of Marketing because she's been doing the thing I talk about in this episode, right, which is what she calls her soft launch. So she created this offering, and then she soft launched it by sharing it with her list and the people that she's worked with. And as someone on Sarah's list, which I have been for a long time, I can tell you that I have definitely clicked the link for this in those boxes, but I have not purchased it yet. And there are like a couple of reasons for that, I'm sure. One of them is that it's just not the right timing for me.

Amelia Hruby [00:55:41]:
And another is that I think there is a lot of opportunity for Sarah to sell this more rather than simply kind of announcing and reminding to do the sales work of painting the picture and helping people discern. And Sarah's got a great sales page for this offer, and I think it does a lot of that work. But sometimes we forget to really take our email subscribers on that journey with us.

Amelia Hruby [00:56:08]:
I do this too. Like, I'm not saying, sorry, I did this wrong or you do this wrong. Like, what happens is we get to know our offerings so well that we forget that, like, oh, all that stuff on my website, all those words I wrote, probably most people on this list aren't clicking through and reading them, but I could put them in this email they are opening and reading. So we have to remember to, like, really be communicating, that clear communication. But even more than clear communication, the second step of my launch process, like, clear and more frequent communication during a launch cycle.

Amelia Hruby [00:56:43]:
And I think that in Sarah's case, the coaching program that she's offering is seasonal. So I think that the launches will also be seasonal, and that's kind of the strategy I would take. I wouldn't, you know, consider every single launch strategy out there. I would think about, "Okay. I'm gonna launch this once a season. How much time can I spend launching?" For the first launch of a coaching program, I think you might need a little more time, like four to eight weeks, And then as people learn about it and your list grows, you might be able to do a shorter launch. But what I love about a seasonal launch cycle for a seasonal coaching program is that you can really tailor those launches to the season.

Amelia Hruby [00:57:23]:
And then you can be sending them to your whole mailing list because you're not repeating the same messaging. Like, you're really digging into it in a different way. And I think with one-on-one coaching, I wouldn't necessarily advise something like a lead magnet. I may suggest once or twice a year doing some sort of workshop that's kind of letting people get to know you at a lower price point so that people who may be considering this but are not ready to spend thousands of dollars on coaching, like, are willing to come in for, you know, $50 or a $100 and get to know you and love you and trust you and then want to upgrade to coaching. But I would think about that as something you're doing one or two times a year, and I personally would have it still be a paid offering. I think it's kind of like what do they call it? Like a feeder offering or something. I don't like that language, but a proto, a pre I don't know.

Amelia Hruby [00:58:15]:
It's something that just gives people that sort of, like, glimpse in. So you're kinda like opening the door and welcoming them into your, like, foyer. And if they wanna explore the whole house, they're gonna have to buy the coaching package. But if they're just standing on the sidewalk, they may just kind of opt out. We wanna get them in the door a little bit so that they say, "Yes, I want this." But when you're trying to take people from perhaps, I'm just reading your emails to I'm gonna do creative coaching with you, we need to kinda get them a little closer first. And I know that Sarah offers tarot readings, which I think could also be a great step in, but that feels a little tangential to me. Like, they're gonna go look at your garden to come into your house, and, like, that may not be as direct as just, like, opening the door and having them come into that front space to really overuse this metaphor I'm using.

Amelia Hruby [00:59:02]:
So, yeah, I think for an offering like this that you've already soft launched to your list, what I would do next is develop seasonal sales cycles where you are selling it more clearly to your list through the lens of that season. I would consider developing a sort of lower cost offer that happens once or twice a year to kind of be building your audience of people who've already purchased from you who would be a great fit for your coaching program.

Amelia Hruby [00:59:31]:
And then to throw a couple new things into the mix here, I definitely think things like this function really well with one-on-one invitations. So going through your list of all the people who've taken tarot readings with you and then sending them emails, like an individual email, not the email to the whole list, an email to that person and saying, "Hey, I really enjoyed our reading. I'm doing this this spring. I was thinking of you. Would you be interested in like hopping on a 20 minute call to talk about it, or sending some voice messages where we could see if it might be the right fit for where you're at?" I find that people really overlook that kind of sale and it is, in my opinion, the best way to sell one-on-one work.

Amelia Hruby [01:00:07]:
And so I think that would be a great strategy here. And then in terms of your list, I think continuing to do more long term, long form strategies, like I mentioned at the very beginning for some of our other hot seats, guesting on people's podcasts, writing some content maybe for other people's newsletters, like all of that stuff that's going to get people on your mailing list for when you do sell the coaching program. I think that's the ongoing work that you're doing so that when you do these launches, they can be successful. It's kind of like you're always tending the fire, like the embers are always going, so that when it is really time to put all the logs and the kindling on, the fire's ready to go, and not like you're starting from scratch every time. So we kind of have to be doing something somewhere all of the time. Not everything everywhere all at once, but like something somewhere all of the time.

Amelia Hruby [01:01:04]:
Okay. I obviously have been hot seating for too long and my brain is fried. And so thank you, Sarah, so much for this message. And thank you to everyone who sent a message so that we could do these listener hot seats. I really enjoyed going through how I would launch all of these things without social media.

Amelia Hruby [01:01:23]:
And I hope that if you tuned into the episode, you were able to kind of start to imagine how you might shape your offering and develop that clear container for your work, how you might start to work on your messaging so you have that clear communication about your offering, and all of the ways that you can be finding and reaching your community with that clear outreach that you'll do to sell what you have for sale without social media.

Amelia Hruby [01:01:52]:
I think that that is all I have to say about how to launch without social media, except for the fact that I said even more in our hour long how to launch without social media course in the Interweb. So if you enjoyed this episode, I really hope that you'll come join us. You get so many great resources and community support calls when you join the Interweb, and joining the Interweb is directly supporting me to to keep making this podcast. So if you love this show and you wanna see it stay weekly and keep making episodes, I would also love if you consider joining the Interweb. You get a whole lot of great stuff in exchange, including the show that you already know and love.

Amelia Hruby [01:02:36]:
Alright. That's it for me today, my friends until next week, I will see you off the grid and on the Interweb. Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by n'Atelier Studio. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the Interweb.