Speaker 1: It felt like no pressure at all.
Speaker 2: As well, I'd already created everything for it, so I
didn't feel any pressure. It was great when people you
know did take me up on the offer, but it.
Speaker 1: Was a kind of fun experiment as.
Speaker 2: Much as you know, thinking well, I've got to make
money at you know, putting any pressure on myself to
make loads of money over the weekend.
Speaker 3: Welcome to imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I
read all the books, downloaded all the freebies, and did
all the courses, but it wasn't until I started taking
imperfect action that my business had its first million dollar year.
Imperfect action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing
consistent action over perfect action, and moving forward even when
you're not sure you're doing it right. On this show,
you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies
to build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom,
and even more joy. Are you on the list to
get my daily Businesses? Every day, I'll send you a
bite sized prompt designed to help you grow your business
in a more intentional way. Sign up at Steph Taylor
dot Co, forward slash DBB, or at the link.
Speaker 1: In the show notes.
Speaker 3: Hey, welcome back to in Perfect Action. This is episode
eight hundred and fifty, and today I'm talking with one
of my favorite students, Kate Clifton. She's been a student
of mine in Freedom fast Track for the first half
of this year and now she is a member in
Conversion Campaigns, and today we are breaking down how she
generated a cash injection in her business using the Bonus
Strategy campaign that we had a couple of months ago.
It's a really simple campaign and simple cash injection that
you can use in pretty much any kind of online
business to sell more of an existing office. So you
don't actually have to always go out there and create
new offers to sell more. You can find new ways
to sell your exist offers, which is one of the
big things that I teach inside Conversion Campaigns, and it's
one of the big things we are talking about in
today's episode. I'm so excited for you to learn from
Kate and learn from what she has done and how
she's managed to do this in her business. So let's
jump into the episode. O Kate, welcome to Imperfect Action.
I'm excited to have you here. You've been a student
of mine over the last six months in Freedom fast Track,
you've been in conversion campaigns I think since the day
it opened.
Speaker 4: And I'm excited to chat.
Speaker 3: With you about the campaign that you launched recently. And
I think your story is really going to inspire a
lot of my listeners who feel like they have to
launch big things or nothing at all. So before we
kick off, i'd love if you could tell my listeners
a little bit about who you are and what you do,
what your business is about.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much, Steff. It's so exciting to
talk to you. So Yes, I'm Kate Clifton. My business
name is Kate Languages and I used to be a
languages teacher here in the UK. I taught on and
off for about eight or nine years. I say on
and off because I did a master's degree halfway through.
I took a year out to do a master's degree,
and then about seven years ago I left teaching. I
was signed off with stress actually for a few months
and just decided that was it. I'd kind of had
enough a little bit and yeah, and just was thinking,
you know, what can I do? And I started offering
some proetuition and writing teaching resources and then gradually over
the years that's moved to me. I just work with
teachers now, I just work with languages teachers, and I
do teacher training CPD, and I still write teaching resources
and all. This is very relevant for the conversion campaign
that I ran because it was based around my resources
and a CPD works. So yes, that's my business in
a nutshell.
Speaker 3: And I mean I know your business quite well because
we've been working together for a while. But for our
listeners who don't have the same context, could you share
a little bit about I guess what was going on
in your business when we first started working together, but
then also when you decided to join conversion campaigns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so I about a year or so ago,
I just started to think I need to I need
to do something with this business.
Speaker 1: Like I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I mean I was kind of ticking by quite well.
I have a young son, so I think the last
few years have been focused on him, and he was
born right at the beginning of the pandemic, and it
was just, you know, very much focused on survival. And
then about a year or so ago, so I need
to I need to level up a bit. I need
to really focus on my business and figure out a
way of making a bit more money. And yeah, so
I started to look around. I started listening to your
podcast about a year or so ago, and then and
then in I guess it was January, I think twenty
twenty four, when I joined a webinar that you did
before that you know, with a launch of Freedom Fast Track,
and I just thought, this is what I need. And
like I said, I've been listening to your podcast. I
absolutely love the podcast, and I just thought, yeah, this
is what I need. And I mean, right from the
beginning it was so useful. I had just hired a
va at the point that I joined Freedom fast Track
as well, and I remember straight away I said to you, like, oh,
I've actually got some things to tell her to do
because I was a bit confused about even how to
work with her. So over the months that has been
so so, so helpful.
Speaker 1: And she said, within a.
Speaker 2: Couple of months of working with me, she was like,
your business seems to have just gone up another couple
of levels, which is absolutely amazing. And then when you
launched conversion campaigns, I just thought, yeah, I'm I'm just
going to jump on board. I think part of it
was I knew that Eden Fast Track was going to
come to an end after about six months, and as thinking, oh,
this would be a way of carrying on working with Steph.
So I thought that would be really lovely. And yeah,
it just felt like something that really appealed to me
and the way that I work because it's you know,
quick campaigns. The thing that really really appeals to me
is that you don't have to completely create something brand new.
I love the way that you give us ideas to like, okay,
so this is this is something that you already do.
This is a different way of packaging it or you know,
like the one that I did that we can talk
about in more detail, is adding a bonus to an
offer that you already have.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it felt like a complete no
brainer for me.
Speaker 2: And I've got to say the price point just you know,
felt absolutely doable and affordable, and I just thought, Yes,
this is a fantastic way of cantinuing to work with
Steph for a bit longer.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: I love working with you. Two kapes.
Speaker 3: So you kind of hinted to it a little bit there,
but tell us a bit more about what you decided
to offer for that first campaign that you did.
Speaker 2: So I over the course of the last academic year,
so in the UK the academic year is September to August,
I ran a series of three workshops about I feel
like I have to keep explaining everything. So the GCSE
in the UK is the exam that we do when
we're sixteen, and for French, German and Spanish, the basically
the format of the exam is changing. So i spent
a lot of time of learning about the new exams,
learning about the new specifications, and I've run a series
of three workshops.
Speaker 1: About this new GCSE.
Speaker 2: So that's a bit of an explainer of what my
bonus was. So the third workshop I ran at the
end of and I also have yearly subscriptions to my
language teaching was also is I have separate ones for French,
German and Spanish. So the campaign was if you sign
up for a yearly subscription of either French, German or Spanish,
I had to do three separate offers then you would
get access to the CPD workshops for no ADU cost.
Speaker 1: So that was the bonus.
Speaker 2: And as I said before, the reason why this works
so well as I'd already done two of the workshops.
I was on the third workshop, so I could offer
people like immediate access to about three hours worth of
recordings of the previous workshops plus what you know, the
final workshop that they could then join lives. I did
it before the third workshop, so they had the opportunity
to join it live. But then it's always recorded and
they can always watch them back afterwards. So, as I say,
it was it's fantastic to have to think, right, this
is a perfect time to do it. I knew that
the workshop was coming up. I was already doing it
all anyway. I only started offering these subscriptions. Again, this
is something that we worked through with Freedom Fast Tract
that I realized that this was a really really good
model for my business to follow.
Speaker 1: I only started offering the yearly.
Speaker 2: Subscriptions in I think May so and I did this
campaign I think the second weekend of June, so it
was still quite a new thing as well. So it
was a really good way of introducing and kind of
reminding people that I was offering these subscriptions. Plus they
got this extra bonus. And in addition, it was something
that my audience need and wanted. You know, I wasn't
just creating something for the sake of creating something. It
was it was definitely something that, yeah, that they actually
would get a lot of value out of.
Speaker 3: So I love that, And I just want to reiterate
for our listeners that you did not create a brand
new offer for this that annual subscriptions were already there.
The bonus workshops, you created two out of three of them.
You were creating them anywhere anyway. Yeah, you're creating them regardless.
And then you combined the two together to offer the
bonus the workshop as bonus for the annual subscriptions, and
you offered that in a limited time campaign to your
existing audience. And let's walk a little bit through the process.
So what did the process of implementing the campaign look
like and how did you sell it?
Speaker 4: Did you sell it on social media?
Speaker 3: Emails?
Speaker 4: Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I did it as a limited time bonus
over four days, so from a Friday to a Monday,
I sent four emails. So I sent one email every day,
which is unusual for me. And it's quite interesting looking
through by statistics, I did have.
Speaker 1: Quite a few un subscribes.
Speaker 2: But again, working with you and understanding more, I think
maybe a year ago, I would have thought, oh, no,
everyone's unsubscribing, but understanding that those unsubscribed are people that
were never going to buy from me anyway, you know.
If so, yes, it's always a shame when people unsubscribed.
But yeah, it was fine, and I mean by a few.
There was like six on one day, so it wasn't
a huge n so war it wasn't a huge number.
But I mean, it depends on your audience size, doesn't it.
But over all my audience has grown quite a lot
over the past few months.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so.
Speaker 1: I sent.
Speaker 2: I basically followed the format of the emails that you
provide with conversion campaigns, but I kind of rewrote them
myself with my own brand voice, because I think I've
got quite a distinctive brand voice. And again, I just
like to make things as easy as possible for myself.
So I just thought, I tend to just sort of
write as I think, and it comes across I think
quite natural, and you know, it seems to work quite
well with my audience. So but what was so so
so helpful with the four emails that you set out
with a campaign was to know to have an idea
of like what the what the focus was for each
of the emails, and the structure of the emails just
worked so well. So it started off with introducing the campaign,
and my email was very straightforward, like this is what
I'm going to do over the weekend. You've got you know,
you can have access to the workshop for no extra
cost when you sign up to the subscriptions.
Speaker 1: The second one was old on.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember what the second one was, so
again it kind of followed your the way that you
did it even and then I did use a bit
more of the of the actual template for yours side
started with the words a question I've been on and
then kind of, you know, send an email about that.
The third one, again was really really good. That was
so the second one was overcoming an objection. The third one,
my title for that email was stopped making everything from scratch,
And it was basically a mistake that people are making,
and it's something that I see that people are constantly
trying to.
Speaker 1: Make their own resources. And I'm like, you don't have to.
I've done it all for you, Like, you know, you
don't have to do all this yourself.
Speaker 2: Just use what I've what I've made and then the
last one was just a reminder saying, right, this is
closing at midnight tonight, get your hands on it now.
Speaker 1: Or you know, that's it.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just I really enjoyed doing that as
just a four day thing.
Speaker 1: It felt like no pressure at all.
Speaker 2: As well, I'd already created everything for it, so I
didn't feel any pressure. Was It was great when people,
you know, did take me up on the offer, But
it was a kind of an experiment as much as
you know, thinking oh, I've got to make money at
you know, putting any pressure on myself to make loads
of money over the weekend.
Speaker 3: So and what was the end result of all of
the the small amount of work that you put in
to write the emails and send them for an offer
that you didn't have to create because it was already created.
Was the end result worth it? It was?
Speaker 2: So I sold thirteen over the weekend, And to put
that into context, I just checked my numbers today and
I've sold thirty sixty altogether since I first launched these subscriptions.
Speaker 4: So more than a sixth of that four days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, you know, it was fantastic actually when you
think about it and what it's made me realize is
that giving people a limited time to do stuff, it
just kind of focuses them and makes them actually take action.
I think a lot of these people. I don't feel
like people signed up for these subscriptions who didn't want
them in the first place. I think, you know, I
don't feel like I kind of pushed people into doing
something that they didn't want. I feel like it's people
who would have wanted them anyway, but they thought, oh,
with this bonus, that really makes it worthwhile.
Speaker 3: And this is so I agree with this because there's
a bad I don't know, it gets kind of like
a bad rap in the industry where people are like, oh,
if you've got a deadline, that's high pressure sales. It's
forcing people to buy. And yes, there is definitely manipulative
sales out there where people are like run to the
back of the room or else kind of thing. But
if it's something that they already want, giving them a
deadline to make a decision is just it's really just
encouraging them to stop procrastinating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're already going to decide.
Speaker 3: It's just saying well, yeah, you can make it a
priority to buy it now, rather than saying you're going
to buy it next week and then you forget about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: I think if I'm going to do it again, I
might not do it over a weekend.
Speaker 1: But that's because of my audience. I wouldn't recommend to
other people. You know, other people probably would have even better.
Speaker 2: Results over a weekend. For me, it's because teachers don't
tend to actually buy these subscriptions themselves. They will then
they'll go through their school finance department and then that
can take a bit of time.
Speaker 1: But that was quite interesting for me as well, because quite.
Speaker 2: Often, if I'm running you know, any kind of like
discount or anything like that, I tend to do it
for at least a couple of weeks, just because I
know that it takes the finance apartments a while to
you know, do all the paperwork and everything.
Speaker 1: So that.
Speaker 2: But it's made me think, you know, how I can
run these types of campaigns in the future, and the
timing of them and things like that.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and the first thing that pops into my
mind is I would maybe give them notice and be like, hey,
this time next month, I'm going to start this campaign,
so give finance approval now, But I'm curious. I'm curious
to know, like, how did you show up differently in
this mini launch of four days compared with how you
would show up in those longer launches where you're having
to consistently sell over a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: That's such a great question.
Speaker 2: I think previously I've been a bit more I don't know,
I just more a bit like, oh, yeah, I kind
of got this thing that i'd quite like you to
buy if you don't mind, would that be all right?
Whereas are this I just said, look, this is four days.
I really want you to be able to get your
hands on this offer, you know.
Speaker 1: And I felt a lot more.
Speaker 2: Focused, and like I said, I don't feel like I
was using pushy sales tactics, but I did feel like
I'm showing up for four days and I'm going to
sell you this thing. I really believe that it's a
great offer as well. I think that is so important.
If I didn't believe it was a great offer, then
I probably wouldn't have shown it. But I feel like
I showed up with confidence and you know, like I say,
not pushy, but saying this is a great offer. I
really think that you would benefit from this and showing
them the ways that they would or wouldn't benefit. I mean,
you know, for a lot of my audience, they already
had access to it already anyway, Because so I knew
that the workshops had been really popular over the year anyway,
and I already had a couple of hundred people on
the list to join the workshops, So you know, I
knew that this was something and the feedback I'd got
from the workshops showed me that this was something that
was really great for people.
Speaker 1: So I think I could show up with.
Speaker 2: That confidence and say, you know, I think this is
a really really good thing for you to do. But
because I don't know if it's because I did it
with conversion campaigns or whatever, it almost felt like a
bit of a game. So you know, as I said,
I didn't put a huge amount of pressure on myself
to make loads of money into you know, it didn't
feel like a huge launch that I'd led up to
for months and I'd been strategizing and planning.
Speaker 1: For months on it. I mean, not that I often
do that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that's why as soon as I
saw your podcast Imperfect Action, I was like that appeals
to me because I'm very much like, Oh, I get
an idea and I just think, give it a go.
Speaker 1: See how I.
Speaker 2: Guess on and this, Yeah, this just fits in absolutely
perfectly with how how I do all that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So I'm so glad you said that that you see
it like a game, because that when I designed it,
that was kind of what I had in mind, was
how can we make this into a fun game where
there's no pressure on I have to this has to
succeed at all costs. Because once we start to put
that pressure onto anything in our business, that's when we stop.
That's when we stop showing up really like I don't
even know how to put it like, that's when we
start to show up in ways that don't feel inspired
or creative, and it feels inauthentic to our audience. They
can tell, they can tell that it's coming from like
this place of desperation rather than this place of like,
let me just have some fun with this.
Speaker 4: See what happens.
Speaker 3: Let me test a new offer, let me test a
new bonus, Let me just test and because at the
end of the day, business is such an experiment. We
never know what's going to work. Until we actually put
it out there. We can have all these amazing ideas
and we can plan them, and we can spend all
these time designing beautiful offers, but we're doing that in
a vacuum, and until it gets out there into the world,
we don't know. So I'm so glad you mentioned that.
You also mentioned earlier I want to backtrack a bit,
you said that one of the things you would do
differently was you wouldn't launch it over a weekend. Are
there any other things that, now, looking back at your campaign,
you would do differently next time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I don't think I really gave them any warning.
So you know, as you say, if school finance departments
are involved, I think giving people.
Speaker 1: Maybe a one week one.
Speaker 2: Week notice, I think because I kind of decided to
see it a bit last minute, after one it was
either one of the conversion campaigns calls or Freedom fast
Track call that I was like, right, I've got an idea,
Now I'm going to do this. And because I knew
that the workshop was going to be on a certain date,
I wanted it to do it two weeks before the workshop.
So so yeah, I yeah, So I think that that's
probably something that I would do differently. And actually, my
brain's already ticking overthing because it's summer holidays here in
the UK at the moment, so I'm sort of planning
for September and thinking any campaigns that I launch in September,
I'll definitely need to give them more notice or a
longer campaign period.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 3: And in the whole process of this campaign, what did
you learn about your business, or your audience or yourself, Like,
what were some of the lessons or the takeaways that
you'll take from this and apply to your business going forward.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that.
Speaker 2: Definitely, to show up with that confidence and not to
be scared of saying here's an offer that I've got
and outlining the ways in which it's really helpful for
my audience. I think that the major thing I've learned
from working with you in general is to look at
the transformation. I think before I was thinking, you know,
this is what I'm doing, this is how I'm going
to you know, and I was focusing on me and
the work that I'm doing, Whereas now I very much
think about the audience and the benefits that they'll receiven,
the transformation that they will get from whatever my offers are.
So being able to do a short, sharp campaign using
all of these things that I've learned from working with
you and using the email structure. I did actually basically
use the emails for my social media as well. So
I didn't, you know, I didn't write a whole load
of new social media posts. I kind of tweet them
a bit because make them a bit sure, to make
them make sense of social media. But even learning that,
you know, and thinking oh, I don't have to create
completely different things for social media as I do for
my email list, but actually thinking about my email list
first as well, So not thinking oh what can I
do that's going to look pretty on Instagram, but actually
what can I do for my email list that is
going to give them value and you know, is going
to help them make a decision about whether they want
this offer or not.
Speaker 3: So and had you previously been focusing mainly on social media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I've had an email list for a few years,
and yeah I will.
Speaker 2: I will send them emails whenever I'm trying to sell
them something, but probably not showing up as consistently. I
now have started a newsletter once a week, which I
really love doing. I'm just repurposing. I have my own podcast.
I'm repurposing podcast episodes and social media posts and things.
Speaker 1: Like that for my newsletter. I know, Steph, I've learnt
so much from you.
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of repurposing. What can I say,
I know.
Speaker 2: Exactly Well, yeah, I'm not going to start writing a
whole load of new stuff when I've got all this content.
So so yeah, so looking at my email list in
a different way. For sure, I still use social media
a lot. I still show up on Instagram most days.
But again, I think what I've learned is that Instagram
is a way of connecting with people, moving people to
my email list, and then from my email list, that's
where I can actually really tell them you know, this
is how you can work with me. These are the
things that you can purchase from me. So that's been
quite a change as well. And again, just having the
opportunity to do it in a short campaign is just
such a great way of testing everything and realizing like, yeah,
that really really works. And I know that the conversion
from the emails is so much better than social media.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: So, Kate, what's next for you? What's the next fun thing?
You're going to do in your business.
Speaker 1: Oh, so many.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I've got the problem is, I have
too many ideas all the time. I'm looking to next
academic years. So starting in September twenty four in the
UK and continuing more online workshops. I'm actually running a
couple over the summer holidays again as a bit of
a cash injection.
Speaker 1: So yes, some sort of quick quick workshops that I'm running.
Speaker 2: And yeah, just continuing to help teachers to prepare them
for this change in the GCSE.
Speaker 1: And yeah, all sorts.
Speaker 2: Of exciting things, but still very much focused on helping
languages teachers, maybe internationally, maybe moving internationally.
Speaker 3: I love that, and I know we actually do have
a couple of languages teachers in my audience, because I've
had a few people reached out of the past to
say they've been creating courses on various languages. I don't
know if they're UK based, but we will link to
your website in the show notes as well, so if
they're interested they can go and find out more. They
can connect with you, Kate. This has been a wonderful Chad.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing
your campaign. I know It's going to inspire a lot
of other listeners who are sitting there thinking that they
have to go and create something brand new, or that
every single time they launch something to their list it
has to be this huge, big launch with loads and
loads of lead up, when you can also have smaller
launches along the way.
Speaker 4: So thank you so much for sharing that when.
Speaker 2: Absolutely oh it's been so lowly as a ways to
talk to you, Steff, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Hey, welcome back to Imperfect Action. This is episode eight
hundred and fifty, and today I'm talking with one of
my favorite students, Kate Clifton. She's been a student of
mine in Freedom fast Track for the first half of
this year and now she is a member in Conversion Campaigns,
and today we are breaking down how she generated a
cash injection in her business using the Bonus Strategy campaign
that we had a couple of months ago. It's a
really simple campaign and simple cash injection that you can
use in pretty much any kind of online business to
sell more of an existing office. So you don't actually
have to always go out there and create new offers
to sell more. You can find new ways to sell
your existing offers, which is one of the big things
that I teach inside conversion campaigns, and it's one of
the big things we are talking about in today's episode.
I'm so excited for you to learn from Kate and
learn from what she has done and how she's managed
to do this in her business. So let's jump into
the episode.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: That is it for today's episode. If you haven't already
hit subscribe, make sure you hit the plus button in
Apple Podcasts or the follow button in Spotify and you'll
get each new episode straight to your podcast app every Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday. Thank you so much for listening. Catch you
next time.