Unless you've been living in isolation, you've undoubtedly observed the deluge of Black Friday deals inundating the online sphere this season. Perhaps you've even contemplated what separates a smashing success from a disappointing flop in this chaotic retail frenzy.

In this episode, Melissa possesses the key to this enigma. She's here to unveil her three foolproof strategies for crafting an unbeatable Black Friday special. And let's make it clear: none of these strategies involve haphazardly assembling a lackluster deal at the eleventh hour. The crucial secret you'll uncover is that establishing a strong community foundation is the most vital initial step.

If you're keen to create an irresistible Black Friday special that will dominate in 2023, then this episode is an absolute must-listen.

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Black Friday
• buyer psychology
• building community
• value creation
• free community
• paid communities
• nurture your audience
• networking events
• brand awareness
• free value
• email marketing
• consistency
• business growth strategy
• online business
• online marketing
• social media marketing

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Melissa:

So here's the deal. Let me ask you. How would you like to be able to take Black Friday off and literally be off cutting down Christmas trees in the mountains and passively make $50,000 in your bank account. This is not a pipe dream. This is a reality. It actually just happened in our business, and we actually just did a total of 75,000 total in sales in less than 2 weeks with our Black Friday promotion between launches, you know, in between all the things. And, you know, I just wanna ask a rhetorical question. Who would be interested in being able to set up a business that allows you to do something like that.

Melissa:

Right? Here's the thing. We've never participated in a Black Friday special before ever. And this year, I actually had the foresight a couple of weeks or months in advance. Actually, it came to me a month and a half ago that we needed to jump on the bandwagon with the rest of the universe to run a Black Friday special. Now here's the thing I wanna point out before we get into this. I am not one that believes in discounting your services and products consistently on a consistent basis. I think it devalues your programs. However, what I am a fan of is jumping on the marketing bandwagon and psychology of sales and psychology of people's spending habits when it comes to Black Friday.

Melissa:

Because here's the thing. People have their credit cards in hand, and they're already in the psychology of spending that week, those couple of days, and people are more willing to spend. All of us are on the Internet looking for a deal. So if there's one day of the year that you wanna be able to leverage the psychology of the consumer to spend and ride that wave with the rest of businesses in the world, you wanna run a Black Friday special. Now here's the thing. Yes, it was a beautiful thing to be headed up to the mountains, spend time with my family, check-in on Saturday morning and see that we had this onslaught of sales throughout the day and overnight while we were spending time with family, passively just coming in. But here's the thing. You all know that that's not where the story ends.

Melissa:

Right? The story starts way in advance. The story starts with way prior to the actual sales happening, right, that seem appearingly easy, but the story doesn't end there. Right? So we're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about that. And, actually, the title of this podcast episode is actually building your community before building your bank account, building your community before building your bank account. So why do I say that? Because we have to have community in an audience to sell to. Right? How many of you guys have seen, I saw it this year, I see it all the time, people just slap together crappy offers, throw them out there for Black Friday, Cyber Monday just to join on the bandwagon, but they haven't earned the right to sell. They haven't actually built community and credibility in order to sell.

Melissa:

Right? So this is kind of a rhetorical question for some of my entrepreneurs who are listening to this who maybe ran a Black Friday or a Cyber Monday special that didn't go so well, this episode is for you. This episode is also for you if you're looking for ways to leverage in the next year how to actually maximize and plan in advance for these types of times where you can actually leverage and create passive income for yourself. Okay? So here's the thing. Rome was not built in a day. I'm gonna say that one more time. Rome was not built in a day. Yes. We did $75,000 in sales in less than 2 weeks, fifty of which happened in less than 24 hours, but we earned the right to make those sales.

Melissa:

And I wanna underscore that. We earned the right to make those sales to our community because they trusted. They trusted us. They valued us, and we're excited to invest. Okay? So I'm gonna talk to you guys today. I'm gonna give you some key tips and tricks on how you can build community before you build your bank account so that when you build community, you then can monetize and build your bank account through providing incredible value. Right? So why do you think influencers get paid by so many different companies to promote their products. I want you guys to think about that.

Melissa:

Why do you think they get paid by companies to promote products? I want you think about and I'm not saying any of us have to be influencers. Lord knows I am not. Right? We don't have to be influencers, but they're a great case study for building community and brand. Right? Influencers get paid by companies to sell their stuff and talk about it online because they have a following. They have built community. They have people who love and trust what they put out. Right, they have earned the right so that when they say to their followers, I love this product, you should try it. People buy it.

Melissa:

Melissa:

So if you're listening to this podcast while you're driving, later on the replay, you might wanna write this down later. But for those of you that are live. I want you to write this down. You only need a 1,000 loyal fans to make $1,000,000. Okay? I think about the profit in our business in the 1st 2 years. And, originally, we really built it inside of a Facebook community. The first, you know, multiple 6 figure launch we did only had 350 people in the community. Right? So you just have to have the right audience and the right avid fans.

Melissa:

Right? You just have to have the right audience. You don't have to be an influencer with a 100,000 followers. If you guys go look at me in any of my social media handles, I don't have tens of thousands of followers. You don't have to have tens of thousands of followers. What makes my business and brand successful is the value we put out and the credibility we put out in the community we create for the focused, narrowed community and followers that we do have. Right? So I hope you're hearing me loud and clear that you don't need tens of thousands of followers. You need a 1,000 avid fans the scale $1,000,000 a year business. That's all you need from those 1,000 people.

Melissa:

Melissa:

People are much more likely to invest with someone that they find a connection with, that they trust and that they have found tremendous value from. So if we're not focused on building trust and value on the Internet, it's gonna be really hard to throw out a Cyber Monday or a Black Friday sale and reap the benefits of revenue because you haven't earned the right to sell. There's no familiarity. There's no trust. Right? Okay. So here are my 3 tips. Okay? Number 1, build community and authority so that when you sell something, people buy. So what do I mean by that? I'm gonna give you some examples in how you can create community today.

Melissa:

We have to build community before we build our bank account. Okay? There are different ways that you can create community. I'll share with you some of the ways that we do. 1 is, hands down, you must create a free community. Otherwise, how are people ever going to know what your vibe is, what you're about, in what you have to offer. Right? I really take pride in the communities we've created with my burnout to all out brand. Now one of the ways that we create free community in my business is through free trainings. Many of you who listen to my podcast today and are listening to me live or watch this replay have been a part of my free community.

Melissa:

A couple of times a year, I run totally free master classes where we very quickly warm up to our audience and create instant community and connection with our audience that become life long followers because of the totally free values based knowledge and education that we give to our audience with no strings attached. Of course, we're gonna pitch them into our paid programs, but it doesn't hold us back from providing ridiculous value from day 1, because we are instantly creating credibility, we are instantly creating value. We are instantly sucking people into our ethos where we can then nurture them lifelong inside of our community in a number of different modalities, and we'll get into that in a minute, whether it's through SMS, whether it's through email, whether it's through a Facebook community or a different group on Slack or Telegram, you know, whatever your channel may be for creating and crowdsourcing communities. So one way you can start creating community today is through just offering some free group trainings in whatever it is that you have to offer. Right? Then they can get a taste and flavor for your style, your culture. If you've got people who work with you, they can really meet everyone. Right? Number 2 is our paid communities. Right? So we don't just have people register and purchase, you know, on demand courses.

Melissa:

We don't have any of that in our business. In all of our paid communities, whether it's in our academy, whether it's in our mini mastermind for business basics, whether it's in our full blown mastermind, there is live interactive networking and community build that happens, and we do that purposefully. Right, so people aren't just dumped into a course. There's live coaching and interaction and providing a total vibe within the community. Right? So my mission is going from burnout to living all out. We really foster that vibe inside of our communities. Right? Ask yourself if you're currently creating programs, if you've got coursework, even if you've got free opt ins and people are reaching out and touching you in some aspect, how can you take that touch and funnel it into a formal community to create nurture, a retainer where you can keep in touch with your people. Right, it could be once they've opted in.

Melissa:

Melissa:

Right? And then we're gonna break out into small groups for networking. Again, I want you guys to hear some of you may be listening to this and you're like, wow, that's a lot of work that you're not getting paid for. Right? I know some of you guys are thinking that. Guys, this is the name of the game. This is the name of the game in the digital space. How can people get to know you virtually across the planet? How can they get close enough to you? How can they get close enough to your community and get into your ethos and become comfortable and familiar with you? Right, and become obsessed with the content you put out, obsessed with the community you've created, and start to lay the foundations of trust end rapport. What I see so often is newer entrepreneurs in the digital space, they spend, you know, a year in all their time working on an offer, a product, or service, and then just wanna come to market and try to sell shit on the Internet without creating brand awareness and community. And if you are one of those people who's kind of new and building out a new offer, building out a new service, I really encourage you to consider that not only do you need to be building out what you're selling, you need to be building out community that you are serving for free right now.

Melissa:

Right? Does this make sense? I hope this is resonating with you guys. So I have totally free networking events. You may have a totally free Facebook community that you go live in. Look at me right now. I am for those of you that are watching me, I am streaming live on multiple platforms, giving you free tips and tricks on how to build your community before your bank account and leverage on the output an incredible passive income for a Cyber Monday or Black Friday. And believe me, I'm gonna tie it all in a bow here in a couple of minutes and how this all comes together and comes to fruition. Right? So where can you be providing value and creating community and authority today? Right? Maybe you use a Slack channel. For those of you that maybe have an on demand course, I want you to think about I know that's really easy to manage and super easy passive income.

Melissa:

The problem with courses with no human connection is you've lost the lifelong opportunity with a client or customer by not creating some type of internal community for all these types of people who've invested in the same thing. So even if you have a evergreen course, even if you have an on demand, you name it, even if you have x y z product that people are purchasing, how can you create a retainer, meaning a place for all those people who've purchased? How can you create and foster community amongst all of them, to network, to collaborate, to learn. How can you bring value? Because that creates community. Right, it creates community. We must do what? Build community before we build our bank account. Okay. So that's a little bit of community building, but the other thing around, you know, building community and authority is authority. Right? What are you doing on the Internet and through other modalities to create authority in your field? Okay? So if we're talking about social media, how are you creating brand awareness as an authority in your space? Right? How are you acknowledging that you understand your ideal client's problems better than anyone else? How are you making it a conscious effort to speak to them on the Internet so that they feel like they relate to you.

Melissa:

Right? But also creating brand awareness through creating totally free value in your feed, totally free value as the authority so that you are recognized, so that the moment you say, hey. I'm running a Black Friday special on x y z, you have an onslaught of a community who's vested, knows, loves, and trusts you, and is in the psychology of spending right now because it's Black Friday, that is when the magic starts to happen, because you've earned the right. Right? You've earned the right. Okay? Now another great authority build, it doesn't have to be social media, it can be SMS. A great way to start building community is through text sequence. You can have people opt in to something that then you give value back to on a daily or weekly basis. So for instance, we have a text opt in. I'll throw it out there.

Melissa:

Melissa:

It's all free. And most people skip that free stat because they just want the sale. But you're skipping the right to earn the sale in the 1st place. Right, because people don't invest in cold leads, cold sales. They invest in people they trust and love. You must build community before you build your bank account. Right? Another way to build community is through your email nurture. So if you have a great little opt in that people can opt into that allows you to capture their email address, now they're folded into your community and your ethos.

Melissa:

It is your turn to start focusing on kicking out value to them, authority to them into their inbox. Okay? Now what I wanna underscore here is I don't want this to overwhelm you all because you may be like, oh my gosh. Social media SMS and email nurture, that is a lot. It's actually not. If you follow my business closely, they're all the same. They're all the same. So what I mean by that is everything we promote on each platform comes through everything. So we we push out a podcast every week.

Melissa:

Wouldn't you know that once a week, that podcast is featured on social media? The copy from the promotion of that podcast on social media is also folded into an email sequence, and it's also included in SMS. Tips and tricks through text that come from the podcast series. So what I want you to understand is it just becomes omnichannel. Right? You create the value once, and then you're just putting it out to multiple platforms. You don't have to create new things for everything. Right? But you see how you can create a sense of community with the same content through different avenues, because some people stay close to their phone. I can bring you value on your phone. Some people, you wanna stay close to through their inbox because they check their email more than they're ever on social media.

Melissa:

Some of you have followers who love being in Facebook groups. Right? So you have to know where you need to be to be seen and provide value over and over and over again, which brings me to topic number 2. So I said I was gonna bring you 3 tricks. The first trick was build community and authority. Okay? The second trick is now you must be consistent in what you're doing. So to be a 1 hit wonder and throw some value out once is not going to do it. Consistency wins. Okay, I don't just run 1 networking event a year, I run them quarterly.

Melissa:

What happens? People start to look forward to them. They find value in them. It's a snowball effect of more and more and more people showing up because I'm consistent. Same with our social. Right? The more value I put in, the more people come to my feed for content that brings value to them. Right? And the reality is only 1% of your network on any given day seize the content you put out and is psychologically in a space to invest. So I want you to think about that when you're thinking about your social media presence. If you're scattered and you're not consistent about your authority and your brand and your value and community, you're obsolete.

Melissa:

I want you to understand that this aspect of business is priceless. Like, you can't not do it if you're a digital CEO. You can't scale a business on the Internet without providing consistent value and authority and community. Okay, you must be consistent. Right? Loyal fans invest in you because you've earned the right. They invest in you because they trust you. Okay? You've earned the right. So the reason I'm really belaboring this is because even my mind even exploded as I'm up in the mountains on Friday, because we've never done a site.

Melissa:

Listen. I'm sharing with you guys as I'm learning as an entrepreneur. I just told you at the beginning of this, I'd never done I've never created a sale for any of my programs ever, ever. So I'm beta testing things. And I wanna tell you it was my own personal experience of being on vacation and having set everything up prior, and we'll talk about that in a minute. That's number 3 is the planning of the actual promotion. But I'd never done this before. And I go away with my family for the holidays.

Melissa:

We are literally up on a mountain cutting trees. I didn't even bring my work computer. And Black Friday happens. The magic happens because we set it all up to go out, and I'll talk about that in a minute. Saturday morning, Jackie, my operations director, shoots me a text. She's like, holy shit. We've done, like, 50 k in sales in 24 hours with this Black Friday promotion. Right? And that is when the light bulb went off to me that I was like, I have to do a podcast on this, because I was full of so much immense gratitude, first of all, that so many people entrusted in us and the services and the products that we provide, that 27 people said yes in 24 hours to opt in to learn from us, to be mentored by us.

Melissa:

And I can guarantee you not a single one of those 27 people were strangers in my feed that had never seen me before. I can guarantee you, none of them randomly saw a social media post for the very first time from me and said, that's what I need. I'm gonna give this stranger my money. Okay? And so the reason I'm sharing this with you is because I was overwhelmed. I could, like, cry about it. I was overwhelmed with immense gratitude that within 24 hours, that many people could say yes to something without us doing a lot, without us selling it while I was with my family, snuggled in a bed in the mountains that this happened. Right? And the reason I'm sharing this is because on the outside looking in, one could say, wow. How lucky is she? How lucky is that team that they did 50 k in one day while they were on vacation, which by the way, Jackie was checking it.

Melissa:

So I wouldn't say she was technically on vacation that Friday, but I was. Right? How did that happen? We earned the right. I want this to resonate with you guys. We earned the right to sell and have a flash promotion that people jumped for. Okay? Now this brings me to number 3, is planning the promotion and doing it right. Okay? So there's a number of things you need to think about. One of the things we assessed was, okay, if we're gonna do a Black Friday special, let's time it around something that we're looking to fill a class for next year and something that our clients are really desiring and the timing is right to put it out that has tremendous value. Okay? So that was number 1.

Melissa:

For us specifically, we are really looking at our business basics accelerator mini mastermind. We do a number of what we call launches throughout the year to promote our flagship program, the academy. And we had discussed how can we do a soft launch for our business basics, meaning, you know, not killing ourselves as a team to promote and sell it, how can we soft launch it to our warm market and fill the class for next year without out doing a hard launch over the holidays. Right? So the first thing is, how can you be strategic about, a, what your followers want and need, be what's aligned to what you wanna roll out in your business. Right? And so for us, it was the business basics Accelerator, the mini mastermind. And then the thing you need to think about is, how do I make it irresistible? How do I make it irresistible? For us, because we'd never done it before, we thought, let's make it absolutely irresistible. We're gonna make it 50% off. Because we decided as a team, it was worth an effort to make it an irresistible offer to passively fill it than it was to charge full price and do a large launch selling and promoting it over a number of weeks to months.

Melissa:

Now this is where you have to look in as a business owner at your own books and your own numbers and make sure you're not putting an offer out there that's gonna put you in the red. Right? And I'll tell you right now in retrospect, I'm always honest with you guys sharing with you, like, our experiences. Next year, we won't do 50% off. It sold out so fast, we filled our entire class up in 24 hours, that next year we'll probably do a 30% off and not a 50% off. And I'll also, in full disclosure, say it's the only sell we'll ever run because I don't believe in constantly slashing prices on programs. But I do believe, just like the rest of the world, that we can be strategic business owners and ride the wave of people's money mentality and psychology during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And that was one of my messages to my audience was, look. You're on the Internet investing and looking for deals for Christmas presents for everyone else.

Melissa:

What are your thoughts on what you're investing in for yourself and your business next year while you have your credit card out and you're buying all this junk for everybody else. Do you really need that other pair of stockings, those leggings, that jacket? Right? We end up buying crap for ourselves that we don't need either during Cyber Monday and Black Friday. And so, again, I think it's about making it an irresistible offer, making it timing it with something that makes sense in your business. And then the last thing I wanna say on this is planned in advance. So a lot of folks knee jerk, like, the week of Black Friday or like, oh, shit. I need a Black Friday offer. So I throw it out there. And then you're disappointed that nobody buys it.

Melissa:

We got very strategic a month before Black Friday and actually worked with my team and build out an incredible email sequence to prep our audience that it was coming. We actually put it into SMS to tell them it was coming, to look out for it. Right? Because, again, we know that only a small percentage of your audience is looking at social media on any given day and is ready to invest. So it's the one time a year we were a little bit obnoxious. If you're on my SMS or you're on in my email, you might have been like, okay, enough notifications, Melissa. Right? But what it does is it frames your audience to be ready to invest, lets them know it's coming so that it's not a surprise. What I have to, like, say about this is it's not just about the offer. Right, it's not just about the community, which are both very important, we just talked about all that, but it's also about your planning and how strategic you're being in putting it out there.

Melissa:

We also have affiliates in our program. We had a small little call with them for 30 minutes, 2 weeks before the Black Friday special. And we said, look. This is what we're rolling out. Here are your affiliate links. Be sure to inform your network the day that we have this special. Right? So it was about being a strategic CEO in executing an incredible offer. Okay? Let me recap for you.

Melissa:

So the results, we closed out our business basics accelerator for next year. We're done. We're full. Right? I want to underscore, though, that what seemingly seems like I just let the world know on Friday, we're doing this thing. Oh, we're closed out. We made $50. We're done. That's what it looked like on the surface.

Melissa:

But underneath, I've spent years creating value. I've spent years creating community. I've spent years nurturing and creating trust, And with that, you earn the right when you build community first and serve first give value first, your bank account will grow. Right? So let me recap for you. Be prepared. Don't put together a shitty offer because the rest of the world is. Promote something that's aligned to your business and aligned to what you need to launch and aligned to what your clients need. Know what your community values.

Melissa:

Grow your community. Nurture your community. Be consistent. Be consistent. Now the last thing I will say on this is be prepared for naysayers if you're gonna do this. It is the 1st time we've ever had a Black Friday special or a sale at all. And out of the hundreds of people who've come through our programs, I will say I got 2 nasty messages from people in my program who, like, wanted to rip my head off for making an offer, a discounted offer. And to them, I actually had empathy for them or sympathy in their mindset.

Melissa:

Because in my mind, and this is where you have to stand in your power as a business owner. You run your business. You have the authority to run it the way you want to. In my mind, I was giving a gift to my community. For 24 hours, I was paving it forward and allowing an opportunity for more people to come in than ever before. But you're going to have the scarcity mindseted occasional client who's not gonna be happy with your decision. And so I want you to be prepared for that and be able to come back with an abundance mindset that I'm sorry that you see it this way. Right? To me, it was an incredible opportunity to give back.

Melissa:

Melissa:

You've gotta opt in through LinkedIn. Gotta type in the LinkedIn. Once you're into our text sequence, let us know. Once you're in, text us back with your email and say, hey. This is so and so. Let us know who you are. We check your messages every day. Let us know.

Melissa:

I wanna see your Black Friday email nurture, and we'll send it to you. We'll send it to you. Do you see what I just did? I just offered you guys value. And for those of you who would find tremendous value in that, you're gonna take the time to text us, and it's gonna be symbiotic. We now are gonna fold you into our nurture sequence where we can nurture you more than just through this podcast and create more value for you, and you're gonna get value back in this email sequence that you wanna see and leverage for your own business as you prepare air for next year. Right? Okay. I hope you guys found this helpful. And with that, I'll see you with my next episode for the burnout to all out podcast.