In this episode, Tara answers a super common question - when you are testing your offer with a beta or founding member group, how many people do you need? The answer may surprise you (and provide you with confidence).

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Hey, it’s your host, Tara Bryan. And I am on a mission to help more business owners learn to infinitely scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online without sacrificing the customer experience or results. 

I like to geek out on all things business strategy, marketing, interactive digital and user experience. This podcast is all about what is working, lessons learned and actionable tips to create and grow a thriving online business. 

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Mentioned in this episode:

Strategy Call

Tara Bryan: 00:00:00

Hey, everybody, in today's episode, I want to get

Tara Bryan: 00:00:03

just super tactical, and address a question that I get a lot. And

Tara Bryan: 00:00:09

that I've seen a lot out there on the, the out in the various

Tara Bryan: 00:00:17

groups that are out there. And that is like how many people

Tara Bryan: 00:00:21

should you have when you're testing your offer. So we always

Tara Bryan: 00:00:25

recommend that people start with a beta test. And the beta test

Tara Bryan: 00:00:28

is like, so you have identified your business model, you have

Tara Bryan: 00:00:33

created your Santra methodology, right? Like you know exactly

Tara Bryan: 00:00:36

what your process is, from taking somebody from point A to

Tara Bryan: 00:00:40

point B, right? Like you have your steps, you have your

Tara Bryan: 00:00:43

signature methodology, you have your IP, you're ready to go.

Tara Bryan: 00:00:47

You've created a signature offer, you know exactly how you

Tara Bryan: 00:00:50

want to deliver this, your signature methodology, how do

Tara Bryan: 00:00:54

you want to show up? Which delivery method are you going to

Tara Bryan: 00:00:56

be using, right? Like you've got all those things done? Now it's

Tara Bryan: 00:00:59

time to test your offer. Just like if you were say, you were

Tara Bryan: 00:01:03

building, or designing like a new pen, for example, right?

Tara Bryan: 00:01:08

Like, this is a fancy pants new pen that you are going to put

Tara Bryan: 00:01:11

out into market, you wouldn't just go and produce 10,000 units

Tara Bryan: 00:01:17

of this pen, right? Without like putting it in front of people to

Tara Bryan: 00:01:20

be like, Would you buy this pen? And would you buy this pen at

Tara Bryan: 00:01:23

this price point? Like, you wouldn't do that, right? Because

Tara Bryan: 00:01:27

it's so expensive to produce something. And to ship and to

Tara Bryan: 00:01:31

get all of that inventory. Without even knowing whether or

Tara Bryan: 00:01:36

not they're going to sell. And so it's the same concept when

Tara Bryan: 00:01:39

you're building a new program or product. Or, or, or experience

Tara Bryan: 00:01:46

that you're putting out there for people is that you need to

Tara Bryan: 00:01:48

test your offer you need to test, you know, is this

Tara Bryan: 00:01:52

something that is needed in the marketplace? Will they will your

Tara Bryan: 00:01:56

people pay for it? Can you find people? And then once you found

Tara Bryan: 00:02:00

them, once you've pre sold your offer, then can you deliver it,

Tara Bryan: 00:02:04

can you give them an experience that that gets them to the

Tara Bryan: 00:02:09

result that you've promised. Now, that is all done in a beta

Tara Bryan: 00:02:14

test. So that is the very first thing that we do, you don't

Tara Bryan: 00:02:17

actually go out and create all of your things, all your videos,

Tara Bryan: 00:02:20

all your assets, all your things and then sell it, you actually

Tara Bryan: 00:02:24

are co creating it with your beta group. So it's an super

Tara Bryan: 00:02:29

important piece of the puzzle is that you, you start by testing

Tara Bryan: 00:02:35

your offer. So that's the first thing. The second thing is like

Tara Bryan: 00:02:40

how many people need to be in that, like, Is this the time

Tara Bryan: 00:02:44

where we need to do ads, and we need to find tons of new people

Tara Bryan: 00:02:48

that we don't know yet. And put them into this launch. Because

Tara Bryan: 00:02:52

we've heard that, you know, people are doing $50,000

Tara Bryan: 00:02:57

launches, $100,000 launches, $250,000 launches, right? Like,

Tara Bryan: 00:03:02

we've heard all these people like you launch and all these

Tara Bryan: 00:03:05

people are gonna buy your thing, and you're gonna have this big

Tara Bryan: 00:03:08

influx of cash, and it's gonna be awesome. And let me tell you,

Tara Bryan: 00:03:13

the reality is, is that when you're doing your beta, it's not

Tara Bryan: 00:03:17

a money play, right? Like, if you have a huge audience of

Tara Bryan: 00:03:20

people already who who are asking for something new. Sure,

Tara Bryan: 00:03:24

this would be a great opportunity to put a new offer

Tara Bryan: 00:03:27

in front of your people and have them pay for it, you may have a

Tara Bryan: 00:03:32

huge lunch. For the majority of people who are getting started,

Tara Bryan: 00:03:36

you don't have an audience of people who are just waiting for

Tara Bryan: 00:03:40

you to launch something, if you do, congratulations, go for it.

Tara Bryan: 00:03:45

But for those of us who don't have that huge following

Tara Bryan: 00:03:50

already, you need to be realistic in terms of what your

Tara Bryan: 00:03:54

beta is for. And your beta is to test your offer and to test your

Tara Bryan: 00:03:58

ability to get somebody a result. So here's what I always

Tara Bryan: 00:04:02

say is the number of people that you need to have in your beta is

Tara Bryan: 00:04:06

the number of people who are going to give you really good

Tara Bryan: 00:04:10

feedback. This could be five, this could be 10. And, you know,

Tara Bryan: 00:04:17

could be a lot more could be a lot less. But usually you just

Tara Bryan: 00:04:20

need like five people who are going to give you awesome

Tara Bryan: 00:04:25

feedback so that you can iterate and do the next version. And you

Tara Bryan: 00:04:31

get enough seed money so that you have you have people who are

Tara Bryan: 00:04:37

who are you have the ability to be able to deliver that right

Tara Bryan: 00:04:41

like if you're running an agency, you're busy. And so this

Tara Bryan: 00:04:45

allows you to get that a little bit of money. So that your time

Tara Bryan: 00:04:51

is, is being taken care of. And it also gives you super great

Tara Bryan: 00:04:57

feedback and testimonials. To start building the momentum for

Tara Bryan: 00:05:02

your next launch, and your launch after that, and your

Tara Bryan: 00:05:05

launch after that. And so when people ask that question, I

Tara Bryan: 00:05:10

always say, not as many people as you think, right, like, don't

Tara Bryan: 00:05:13

stress out about how many people you put in there, you can find

Tara Bryan: 00:05:17

five people right now, probably who are interested in what you

Tara Bryan: 00:05:21

have to offer. And that is your testing all the way through with

Tara Bryan: 00:05:26

those five people. If you have more than that, that's awesome.

Tara Bryan: 00:05:32

But with five people, if you're charging, when we usually

Tara Bryan: 00:05:36

recommend about two or $3,000 per program, because you're

Tara Bryan: 00:05:42

actually delivering results, right, which is a whole nother

Tara Bryan: 00:05:48

conversation. But in general, when we're talking about price

Tara Bryan: 00:05:51

points, usually about two or three grand. So if you have five

Tara Bryan: 00:05:53

people, then you're talking about 10 to $15,000, for your

Tara Bryan: 00:05:58

seed launch, that would be in a reasonable amount of investment

Tara Bryan: 00:06:05

for you to get started in your business, you don't really need

Tara Bryan: 00:06:09

more than that at this moment in time. And so again, all this is

Tara Bryan: 00:06:15

is to test your offer to test your framework to test your,

Tara Bryan: 00:06:21

your ability to help people get results. And, and so if this

Tara Bryan: 00:06:26

helps you, I really want to encourage you to not stress out

Tara Bryan: 00:06:33

about how many people you have in your beta, you can have less

Tara Bryan: 00:06:38

than five, usually you want to have more than one, right?

Tara Bryan: 00:06:42

Because we're going from one to one to one to many. And so, you

Tara Bryan: 00:06:46

know, three to five is totally fine, if that's all you can

Tara Bryan: 00:06:50

find. But I would challenge you to think about like, what are

Tara Bryan: 00:06:54

the things that need to happen for you to get at least five

Tara Bryan: 00:06:57

people, right, maybe you're not visible, and nobody knows that

Tara Bryan: 00:07:01

this is something that you do, maybe your price point is off,

Tara Bryan: 00:07:04

maybe your your, your messaging needs to be honed in a little

Tara Bryan: 00:07:09

bit. So this beta is not just about teaching your methodology,

Tara Bryan: 00:07:15

or getting people into your program, however you want to

Tara Bryan: 00:07:18

think about it, it's also like, is the whole process, something

Tara Bryan: 00:07:25

that that is that is going to work, right? Like if people

Tara Bryan: 00:07:30

aren't buying, there's something wrong with the offer. If if,

Tara Bryan: 00:07:35

right or the messaging or you know, whatever else that's going

Tara Bryan: 00:07:38

on on the front end, before they actually purchase, once they

Tara Bryan: 00:07:41

purchase that it's your opportunity to get them a

Tara Bryan: 00:07:43

result. And so you're you're testing the entire process. I

Tara Bryan: 00:07:47

think that's the other thing that people don't newer people

Tara Bryan: 00:07:52

don't really necessarily understand is that you very

Tara Bryan: 00:07:56

rarely, if you're starting for the very first time, or you're

Tara Bryan: 00:07:59

doing something brand new, can you just like lob it over the

Tara Bryan: 00:08:03

fence and be like, Okay, everybody try my thing, and get,

Tara Bryan: 00:08:07

you know, the masses to come in and buy whatever it is that you

Tara Bryan: 00:08:12

have to offer. Without doing that front

Tara Bryan: 00:08:15

end work, right. Like I said, if you have a big audience, and

Tara Bryan: 00:08:18

they're just waiting for you to put out an offer, that is an

Tara Bryan: 00:08:21

amazing place to be. But if you don't have that, you have to

Tara Bryan: 00:08:25

build a little bit of that at the beginning, so that people

Tara Bryan: 00:08:29

are ready to go. And again, like there are tons of different

Tara Bryan: 00:08:33

strategies for that we talk a lot about that and learn

Tara Bryan: 00:08:36

Academy. But that is a key component. So the answer to the

Tara Bryan: 00:08:42

question, just to reiterate, is you only need the amount of

Tara Bryan: 00:08:47

people who are going to give you super solid feedback on the

Tara Bryan: 00:08:50

entire process. And so this is not a money play at this point.

Tara Bryan: 00:08:55

This is not like how big could the launch be? This is literally

Tara Bryan: 00:08:58

to get you in the game and get you some practice and some some

Tara Bryan: 00:09:03

market feedback, right? Like if I'm if I'm producing a pen, and

Tara Bryan: 00:09:07

I'm asking people, I'm going to do a test group. And I'd be

Tara Bryan: 00:09:10

like, how do you feel about this pen? Would you buy this pen?

Tara Bryan: 00:09:13

What if there were 50? Pens? You know, in the aisle, would you

Tara Bryan: 00:09:18

buy this pen? Why would you buy this pen? Why would you not buy

Tara Bryan: 00:09:21

this pen? What about the price point? What about this? How does

Tara Bryan: 00:09:24

how does it feel like all the things you're going to do all of

Tara Bryan: 00:09:27

that before you go and and produce 10,000 units of this

Tara Bryan: 00:09:33

pen? Very same concept. So hopefully this serves you so if

Tara Bryan: 00:09:38

that's a question that's like rattling around in your mind for

Tara Bryan: 00:09:40

your founders group or your beta group, then don't stress right

Tara Bryan: 00:09:44

like this is a test process. You may have to reiterate or, or

Tara Bryan: 00:09:51

redo your offer a number of different times, or your landing

Tara Bryan: 00:09:56

page or your sales page or your offer page. Like, you may have

Tara Bryan: 00:10:01

to play around with that for a while before you get five people

Tara Bryan: 00:10:05

in your beta. And so keep going, don't give up. But just know

Tara Bryan: 00:10:12

that you don't have to have a $500,000 lunch on day one. In

Tara Bryan: 00:10:18

fact, you don't want that, right? Because what happens is,

Tara Bryan: 00:10:21

if you have all of those people, and you are just testing your

Tara Bryan: 00:10:24

offer, you're gonna be overwhelmed. You're gonna have

Tara Bryan: 00:10:27

tons of people who are either not paying attention, or who are

Tara Bryan: 00:10:31

super needy, who need all the things and you don't have it

Tara Bryan: 00:10:34

ready and done yet. Right. And so, it's more manageable to have

Tara Bryan: 00:10:39

a smaller group. It's, it's, they're more forgiving in terms

Tara Bryan: 00:10:44

of, you know, you being able to just keep testing and iterating

Tara Bryan: 00:10:48

as you go. Alright, there you go. Hopefully this serves you

Tara Bryan: 00:10:52

today. If you love this episode, I would love for you to give it

Tara Bryan: 00:10:56

a rating give it give it some feedback, so we can continue to

Tara Bryan: 00:11:00

grow this channel. Until next time, test out that beta