What if you left behind what you used to do and went ALL IN to create the product, service, or offering that felt like your most important work to do?
What if you applied your 100% focus to that new endeavor and let the cards fall where they may?
What then?
These are the questions I have considered most of 2018 as I did exactly that.
After spending years creating a platform as the Bye Bye Boring Bio expert and Get Known Get Paid Mentor, I set it aside to put my focus almost exclusively on Life Goes on Roadmap™ in January of this year.
Life Goes on Roadmap™ is a system for personal financial information organization that I felt called to co-create with my husband Steve to meet a very important need. I wanted power, access and control over our most important financial information and documents in case something should happen to him. I also wanted to have the peace of mind that I could drive my life forward with confidence if it should come to that.
Once we got my own needs met in this regard, it occurred to us that families everywhere could benefit from what we created. We decided to go ALL IN and offer our ‘experience product’ for sale online.
Decisions We Made Early On
- Operate as a lean start up and fund every initiative from cash flow.
- Measure success by lessons learned and progress made, in addition to sales.
- Earn social proof of the product and media credibility through the power of publicity and outstanding virtual training delivery.
- Make it easy for potential clients and licensees to find us in a Google search, even as a new offering.
- Forgo a fancy website in favor of a simple opt in page and a sales letter for consumer sales that promises powerful benefits.
- Focus on three niches: consumers – Prime Timers in particular, financial advisors, and real estate professionals.
- Have a presence at two of the most relevant industry conferences that serve fee only financial advisors and seek out connection opportunities with real estate professionals, starting with people we already know.
- Create special web pages to serve financial advisors and real estate/mortgage professionals to answer their questions and showcase the benefits of licensing our system as their own.
January:
- We got a bright idea that inspired us to create a new ‘experience product’ quickly.
- We had zero ezine subscribers.
- We had zero endorsements from people of influence.
- We had zero sales.
April, June and October
- We hosted three Life Goes on Roadmap™ Virtual Road Trips for clients after promoting them by webinar, BeLive.TV broadcast, social media, and ezine. Our aim was to earn proof of concept and feedback to make our product and delivery even better, while testing various price points to determine which resonated most with buyers based on their purchase decisions.
July
- We decided to offer our product to financial advisors to license and brand as their own as a means to
touching more lives and making a bigger impact.
November
- Life Goes on Roadmap™ has sold and served 140 families around the world to rave reviews.
- We’ve earned 3152 opt in subscribers — thanks to creating a Facebook ad that has converted consistently. The list grows every day, and the Facebook ad has been shared 161+ times and invited 65+ comments so far.
- Our product has earned endorsements from influential industry experts and groups, including Sheryl Garrett, NAPFA, and video bloggers to prime timers in Canada and Australia so far.
- Our product has been approved for use by the compliance departments for LPL, GIA, and others, opening the door for thousands more to easily sign on.
- We are proud that 11 licensees from across the USA with one in Canada have branded our system as their own to support their clients in getting their acts together.
- Families have become “I’m Ready for Anything Road Trippers” who are ready for whatever life serves up next, and they sing the product’s praises on social media, to their friends and family, and even produce YouTube videos to share the value.
- We’ve refined our message as we’ve talked to thousands of people by webinar, teleclass, private and public Facebook messages, BeLive.TV video and more.
- We’ve refined our fulfillment systems to be simpler and more efficient.
- We’ve welcomed five figures in sales so far, and new licensees and consumers come on board every week.
- We’ve funded our progress 100% from cash flow.
Resources that have Supported Our Progress
- Chris Flett – Ghost CEO – business coaching on the licensing piece in particular
- An amazing virtual assistant – Jacki Opferman
- A talented graphic designer – Victoria Vinton
- Facebook Faucet Training – Tammy Lane
- 123rf – royalty free images for Facebook Advertising
- Copy coaching with Nancy Tierney of Firecracker Communications
- Web page design – Tina Walker of Delegation Divas
- Our fulfillment house – Vervante
- 1 Shopping Cart – online sales processing
- LeadPages — easy to create opt in pages that convert
- Every online course, coaching engagement, webinar, or event I’ve attended since 2010 has played a role to acquire the know how and confidence to execute on every initiative.
Lessons Learned So Far
- Focus matters. It’s possible to make bold progress on an inspired initiative when you declare it to be your top priority and let everything else be a distraction.
- Think bigger from the start. Aim high right out of the gate. We’ve been focusing on earning credibility and compliance approval among credible associations and organizations that serve hundreds or thousands of financial advisors. While it has been a slow and steady effort, we’ve gained meaningful traction in the early going with several influential organizations. This should set us up well to accelerate our results and impact in the New Year.
- The message matters. Listen carefully every day to what people say and respond with refinements that make a good effort even better.
- Connect with potential clients in person — either by Zoom video conference, across the conference or dining room table, by sponsorship/exhibit table at the right ventures, or BeLive.TV. It’s a lot more effective than pounding potential clients by email.
- Measure what you treasure and make smart decisions and take wise actions based on the numbers.
- Make a habit of reflecting on progress, honoring mis-steps and mistakes to get the lessons, and celebrating wins, big or small. It’s a long distance race, and it growth happens step by step and sometimes in a leaps and bounds kind of way.
- Keep a positive attitude to help navigate the rough spots.
- Make new friends along the journey. Every conversation with a new person of influence in this new marketplace offers the opportunity to create a new relationship, be of contribution, and to receive ideas and support to fuel whatever may be coming next. Be arms wide open to welcome the abundance with trust that it’s all good.
2019 is still to be written, and we intend to continue this journey and see what additional magic we can make.
Stay tuned for future updates from this lean start up known as Life Goes on Roadmap™.
