Episodes

  • Ep 10 - Beyond the Sale - Nurturing Customer Relationships
    Jun 16 2024
     All righty, welcome to the very final episode of Digitally Done, your podcast for getting your digital thing done. Imagine that. All right, I am your host for the day. For today, I am Lizzie Macaulay, a communications and strategy specialist for small business. With me, I have two excellent humans who have been with all of us the whole way through. I'd love to introduce you, reintroduce you to the amazing Sam Winch and the amazing Nikki Cali. Hello ladies. Hello. It's gone so quickly. It has gone so quickly. And just to say, if anybody hasn't noticed, Sam has a spectacularly husky voice, right? She's going to make me want to make her talk more, but she probably going to want to talk less. That's okay though. Hey Nikki, what's going on, man? Oh, nothing much. Just hanging out with my gals that I love. And I'm just so excited that we got to this point. I think, you know, with everything that we've talked about over the past, you know, few weeks. It's exciting to get to this point. It is. And this point today is next steps. So next steps is all about, right? You've sold the damn thing. Now what? Because do you know what? Getting to the point of selling is not the end of the journey, but what midpoint, I would say something like that. So why don't we start? I don't, I don't mind. I'll throw it open to the group. What do we do once we've got somebody's money? What happens next? Do we just abandon them and just go, thanks for your money. See you later. Please don't, please don't do that to your poor little customers. No, it's, and it's a conversation I have with course creators a lot. Cause I think there is so much opportunity and value in that very first, what happens when they press buy, but so many people sort of stop thinking about it because they call, I've got a course, they press the buy button done. But the truth is there's so much opportunity in that, keeping them really loved and feeling supported in that welcome process. Be that welcome emails, be it sort of presence while they're waiting, especially if you're in a pre sale period or a wait period, something for them to get their teeth stuck into. And so they don't just get cold feet with going, I handed you a chunk of money, but now I'm just waiting. What comes now? I'm really looking after those people as part of that next steps process. Like they're cool. They've pressed by, they trusted you enough to give you their money. Now what, like, how can you look after them during that process of pressing by? Cause I think that's, it's a really common experience for people to feel all loved in these sort of pre sale nurturing phase, and then feeling like they've been dropped like some kind of unpleasant thing immediately after they've handed over their cash. Nikki, have you ever seen that happen in your, like, not that you have done, but have you ever received service like that? Or is it something that you've heard about in your community? I think that's the biggest fear. Yeah, I have. I've, I've come across, so I've gone, you know, invested a bit of money in something and then gone, hello, acknowledgement, where do I go now? What do I do? So that's the biggest thing. I think just, just like Sam said, I think we're all in agreeance here. It's just making sure that we're acknowledging that action, that someone has taken that big step to trust us and just deliver on just an interim, like, you know, Even if it is just starting, or if it is something that they just get access to straight away. It says now how to, you know, that user experience, the flow, where they're going to go, let them know that this is what's going to happen now. That's where you're going now. And if you need me, or if you need information, this is where you can go. Like letting people know that. There is that support there at different levels as well. Like you don't physically have to be there for them at that point of sale, but if you've got something there to send them to afterwards, that will show them what they can do and where they're going. That's really beneficial. And just removes that, you know, that after phase of, I've just purchased something, what am I doing? Like that freak out post purchase, you know, thing. So. Yeah. It's just, you know, making sure you're there for them. And I really do appreciate it. It's amazing how far that goes. So I would argue, and I've only, I mean, I've only just developed this properly for myself, which is a great shame for like for everyone who'd counted me beforehand, but the honest, honest to God truth is that I only just developed a very specific onboarding process. Recently, because before that, I was like, yeah, let's welcome in and you have all this warmth. And it's, it's kind of a bit higgledy piggledy. Or it has been in my space because my creative brain didn't think about processes until more recently. So I suppose like. The thing, the point that I'm trying to make is that it is something that you can absolutely systemize and ...
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    27 mins
  • Ep 9 - Cause for Celebration
    Jun 6 2024
     Well, hello, everybody. We're down to our episode nine. And this is what I think is a really good topic today, which is cause for celebration. I think us as a trio have gone very far with all of our sessions. And I want to introduce you again to our wonderful panel that we have on this podcast, Lizzie McCaulay. Hello! Sam Winchh. Well, hello there and Nikki Cali. And look, if you want to know who we are, you'll see all the details in the show notes. I just want to get on with this episode because I think it's a really cool one to access and acknowledge with respect to celebrating the wins, the challenges that we might go through when we're trying to build a package and an offer. I'm going to go straight to you, Lizzie, because you were the number one person and you've taught me this. From very beginning to be your own cheerleader, share, share with us what this all means. Well, we, yeah, we've, we've covered it in, in some bits and bobs along the way through the episodes, but you know, if, if you love, if you love, love what you've brought together, then that love, love, love is infectious as well. Right. You've put your heart and soul into it. Last, mirroring back onto the standard of quality and the care and the kindness. to yourself that you would give to others and put that into the work that you do. So celebrate, there's a lot of growth in producing something like this, whether it, whether it's a course, whether it's an ebook, whether it's a series of videos, like it takes time and care and attention and a little piece of ourselves to Goes with each thing we create, doesn't it? You know, it's, it means something to us. So to complete that thing and send that piece of us out into the world is a super, super big deal and I really honestly do believe that that is a hundred percent cause for celebration, it's something. But I personally think I don't do very well, that I get so caught up in the busyness of life and business and entrepreneurship and whatever else. There's always a next thing, and like, maybe that's me, right? There's always a new shiny thing, but there's always a next thing. And so often when I finish something, I just, I, I move on to the next thing. Like, cool, tick box, done, check off. I go, all right, now what's next? And I power on forward. But I think that I'm not great at pausing and going. Wow. That was a big thing. And I've even like recently I finished this huge client project. It was a delivery that was spanned about a year and a half. It was like 36 huge accredited units. It was this massive, massive delivery. And I finally hit send on the last one and I messaged a friend and I was like, Oh my God, I hit send on the last one. She's like, cool. How are you celebrating? And I went, Oh I don't know, like I click send and I just move on to the next client project. She's like, no, you idiot. No, I needed someone to call me out. Right. And go, hang on, you did a thing like pause. Stop. You be proud of yourself. You did a thing. And I, I know I'm not great at it, but I've seen it in my audience as well. Right. We just power them forward. And we're not great at going, Whoa, I did that. How cool is that? Yeah. You need those little wins, don't you? And it's just, and I, you know, something I'm learning. Along this path is, you know, I, I shouldn't rely on other people's appreciation of what I'm doing to feel like I've made a win. And to celebrate, I think one thing I've learned is celebrate, I'm laughing because this is like the most simplest thing, but I've, you know, taught, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've taught my daughter to, you know, and my son is going to be doing this as soon as he's old enough, but do your bit. In the morning, because at least if you've had a crappy day, by the end of that day, you can celebrate that you've actually achieved that one thing. And I think it comes down to, you could be building massive courses, whatever it is, programs, but celebrate those wins that are along the way. Just like you, your learners have to celebrate a win that they've achieved a task or whatever. You've got to do the same for yourself, how you celebrate that. I think the number one thing I share with my, you know, Anyone that I help coach or whatever, even friends, family, it's just. Have a board up next to you or an image or a checklist of things that you want to do that will help you celebrate, like go for a massage or go for that long walk or Nick off for a weekend and with the girls, whatever it is like write that list and have your little bucket list of celebrations. So when you do go through things and you know, you achieve things, tap yourself on the back and actually do them. Do you think that comes partly into And any one individual's measure of success as well, because it's different for everybody. If that, if the thing that you create gets you closer to the version of success ...
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    21 mins
  • Ep 8 - Execution Excellence - Progress Over Perfection
    Jun 4 2024
     Welcome to this week's episode of the Digitally Done Podcast. I am your host this week, Sam Winch, and with me, I have the wonderful Lizzie McCauley and Nikki cali. Welcome back, ladies. Hello. It's always wonderful that you keep coming back and you haven't run away from me yet. So this is a win. I do like this. For those of us who haven't listened to the previous episodes, let's do a super quick run around and I'd love you to give a one sentence intro about who you are and what you do, please, Miss Lizzie. Oh, me. Oh, how exciting. I am Lizzie McCauley. I'm your friendly small business, copywriter, copy coach, communication strategist. I'm wearing many hats these days. And making small businesses win is kind of the name of the game. It doesn't really matter what, how we're facing it. We just want to do well, grow and do good. And that's what I help with. And I love the title of communication strategist because it encompasses so much more of what you do. Like words are a part of it, but it's really like, what message are we communicating and why? And it makes so much more sense to me than just saying, sorry, copywriters, I'm going to be using better comments, just a copywriter. Like what you offer is so much more than that. So I love it. Thank you. I'm so clearly still getting, getting comfy in my new skin, but it's a, it's a work in progress and it's coming on nice. I am the founder of WisDome and I'm an advocate for anyone out there who wants to share their wisdomness in the form of courses, programs, and building communities. And I have to say, with respect to Lizzie, she's that other part of my brain, because I don't do words very well. She comes in really well in that regard. Oh, the words is fun. The words is just what you do for a holiday. When the strategy is really where the progress is made. Isn't it? I like Sam and I like shaking our heads. Yeah, that doesn't work like that. What a holiday? The words is what I do for fun. This, well, actually that's a lie. The strategy I do for fun too, cause I love it. And I am your host this week, Sam Winch, the course creator, not the lunchtime food. I spend my time helping entrepreneurs and small businesses owners turn their knowledge into something they can sell often in the form of a course, but not always. So this week we are talking all about execution and progress and getting it done. And before the podcast, we were talking about some of those quotes that you've probably heard, like Progress over perfection, or it's messy in the middle or all of those bits and pieces. Perfection can be very preventative because it doesn't exist, right? There's, there's no such thing as perfect and what is perfect to you might not be perfect to someone else anyway. So it's really subjective whether the thing is now perfect or not. So that means it, it really puts a stopper on getting anywhere because you're trying to work out what perfect is and is this perfect? Will never truly be or feel perfect. I don't think so. And you know, that word perfection, it's like this whole mindset thing. As soon as you hear perfection, there's like this wall that goes up. Absolutely. Like, it's like a stump all of a sudden. It's like, ah, and it's a freak out word for a lot of people. And I don't, yeah, I agree. I think Perfection can be a scary word. And I don't think we need to have to worry about that necessarily, because there is no such thing as perfection. No, I understand where it comes from though, as well. It's about worthiness and it's about, this needs to be. If I'm going to charge X amount that it needs to be Y level of good, you know, and, and the problem is, is that we are all our harshest critics by some orders of magnitude. And if we knew what the expectations, and that goes back to the validation piece, but if we knew what. Other people were expecting from us first. We're what we're expecting from ourselves. Perhaps we'd be slightly less harsh judges of what perfect is. Yeah. I think often because we know our own trade so well as well that we forget that our audience isn't where we're at. And so we're trying to make a thing that feels perfect based on everything we know, based on all of our knowledge and all of our experience. And by the time you get to a point of building something, we're That's a lot. Like you've gathered a lot of stuff over the year. So you're trying to make something that encompasses all of those things that you've collected throughout the time. And it's, it's too many things. They don't all fit, but your audience doesn't need all of those things. They're not at that point. And Lizzie and Nikki, you're probably the same as well. Like I, I find as a course creator, I. Feel that there's probably an expectation that I will have great courses. So I put a heavier burden on myself before I release something, because I think people are expecting better from me, but I'm using the caveat of what...
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    27 mins
  • Ep 7 - Marketing Magic - Launch Strategies for Digital Success (Part 2)
    May 23 2024
     Well, then hello again, and welcome back to Digitally Done. I am one of your three fabulous hosts, Lizzie. And today we also have the excellent humans known as Lunchtime Snack Sam Winch and the amazing Nikki Cali. Hello, ladies. Hello. I had to laugh, Lizzie, in our transcription for a previous episode. I saw Ashley called me a Sam Winch and I laughed. Got to love AI translating into what everyone called it anyway. No, admittedly, I didn't get it until I heard it like strung together. Went, Oh, I understand now. No, that, I mean, a lot of people don't get it until you hit the one who does. And I was trying to book an appointment at a bank one time and I was like Sam Winch, they're like Sam Winch. And I'm like, Oh, it's wonderful. The quirks of life are spectacular. And you know what else is spectacular? My favorite topic of all, we're back, we're back in the room. We're talking about marketing again. Oh, this is like Christmas come early for me. So hooray. Lucky. You two get to listen to me rabbit on a bit. Anybody else like marketing or just me? Okay. I know I should like marketing. Does that count? I do like marketing. I love what marketing does. I love what marketing does. And I think part of what we're going to talk about today, hopefully is like having a good plan for what you're actually doing and not just making a thing and flopping it out into the world. Which I have even in the past had a, had a habit of doing as well. So no, this marketing talk is Well timed, Miss Lizzie, well timed. Yeah, we kind of need to have this conversation because we do, like, the reality is is that so, so, so many of us, and I'm sure each of us included at any point in our earlier days, have got, oh, I've got a thing, I'm going to make the thing, and then it's going to sell, and Kind of the entirety of the plan, but unfortunately that's, it maybe did work back in the day as well, like when there weren't, wasn't so much competition, but now there's quite a lot of competition. So you need to think a little bit more carefully about, right, how are we getting it out into the world? What else is happening around it? Do we have the audience already built? Like we talked about in the last one about building the runway to the launch so that there is somebody to sell to and let's pretend now. That our digital thing has been created. Congratulations. You made it and I always equate it, right? The launch is kind of like the birth bit. And then the parenting happens from there where you got to raise the bloody thing, right? I never thought about it that way, but I love that. You can't just give birth to it and plunk it somewhere and leave it. We've got to look after the thing. You gotta nurture it. You gotta love it a little bit. You might get mad at it occasionally for just not doing what you want it to do. However, it still needs to be done and we'll get there and it's going to grow and it's going to be amazing. So I'm going to start, Nikki, What do you feel that you need in order to launch what tools, what assets do you think you need on the digital side of things? Sure. Well, obviously you need some sort of engagement platform, a platform to actually reach out to an audience, potential audience, whether they're a current audience that you've already captured. Absolutely. Or an audience you're trying to build. So some sort of digital platform that will allow you to do that. You obviously need to have something to introduce yourself with. So people can get a good grasp of who you are. And why they should listen to you, such as a loop magnet of some sort. So they're, they're just sort of the very basic, very, very basic start off. And I think we all know that. But when it comes to actually, you know, where you want to start to launch this whole process, and we talked about it in our previous marketing episode, where we're planning things out, you just get a stack right now, get yourself out there right now, building your profile. But when it comes to actually launching the actual product itself, I think, yeah. Making sure you've got a platform that I know I'm going down the logical processes side of things here, but an actual platform that can take the lead, like can capture that lead, can respond back to that lead. And nurture that lead and consistently as well, because you can just do one, you're going to lose them. So you've got to make sure that consistency stays there as well. I always love your practicality, Nikki. I think before that as well, like even with clients, when we're talking about, what do you need? So you can start marketing this thing getting super, super clear on what your thing is and what it does for people. Like I have a lot of people who build a course and then go, Oh, you know, I've made this course. It's six modules and there's three modules in each video or three videos in each module. Like, and I'm going to ...
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    30 mins
  • Ep 6 - Mastering the Sales Mindset - From Fear to Fanatic
    May 16 2024
     Welcome to digitally done. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the mindset. For sales, I'm Nikki Cali, and we also have with us Sam Winch and Lizzie Macaulay say hi.   Hello.   Now in this episode, we are going to be talking about that weird feeling that you might get when you're trying to do your sales or as I love what Lizzie calls it, the fangirl or the cool girl concept. So let's just dive straight in. I really want to get into this whole fangirl fangirl and, and cool girl thing. So Lizzie just. Explain to our audience, anyway, all of this.   So I have a particular rant that people in my orbit will definitely have heard on some level, but I have this theory, right? It's a, it's a Lizzie ism. Let's say that we are too busy being the cool girl in our business to be the fangirl in our business. Most of us, Just through, through years of, I guess, societal programming and being told that we need to be humble and be quiet and be small. we get the opportunity to talk about our business or our thing or even ourselves to a certain extent, we go, Oh, yeah, we play it down. It's not, it's not, it's not bad. It's fine. It's pretty. Yeah, that's good. You know, and that's not exactly smacking of enthusiasm, is it, for the thing that we have put our hearts and souls into, and we know will help people, and we know is really high quality, and we know is all these things that people need and can solve their problems. And it's not inspiring a lot of confidence in the product or service itself. And so what I have taken a lot of time to encourage people, including myself to do more of is to become the absolute raving fangirl of their own thing, because that enthusiasm is so infectious. Have you seen my thing? It's really great. I really love to do it. I love to teach. I love to talk about it with people. I'm so passionate about the stuff that I do. I really, I can't wait for you to see it. It's so good. Now, isn't that just kind of a different vibe than, Oh yeah, yeah, it's nice. So I highly encourage in the, in the spirit of getting in the mindset for sales is go be the fangirl. Go love the crap out of the thing that you do and tell people how much you love it. Please. Hmm.  Yeah. No, I interesting concept,   hey?   And it just flows perfectly like from our previous episode, which was all on pricing and the confidence in your value and all that sort of stuff. You've got to get that mindset right. And you know, Sam, like just before we started recording this, Sam, you know, was telling us a little bit of a story about how she had to really believe in herself, that she values herself. And I would love you to like, you know, Tell our audience a bit more about that whole, you know, and we all get it, but that weird feeling that you get with sales. Why, why do we get that? Do you reckon like, I just don't get it, but I don't understand.   no, I do. I think I, I, I'm, I'm one of those people who has always felt that bit ooky about that word sales. You know, I was brought up you know, middle class English family. Children are designed to be seen, not heard. Like it's very English. Dip off a lip. Like you don't make a fuss about things. You know, you don't, you don't shout from the rooftops. You have got to be humble. You don't, you don't brag. Bragging's, Bragging is bad. That definitely my upbringing a hundred percent. So even now, like talking about myself is uncomfortable. And I was called out about it just the other day. Someone asked me how things are going. And I'm like, Oh, they're okay. She says, they're not okay. They're good. They're great. And I was like, Oh yeah, kind of. Okay. Like it felt wrong to say, actually, I think I'm doing really great. So the, the natural reaction for me. Was to go, Oh yeah, no, I'm going. Okay. I think now whether it's that uncertainty that I don't want to get called out in case I'm not, or that I don't want to brag, like, but it's definitely that feeling of like, Oh no, can't, can't say great things. Like I have to say just, it's okay, but it's interesting to see that I come across countless clients when we talk about. The building, the course is one thing, right? But the selling the course, that's a whole nother, that's a whole nother thing. And I know so many course creators who procrastinate and postpone and put off when we come towards the sticky end of finishing something, they never sell it. And I, you know, try as I might push as I might. There are some clients who've, I believe still probably to this day, who've never crossed the line, who have this most beautiful thing that they've invested in building that they've, they've developed. They've recorded videos for whatever else that is still sitting without a sales page or has a sales page technically that I know is linked up, but has never once been spoken about or promoted about online. So it's just sitting in the ether of the ...
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    29 mins
  • Ep 5 - The Price Is Right: Navigating Profit, Perception, and Practicality in Business
    May 10 2024
      Welcome to this week's episode of digitally done where we are talking all things pricing. And I know that this is an episode that many people wait on. And I know that this is a question that I get asked a million times. And ladies, I'm sure you're the same. We will do a quick wraparound because in case you've missed this or in case this is our first episode. Hi, I'm your host for today. I'm Sam winch, but I'm joined by two wonderful other ladies as well. Nikki, do you want to start us off in a round Robin and tell us a little bit about you before we get stuck in. Okay. So I'm Nikki Kelly and I'm the founder of wisdom, which is a learning and content management platform for anyone who's sharing courses online, selling courses online, building communities, or running a coaching program. Hello. I am Lizzie. I am a copywriter and copy coach for small business owners and entrepreneurs. And really what I focus on is equipping these fabulous humans with the skills and confidence to find, use and amplify their signature voice. I always love your wording and I am Sam Winch the course creator, not the lunchtime food. But today we're not talking just about courses. We are going to talk all things pricing. And this is a really sticky one. Ladies, I don't know if you find the same when you talk to your clients and your customers, but how many times you've asked, what should I charge for this? And it's an interesting one because there isn't a right answer to this question, right? I've. I've yet to come across one. Yeah. I've yet to come across one right answer for how much should this be. Um, but I don't find clients find the, how long is a piece of string answer have very helpful. So we've got to come up with something else. That's not just how long is a piece of string. So let's talk all things pricing. Now we were having a bit of a debrief before we hit record. And one of the interesting concepts that we came up with were two of the concepts that we came up with. I think that is worth us touching on here today. Is profit and then value perception. And I think that while we could just tell you to charge 5, it's really not very helpful because we have no idea what your current expenses are or what's gone into your product or what the value of your product is or what's involved with running it. So let's still call things profit first, and then we'll move on to the perception of value. Nikki, I am going to start with you because I know you have a few things to say when it comes to profit, but what is profit? What does that even mean? Well, to me, it means you're getting some sort of return on your investment that you're putting into whatever it is that you're creating. And look, based on my background as a buyer, I'm all about the numbers. So profits a huge thing for me. And You know what? When you start a business, it is sweat equity. So some people do think that when they're pricing something, it's really just based on a value perception. And I agree entirely. There is a value perception there, but there is also the fixed cost, variable cost and all that sort of stuff. But I won't nerd you out on all that sort of stuff. a business studies in year 10. And then clearly not retained it particularly well. When we talk sweat equity is obviously that's the, oh, I say obviously, but it might not be obvious to some, but sweat equity is that it's the time we put into something, but it's not the only expense, right? Although a lot of our man hour goes into the building, what are some of the other expenses that people might have during this sort of creation process? Mm Well, there's obviously the costs, the running costs, you know, like some people just don't take into consideration, but they're things like, like when I say fixed costs is, you know, the costs to actually run your business, the physical things that you might have to incorporate, such as, you know, subscriptions that you have to commit to, to cloud tools that you might be using, or even, you know, support staff you might have, you might not have employing people, but you might be, you know, utilizing Consultants or whatever it is from overseas or wherever as well, their costs, they could be variable. But yeah, there's a number of things that do have to be taken into consideration. Yeah, I find that? um, when I'm talking to clients about courses as well, especially if the course is the only thing they want to sell, right. They want to make all their money selling courses that we have to consider all the business expenses. And we often have that conversation about, Oh, it's not that much money. It's just, you know, 30 a month on Thinkific or whatever. Like they just pull a number out for the software, which is cool. But that's not their only business expense, but if courses are their only income, we need to consider things like their GST, the money they pay their accountant, the money ...
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    32 mins
  • Ep 4 - Marketing Magic: Laying Your Runway Part 1
    Apr 11 2024
     Hello there, ladies. We're back. What are we talking about today? Anyone know? Marketing. Marketing day. I'm very excited because this is my favorite topic of conversation. So your job, Sam, and your job Nikki is to get me to shut up every once in a while, so you can get a word in. So this is cool. How do we feel about both of you? Obviously business Running excellent legend type people. How do we generally feel about marketing both of you? Do you love it? Sam's hiding behind her pants. You can see the footage right now. Sam's hiding. Yeah. It's essential, but it's never on the top of the list, is it? I think it's one of those things that I feel like I often talk about, but it feels like do as I say, not as I do moments, like, you know, you know, the things you should be doing, you know, best practice, but the reality sometimes of juggling it all means that you're not necessarily doing all of the things that you could be doing. And I, marketing is one of those things I very much feel like. And then sometimes I get too busy for, and that sounds really silly, but like, yeah, it's one of those things. Well, that's probably why we make such a great trio is because it's my favorite thing. Well, it's certainly my favorite thing to talk about. As you say, like execution, sometimes it gets set aside, you know, working on other people's businesses rather than on your own. It's the old, I don't know, whatever analogy, there's someone that who does other people's stuff and their house is a disaster or something. I can't remember. That was. Awesome chat. Anyway, we have so much to cover on the topic of marketing that we thought that we would do a little thing called breaking it into two parts. So today we're going to be covering the, the real, the early day stuff that really starts to, Shape the success of selling your thing down the track. So we're going to talk about launch strategy in another episode, but we're going to start where we kind of left off in the last episode around validation as far as building the runway is really, really important that as soon as you kind of have an inkling that this thing is. You're committing to it, that it's coming, that it's going to happen, and you start kind of telling people that it's coming and it's going to happen and here's some ideas, even if you're still in the validation stage, or you're still kind of cogitating, I suppose, on exactly how it's all going to take shape. Building that interest is super, super important. So I suppose, ladies, are there any examples you can think of even in your, your client's world or your own world where you've, you've really enjoyed that process of dropping those breadcrumbs? Lucy, can I just say as well, I love your analogy of runway because for me, I've always understood the concept of like, you need to warm your audience before you just throw a thing at them. Like, I get it, but runway, it just makes sense in my brain. I'm like, Oh, like a long straight line that leads us somewhere cool. Right. I do get it. I absolutely love runway. It's my favorite thing at the moment now. I'm pleased to have had some impact on your life, Sam. How exciting is that? But yeah, then it does fit with the launch thing, right? So it makes so much sense. So yeah. Yeah. I've been in business like 12 years and that's never clicked before, but you. Yeah, you've done it for me. My podcast is still one of my most favorite things I've ever launched. And I'm quite happy to put my hand up and say, I don't love launching things. I don't, I don't love that feeling. But the podcast was probably one of the most fun things we did. And we built that runway really quite early on interviewed people about what they wanted to see on the podcast, started to drop sort of, you know, Teasers about the art podcast art and say, look, we're trying some art images. Here's the bits we're playing with. Here's the color scheme. Here's the tile. Now we've decided here's the countdown to the number of days till it arrives. Are you ready? Like it will be on your Spotify in six days, five days, four days. And then we had a, we had an actual party, a podcast party and played some games that engage the audience as well, which I'm sure we'll talk much more about in the proper launch phase, but like that whole process, you know, Was fun and enjoyable, which I can't always say about my marketing. So that one was, was probably my favorite of all time. Yeah. That's very cool. Yeah. You can't, you can't take it all too seriously in the end. Like, of course it matters and it matters to each of us. It matters to every business owner that their thing does well, but also it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the process as you go and make it your own and do stuff that just. It's silly or out of the box or unusual. It's just you doing you, I guess. Nikki, what's your favorite example from your own or from somebody else that ...
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    31 mins
  • Ep 3 - Strategies to Validate Your Digital Creation
    Apr 4 2024
     Welcome to the digitally done podcast. Episode three, and my name is Nikki Kelly and I am driving, but yet I have navigators with me joining me, Lizzie McCauley and Sam Witch. And today we're going to be diving into validating your idea. Last week, we had a chat about, What is your thing? What is the thing? What is the digital thing that you are going to put out there? We have an idea. We want to go nuts with it, but we've got to validate it now. So there's a number of levels of validation. So let's just dive straight into this and ask Sam, first off, what's your idea on validating your idea? So it's funny, I come from like a government accredited world, so validation is quite a formalized structure, but it doesn't have to be. I know it's a thing that scares a lot of people. I think really, and for when we were talking about this, validating is just about making sure someone wants it. Like cool, I've got this idea to like, it's got any legs. Is this even a thing or is this just a random idea I've had? And so validating looks different in lots of cases, but it's really the question of, does anyone want this? And that's sometimes a hard question to face, face on. It brings up a lot of fears. And I know Lizzie was talking before about like some of the conversations she has with people where she's like, you've got to go talk to people about this, but that's, I think that's really what I think validation is. Oh, yeah, there can be lots of hesitation about, but nobody wants to fill in my form. Nobody wants to come and give me feedback. Nobody was like, well, You're making decisions for people before they've had the opportunity to make decisions for themselves. So how about we make it irresistible to them to give you that feedback so that you have the data you need to know whether you will need to go further. We need to refine your ideas, go back to the drawing board. Like what are you supposed to do aside from get information about where to go next? Otherwise you'd be in kind of a holding pattern for forever, right? That's not good. It's part of a self fulfilling prophecy, right? If you don't put out the form, no one answers it. Like no one will ever answer my form. Well, if you don't put it out there, then they won't. The old in it to win it thing, right? You can't win a lottery if you don't buy a ticket. That's right. Exactly. You know, there's that momentum too, that you, I think a lot of people, they go through that, you know, we're all excited about our idea and everything like that. And that's, it's almost some, I think overcoming that fear of validation is a stopping point. Cause it's not. All it's doing is actually giving you that extra momentum further on from there and actually filtering your idea. So, you know, I think putting those questions out there and I'd love to ask you ladies, what are your ideas on how to get validation from. The audience and also where can you get validation from Lizzie? Can you answer that question for us? Well, why it's also, before we go there, I think Sam has some amazing ideas on this. I think it's also important to understand why, like what validation are you getting? Like we're right at the starting point. If you've had this vague idea, I want to build a course. I want to, you know, whatever, make a membership. But you don't necessarily, it's a chicken and egg thing is what we were talking about before we started recording about. Okay. Well, I, I have an idea for a course and it may have these 10 components, but then you need to take it out to people to see if those are the 10 components that they're actually having trouble with needing support with, I suppose, to, in order to tailor and shape. The thing you actually spend all of this energy and all of this time pulling together on something that is going to be received immediately. And the fastest way to do that, I suppose, is to is to get that information right away. Well, Lizzie, with your audience that sometimes the thing that you know, they need and the thing they think they want a different, I think it's like my kids and vegetables, right? They don't want broccoli in their dinner, but I know they need broccoli in their dinner. So I'm trying to find what they think they want, but inside of that, I've got to hide the bits. I also know they need. Oh my goodness. I mean, that, that is the 101 of, of messaging in my space at the very least is, is sell them what they want, give them what they need. I know that's kind of a, an old trope, but it's still as relevant today as whenever it first was released into the wild. Because, especially I work with a lot of people in kind of the coaching and wellness and, and I suppose kind of this, Softer skills quite often, and it's very difficult for a lot of them to sell their stuff when compared to, let's say a business coach, where it's like, well, I'm going to make you 10, 000 this week. Cause that's ...
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    31 mins