AP 1187: What’s the Best Way to Continually Launch My Course, and Do You Think the Price Is Right?

AP 1187: What's the Best Way to Continually Launch My Course, and Do You Think the Price is Right?

Pat Flynn:
What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1187 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you, just like you're in the room. We're breaking it down. We're helping build back up. And today we're talking with Rose Griffin from ABASpeech.org.

And she is a professional. She's a seasoned speech therapist. And she has helped so many people, professionals who work with, who teach, and who are often around people who have complex speech disorders, or autism. And it's so great what she's doing. And she has a course. She has events. And you know, COVID hit her a little bit in terms of how that has affected her business. We'll talk about that a little bit. But most of all, we talk and discuss about her course and whether or not she should keep that open all the time, or make it evergreen. Or do we close it, and then open it up again, and then close it, and create a launch sequence that way? However, that can be sometimes draining or take up a lot of additional resources, team, and money, to continually open and close like that.

And plus we get into a discussion about pricing. You'll find that very quickly when she announces the price of her course that you'll find that I have my typical answer about that. So, if you've listened to the show before, you probably know what I'll say. But let's see if you can guess. So anyway, today, again, talking with Rose Griffin from ABASpeech.org, and she also has a podcast, a podcast called Autism Outreach. So, check them out. And here she is.

Rose, welcome to AskPat. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Rose Griffin:
Thanks for having me.

Pat:
Really excited to learn about you and what I can do to help you. So, why don't you start with telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Rose:
Absolutely. I am a speech therapist and I'm also a board-certified behavior analyst. And so, I specialize, Pat, in helping students who are autistic start communicating. And I've been a speech therapist for 20 years now. So, I'm calling myself not old, but seasoned.

And I started a business, it'll be four years in August, called ABA Speech. And at that business, we have physical therapy products. We have a signature autism course. We have therapy services we offer. And thanks to your Power-Up Podcasting course, we now have a podcast, which is super fun and exciting, called Autism Outreach. And that started in January. So, I think we just launched episode 20. Every single week, a new episode comes out. We really just focus on helping speech therapists, teachers, other professionals work effectively with students who have autism and/or other complex communication disorders.

Pat:
That's awesome. So, first of all, congratulations on that. And Autism Outreach is the name of the podcast, you said? In case anybody's curious.

Rose:
It is, yes.

Pat:
ABA Speech. This is awesome. Thank you for what you're doing to help and serve, by the way. Twenty years, that's quite a bit of time, and I'm imagining the way business is done has changed over those twenty years. What's sort of the latest and greatest in this space, besides the podcast? What are you excited about?

Rose:
I'm really excited about being able to reach people internationally now with kind of, unfortunately, COVID, a lot of our conferences have been canceled, and so I have a five-hour autism course that I offer. And so, just being able to reach so many more people with that, especially during this time where people are not going to in-person conferences, it's really been nice to be able to help people in that way.

Pat:
I know everybody listening can't see us having a conversation, but I'm looking behind you, I see a harp.

Rose:
Yes.

Pat:
Do you play the harp?

Rose:
Yes. Growing up, I went to a public school here in Ohio, but my music teacher was a harpist. And so, she probably wrote a grant and we had harps. And I took lessons growing up. And ever since I started my business, though, I have stopped playing weddings. I do have three kids, so, you know, it's hard to book out a year in advance. So, now my oldest daughter takes lessons, yeah.

Pat:
Oh wow. You don't see a harp every day, I will say. So, that's a beautiful instrument, and that's really cool.

Okay, so, anyway, what can I do to help you? What's on your mind?

Pat:
I think the one thing I'd love to talk with you about, there's actually two if we get to them, but the one thing is I have this five-hour autism course that I have been launching on my own for the past, I think I developed it three years ago. And I've done it where it's just always available on my website. That's how it was initially. And then, I transitioned to launching it because it seemed that if it was always open, people were thinking, "Oh, I'll take it eventually." But now I'm getting to the point where I'm able to launch it, but I'm using Facebook Ads, and that gets costly.

And I didn't really think I had any kind of mindset issues around money, but I was with my mastermind, my business mastermind, and they're like, "You know, you're not charging enough for this course." The price point right now is $99. You know, I've always been successful in the course. We've always been launching it, whether I was launching it with some help with ads, or I was just doing it on my own kind of organically. I have a lot of good reviews, and I'm starting to think like, “Well, maybe, should I be charging more for this? Should I have it open all the time?” Because the thing I struggle with is that it's information about how to work effectively with students who are autistic and nonverbal and typically have behavioral barriers. So, I feel ethically that it needs to be open all the time. So, I'm really kind of struggling with, could I put it into an evergreen funnel? Should I raise my rate for what I'm charging for it? I guess pricing is where I would love some guidance.

Pat:
Okay, first of all, what is the value of what you're offering? What does this eventually unlock for a person who's taking this?

Rose:
It allows them to feel comfortable providing therapy. Sometimes, most of the time, Pat, I would say in graduate school, you have to have your master's to be a speech therapist. You don't learn how to work effectively with students who are nonverbal, students who are not communicating an advanced age, students who are not overly excited to be in therapy. There's definitely an art and a science to that.

I help people go from feeling overwhelmed in those situations to feeling very confident. And one of the testimonials I got when we were creating the sales page for the last launch was a beautiful email from a fellow speech therapist that allowed me to share her story. And she just said, "I'm feeling almost like I shouldn't be a speech therapist anymore. And I just had lost hope. And this course has given me that hope, and I feel so much better seeing my students." And I was like, "Oh wow, that's amazing. That's why I'm doing all this stuff." You know what I mean? So, it's transformative.

Pat:
It is. And that pulls at the heart strings. And it's just so much more than just a business, or a person's practice. It's lives that are being changed. And now, the communication that that child is going to have with their family, and other people they affect in the future. I mean, there's a huge ripple effect here.

If I were a budding speech therapist and I finally learned how to get comfortable, what could that do for my business as a speech therapist, and somebody looking to book more clients and such?

Rose:
Yeah, you could definitely book more clients. And this is kind of what started the ball rolling, as I have a mastermind that I meet with, a group friends, business friends, and I was just sharing with them my price point, and kind of my dilemma, and just talking about it. And then, I got an email right after I got off that mastermind call. And it was from a speech therapist who said, "I retired from the public schools. I'm going into private practice. I'm going to start specializing in helping autistic students. And I took your course." She like bought it this last time we launched. And she took it all in two days.

And she was like, "This has really made me feel really confident to help students who have autism. And then I thought, "Wow," talking to my mastermind coupled with this email, I'm like, "Maybe they're onto something." So I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, maybe I do have some kind of mindset issue about how much I should charge for it." I guess what I struggled with is sometimes speech therapists don't make a lot of money. I don't know. I guess that's subjective. So, I don't know.

Pat:
How much would a typical speech therapist charge a client, would you say?

Rose:
So a session might cost $125 to $150 an hour.

Pat:
You're blowing my mind with how cheap you're offering your course. If I, as a speech therapist, could get one client to give me one additional session from the things that you teach, from the confidence that I gain, maybe it's an existing client who will want to come back and come back again, or a new one, that already pays for itself and more. Is this like framework making sense? It’s like…

Rose:
Yeah, it does.

Pat:
You're allowing these people, not that they're purposefully doing this, but you're letting them essentially rob you; they're stealing so much great value from you. I definitely agree with your mastermind group, I think you can likely double the price. What are your initial like gut feelings toward that?

Rose:
I was thinking about $297; that was kind of going to be my new price point. There are some other courses that are kind of aligned similar to mine where people are charging $499, but that seems too expensive to me.

Pat:
So you’d still be cheaper.

Rose:
Yeah.

Pat:
You know, what's interesting? It's like, if I see all these courses that are out there $499, $399, whatever, and then I see one that's $99, I'm not thinking, "Ooh, that must be great. It's cool that it's cheaper." You know what I'm thinking?

Rose:
Something's wrong with it.

Pat:
Exactly. Exactly. Your price speaks to how premium your service can be. I think that for a person who's going through it, who can realize just what you've unlocked for them, and how that can help them get more business, the economics of it starts to make sense when I'm like, "Okay, if I get this and I just get one thing out of this, that gives me one more client to come back one more time. It's already paid for itself." So, I think you're doing yourself and your potential audience a disservice by actually pressing it so low, which I know is counterintuitive because, and it sounds like you're a person of heart and soul who wants to give and to offer so much to the world. It's like, "Oh, well we want to have as many people have access to this as possible." But it does say something about the course, having it be so cheap.

Rose:
Right. Right. That's a good thought.

Pat:
By the way, you're doing a really good job of sharing stories from your audience. That's something that I just picked up right away. And in your marketing down the road, I would highly recommend, if you haven't done so already, feature those stories. Your students are the hero of the story; you're just the guide. And when people see, "Oh, there's this hero who is doing all these other things, and I'm just like them. I need to have the same guidance too," it's going to be so much clearer that your course is even more valuable because you've offered this advice to others, just like your potential clients. Keep doing that.

Rose:
Thank you. We added those testimonials to the sales page, and we also... I use Buzzsprout. So we used dynamic content during that time, and I did a whole episode of Autism Outreach just about the course and what it was all about.

So, what are your thoughts then about… I guess I'm in this dilemma because I don't think you're big on evergreen, or I don't know your thoughts on it because I don't think you have any courses that are like that. But I'm kind of struggling with this idea of, I feel like it should be always available. But you know how it is when something's always available: people are not going to buy it because they'll get to it someday, right? They'll get to it eventually.

Pat:
Right. And your worry is that a person may want it and not have access to it right now.

So, there's a couple of ways to go around that. First of all, to finish off our point earlier about featuring success stories just before I forget, you have a podcast now. Invite your students on the podcast and talk to them about their before and their after their journey. Not, "Hey, tell me, my course is awesome," but, "Hey, tell me what you struggled with before. And tell me what life is like now." When you feature their story on a storytelling platform like a podcast, man, it just does so, so much. So, I would encourage you to use your platform for that. Not just like a episode to talk about the course, but the people who have taken the course and their transformation too.

Rose:
Yes, we did do that this time too, kind of in the pre-launch runway, I had two alumni: one that was an autism mom and speech therapist, and one person that was a speech therapist, both alumni. And so, that was part four weeks before, like during our prelaunch, I guess, before we launched it with live webinars, we did do that. And that was really cool to be able to talk to people in that way. Yeah, love that idea.

Pat:
Awesome. And that episode's always there now for people to hear.

But to our question now is, well, what if people hear that episode and they're like, "I want to buy this, but I can't buy it," right? There's many ways to do this. You could have a wait list, for example, "Hey, we're opening up enrollment during this time." Kind of like a dam, you’ve got the water coming up. And then, all of a sudden you open the flood gates and everybody buys. If you choose to do it that way, which is allowing you for the easiest way to market it, because it's finally open, it closes, you have a special deal happening that time, people have been waiting for it, I would definitely collect a waitlist, and also have people just kind of get reminders because what if like they get on that waitlist in January and you don't open until April. It's like, well, you lost an opportunity.

There might be people who reach out who go, "Well, I need this now, Rose. I can't wait." And you know what you do? You just go, "Okay, we'll let you in because this seems really urgent to you." And doing that on a one-off basis is totally fine. So, there's that opportunity to be flexible in that way.

But there are ways that you can make it evergreen and still have that sort of moment or moments where it feels like there's urgency. And the way you can do this is you have it open all the time for a certain price. And this is actually what we do. We have it open, our courses open, most of them, at a certain price point. No bonuses, just, “Here's the course.” And we do have people buy the low-hanging fruit who need it right now.

But, at certain times of the year we go, "Hey, summer's coming up. We know that you might want to put some time or effort in now that you're taking a break, or kids are home from school or whatever." Or, "Hey, Black Friday is coming up." So, what we do is we go, "Okay for this week and this week only, we're not only going to take $50 off or what have you." And it doesn't even have to be a price discount. It could be, "This week and this week only, we're going to add these special bonuses. You've perhaps been sitting on this for a while. You know you could always get it later. Well, we want to help you make a decision right now. Here are some things that are only available, on top of the course, if you get it during this time." And that allows you to have a launch, kind of, on top of something that's evergreen. How are you feeling about something like that?

Rose:
Yeah, that's a thought. We have the waitlist, and those are all good ideas. So, I think I just have to kind of conceptualize at that. So, that's helpful to like talk about the higher price point. And I just need to kind of get over that.

Pat:
Yeah. And I'm sure you will, and it feels like ripping a Band-Aid off, but then you get that first sale and you're like, "Wow, it actually is doing well." And I'll tell you when I raised the price of some of my stuff a while back, I started noticing that I started to get more sales; more people started coming in because, again, that perception of quality and value.

The other way to go about doing evergreen is a little bit more advanced, but you may be at this point already. Many marketers do this, and they use a tool called Deadline Funnel. And Deadline Funnel, for those of you listening, is a tool that allows you to create a launch-like sequence for every individual at the time they start an action with you. They join a email list because they have a lead magnet that they're interested in. And then, that kicks off the countdown timer. And then, for a week they get emails that are automated. Again, you write all these ahead of time, and then a launch for just that person starts.

And if a person joined the day after, they're on a one-day delay compared to that initial person, and what happens is you can have a sequence such that it is going through a launch process where, you know, “Hey, by this date,” which is dynamic based on when they come in, “you won't get access to this anymore. This is your time to take advantage of the deal, and the bonuses, and it's going away. And so, this is your time.”

The pros of that is you get a launch, but for every individual, no matter when they come in, they get their own launch. Deadline Funnel allows you to, when the launch is over, legitimately have them not be able to access that sales page anymore. It actually, based on their cookie, allows them to... Really, it's truthful scarcity. You don't want to pretend to be scarce and not follow through.

The worry is it gets a little bit technical. There's some technical setup involved, and it can get a little bit, especially if you start to get multiple products kind of running at the same time, it can get… we ran through this problem, and we stopped using Deadline Funnel for a while to simplify because it was just this giant spider web of overlapping things, and people getting more emails than they should have, and it can get like that. So, if you choose to go down that route, keep it simple. Always try to keep it simple.

Rose:
Yes. Awesome. Super helpful, yes, and I have a tech team that will be able to help with that. And I have some really good information about evergreen. So, I think that's what we're going to try on that.

Pat:
Yeah, it's worth a try if you have the tech team for sure. And the cool thing is you could try it just like we did. If it doesn't work, you can go back and change it, or go back to the way it was, or try something else. Nothing, even though it seems like it, is a super permanent decision.

Rose:
Okay. Then, I had one other question quickly here. So, the other thing I'm thinking about doing, so I was thinking about taking Tribe, and then I thought, I was talking it through and I thought, "No, I don't really want to do something where I would have a low-cost membership with lots of different members, because I don't have a team that would be able to help with all the churn, and all the nurturing that needs to go into that."

So, now, what I'm trying to put together in kind of the beginning stages is an autism mastermind. So, I personally offer consultation and coaching to either parents and/or professionals that's more like mentorship. So, I talk to speech therapists, and I help mentor them if they're in their business and they have questions about autism and things like that. So, I'm trying to put together like a higher-level, I'm calling it an “autism mastermind.” I was thinking that initially, maybe I would do, once a month, I would do maybe an interactive training. And then, the other weeks out of the month, I would be available for office hours on Zoom.

And I guess what I'm thinking about is pricing for that. You know, and it goes back to pricing again. So I'm kind of like, "Well, if I do a consultation, I typically charge $250 for a 45-minute consultation, and that's one-on-one.” So I'm like, “Okay, I would probably only maybe have 20 people in this.” I have an email list of almost 30,000 people. So, I do think that I would have people that would want to do this. And I think it would be a way to reach more people because I'm already kind of doing this consultation. But it seems like people have a lot of questions, and they want… especially people who own private practices. And so I was like, "Oh, this might be a nice way to have a membership, but it would just be something higher level,” so I wouldn’t have to worry… yeah, tighter so I wouldn't have to worry about all those things that... I'm sure I'm going to have to worry about things with the membership, but it would be different than having something that's $20 that I'm trying to get a lot of people in.

Pat:
Totally. You're going for higher-quality, longer-term relationships in this. I like the idea a lot. There's a couple ways to think about pricing. How much would you need to charge for twenty people, for example, and I'm not expecting you to do the math or answer this right now, but for it to be worth it for you? At this price, it's like, "Uhh, that's not even worth my time because I'm so busy and I charge this much for this thing." So, you can start to move those levers up and down until it gets to a point where you're like, "Okay, well, this seems worth it to me, and a lot of value for others too, and it kind of fits in that nice sweet spot."

The other thing that's similar to what we talked about earlier is like reverse-engineering the value that that would offer to them. What would it do for them, and what would it unlock for them? And what's that worth? And that all just to say you don't want to undercharge, for sure.

The other thing to think about is, first of all, this is a long-term commitment. You don't want to do this just for, you know, sell it and then, "Hey guys, this is just like two months’ work." It's going to be for a long time, I would expect. So, to commit to something long-term without yet having tried it is very scary sometimes. And so, you might find that in the first month, you're just like, "I don't like this. This isn't how I teach. Or like, it just doesn't feel good to me." So, my suggestion would be to in some way, shape or form, whether you charge for it or not, do it for one month as an experiment. And to bring people in.

And be honest about it, like, "Hey, I'm, I'm thinking about doing something like this long-term, but I want to see what it's like, and I want you to be involved. And if you're interested, here's what it is. Here's how much it's going to cost. And it's just going to be for one month only. If I choose to continue this, you'll be locked in at that lower price. If not, then no worries, but I still want you to have value coming out of it. And truly, if you don't feel there's any value, then I'll give you your money back, or something, by the end of it." That way, it forces you to structure what that month might be like. It forces you to get pushback on it. Like, "I don't know if I can make that much time. Oh, okay, well maybe we go once every other week." And you can start to kind of actually structure this thing with a test group before then sort of releasing it to the wild.

And the cool thing is, when you do it with a test group, maybe it's only 5, 10 people to start just so it's manageable and you're not locked in. So, if it is bad, you're like, "Okay, well, let me just get through this month and I'll be fine." But if it's awesome, you're like, "Wow." First of all, you get that confidence to sell it, and realize the value that's actually offered on the other end. And two, you now have real testimonials from people who have done it the first time who can vouch for it when you start to let other people know about it.

Rose:
Yeah, that's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that. I guess I would just have to think of maybe people that are fans of ABA Speech that could help out. I just finished Superfans, so yeah. I definitely have people that I would think like, "Oh, I think they would like this." I think this would be something that people would really like. So, maybe just trialing for a month to kind of work out the kinks, and to get feedback from people. I like that idea of the testimonials.

And then, I mean, I just don't know. I guess we'll just have to see how many people would want to do it just based on the size of my email list and who would… And I think it would be more of, I would have people fill out an application because I would have to have certain people who are serious about it.

Pat:
Actually, you can be like, "Hey, August is going to be, here at ABA, mentorship month. And if you're interested in getting any sort of mentorship with me, and also connecting with other people in the same space, fill out this application. It's very short, and it's going to let you know what the opportunity is like. And we're going to start out small, I'm probably going to pick 5 to 10 people to start. But then if I choose to do this further, then I'll let you know." And then, you know, that way you will already have a warm email list of people who were excited about it. Initially you can, in that first group, the test group, just pick and choose from the applications from people that you think would be well fit together. That way, you kind of are marketing it before you even market it.

Rose:
Yeah, that's a good idea. I like that. That kind of firms that up. Yeah, I'm excited about that to be able to offer that because I really liked the one-on-one kind of mentorship consultation that I'm doing now. So, I'm thinking about how to structure that so I can serve more people. And then, if I did like a, you know a weekly office-hour time, or group coaching, I guess I could call it, people could come when they're able to because I'm sure some people can't always do it. And I think that would be a way to really help people in a different kind of way.

Pat:
I think that'd be awesome.

And, for pricing, the last thing is to, if you have one-on-ones and they're at a certain price, obviously, you don't want to charge the same as that. It's going to be a little bit lower than that. And that becomes your coaching or your one-on-one sort of price anchors everything else. So, what a lot of people do, I'm not saying you should do this, but a lot of people do this. They're going to go into group coaching and they're like, "Wow, okay, you know what? My individual time is worth way more. So, I'm going to double my individual time, which then trickles down everything else and makes everything more valuable in the eyes of those who are looking at it."

And I know some people who like 5X their one-on-one time because they're like, "I don't want any clients one-on-one anymore. I'm just going to outprice everybody who'd be interested, but this then makes my group coaching, and my courses seem that much more valuable." And the funny thing is they still get people hiring them for coaching at that ridiculous price. And they're like, "Okay, well, now I'm coaching less people, but I have more money, and I have more time to help those people." It's just such an interesting, weird, back-alley kind of... I don't know. It's just a weird thing with pricing. Pricing is weird.

Rose:
Yeah. I'm struggling with it. That's good because I think there's a perceived value like if something is too inexpensive, people may think, "Well, what's wrong with it?" Yeah. And I definitely don't have that because I have good testimonials and people enjoy the course. So, I think I just kind of need to start thinking a little bit differently, and kind of pivot toward some of these ideas, but this is super helpful.

Pat:
Good. And imagine that you start, as a result of getting more comfortable with the pricing, you start making more money, not just what it could do for you personally, but how you can reinvest some of that money into the team, into making things even easier, to remove things off your plate, or the new website design, I don't know, whatever. It starts to unlock so much more so that you can serve even more people. That's the ultimate thing. It's like, the more money you make, the more you could serve, and the better you could serve too.

Rose:
Absolutely love that.

Pat:
Whew, we talked about a lot of deep things today, Rose. I appreciate you, and your honesty, and your vulnerability. If you can, one more time, let people know where they can go and follow you and check you out, that'd be great.

Rose:
Absolutely. Make sure you listen to the Autism Outreach podcast. A new episode drops every Tuesday and visit me at ABASpeech.org.

Pat:
Nice. Rose, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

Rose:
Thanks, Pat.

Pat:
All right, thank you so much for coming on the show, Rose. And for being open and vulnerable, and allowing us to share, and break down and build back up with relation to pricing and your course, and all the other great things you have going on. So, best of luck to you. And thank you again for what you do. If you'd like to connect with Rose, ABASpeech.org. Or her podcast Autism Outreach. Go check it out.

And you should check out AskPat.com because that's where you can actually fill out an application to potentially get coached here on the show, just like Rose did today. And make sure you subscribe because not only do we continually have these conversations, and you get to be a fly on the wall and listen in on them, but we also bring back people who've been on the show before. And we're soon going to bring somebody in a couple weeks who was once on the show before too, to tell us what's been going on. Did they actually do the work? Did they do what we talked about? Or did they go somewhere different? We don't know until we chat with them.

So, again, this is what AskPat's about helping and serving the community. And thank you again so, so much. Speaking of community, I just want to give a big plug to SPI Pro. Make sure you check out SPI Pro. It's our community of entrepreneurs who are there to serve and help each other. You also get team access to us at Team SPI, and it's so much fun. We have events, we have challenges, we have book clubs, we have different sort of categories where conversations are happening right now.

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Thanks again for listening in. I appreciate you, and I look forward to serving you next week. Until then, cheers, peace out, and as always, Team Flynn for the win.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media. We'll catch you in the next session.