This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey, what's up friends? Chris Guillebeau here, recording another episode. This is episode 2,519. Hope you're doing well. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.
And if you don't have Thanksgiving in your part of the world, well, today you have Black Friday because all over the world, at least in terms of e-commerce, there are all kinds of sales going on. I always make a few bookmarks. If there's something I need to buy, you know, in the months of September and October, I'm always like, can it wait till November? Because it's probably going to be on sale. So in case there's something you need to buy, maybe this is a good time to check it out.
I don't have any Black Friday sales myself because I don't sell anything. Right now I just produced the podcast for free. I've got my books, of course. So those might be on sale at Amazon, but mostly I'm happy to make the show for you and do most of my work for free. Anyway, let's talk about Failure Friday.
That is today's segment. In this week's segment, we're going to hear from a woman who sets out to become a financial abundance coach, but she actually prices her online course too high for her initial clients. Now, the whole point of Failure Friday, it's not just to talk about failure. It is to help people, all of us become comfortable with failure or with setbacks, let's say, but setback Friday doesn't sound as good. I guess we could do that on Saturday.
The whole point is to highlight stories in which something doesn't go as planned, but then what can we learn from that lesson? How can we move forward? How can the side hustler in question move forward? How can we use failure as a bridge to success? In other words.
So today we're going to hear from Rita. She's from Orlando. Let's hear about one of those struggles of launching the course at a price point that was perhaps a bit too high. And of course, what did she learn? I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up, but here is Rita.
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In my world, abundance isn't just a buzzword. It's a lifestyle. As a financial abundance coach, I've been helping clients break free from their limiting beliefs about money for years. Empowered by my own success and the transformations I'd witnessed, I decided to create Wealth Mastery 101, an online course that would deliver my coaching on a larger scale. The market was hot for these kinds of products.
And it seemed like every coach out there was offering courses at around the $1,000 price point. So naturally I followed suit. The production process was a whirlwind of excitement and energy. Each module was meticulously designed to unlock financial abundance. Or so I thought.
When the course was finally ready, I could barely contain my excitement as I sent out the launch emails to my mailing list. Crickets. Days turned into weeks and the sales dashboard remained depressingly empty. I couldn't understand what was going wrong. My content was solid.
My intentions were good, but my audience simply wasn't biting. After reaching out for some feedback, the truth hit me like a ton of bricks. My audience, many of whom were still on their journey to financial freedom, found the $1,000 price tag daunting. I had priced myself out of my own market. I'd seen everyone else offering high ticket courses and assumed that was the path for me.
I couldn't have been more wrong. It was a humbling moment. All my teachings and understanding the value and psychology of money. And here I was blindsided by my own assumptions. The irony was not lost on me.
That's when I decided to pivot. I broke down Wealth Mastery 101 into smaller, more digestible courses and priced the entry level one at $100. But this time I added various upsells, personalized coaching sessions, advanced modules, and an exclusive mastermind group. It was the same valuable content, but now structured in a way that allowed my audience to choose their level of commitment. The results?
Much, much better. Sales picked up almost immediately. And what's even better? A significant percentage of customers chose to add one of the upsells, sometimes taking the total cart value well above $300 per sale. In retrospect, my initial failure was a lesson in empathy and market understanding.
It reminded me that while the principles of abundance are universal, everyone's financial journey is personal. It's not about what everyone else is doing. It's about what serves my audience best. The experience reshaped my approach to business, making it more aligned with the principles I teach. Now, I just don't coach about financial abundance.
I practice it in the way that makes it accessible for everyone. And that, to me, feels like success. Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. Big thanks to Rita for sharing this story. You learn a lot when you launch an initial course or when you launch anything, especially when it doesn't hit as well as you would like.
You're like, "Oh, what should I do differently?" And in this case, the variable was pricing. That was the biggest variable. It could be something else for a different story. So you always wanna isolate, okay, what was responsible for this success or non-success, and what can I do differently for the next time around? So I'm glad that Rita has figured that out, and I really appreciate her sharing this story, just being vulnerable and transparent.
It helps all of us to learn what goes well and what does not. Listeners, if you have a question and update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend or just a wonderful weekend, wherever you are. And of course, new episodes come out every day. My name's Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
