Episode 269: Be it an Evergreen or Launch Model — Being Ready is a Choice with Caitlin Bacher
Being ready is a choice. If you've been on the cusp of something new -- you hired a new coach. You tried the new course. You did the thing. And then you hit this invisible wall that seems to say, "No more for you!" And you believe it? It's a very common experience.
You can create an online course about anything. That’s where the fun and power lie. And being ready is a choice. Are you ready to choose business success or not? That's the question I want running around in the back of your mind as you listen today.
Caitlin Bacher is the CEO of Scale with Success, a company dedicated to teaching coaches and course creators how to turn their online courses into a 7-figure business without launching. She's learned this lesson the hard way after years of being trapped on the launch roller coaster, which resulted in inconsistent revenue and sleepless nights wondering where her next sale would be coming from.
After Caitlin pivoted herself from launching to selling her course on autopilot, she unlocked the benefits of consistent revenue—every business owner's dream—so that she could get the traction her business actually needed.
This episode is about what it takes to make a proven method actually work in your business.
From why you can’t to how you can
Caitlin says her purpose in life is to help people go from why they can’t—to how they can.
“As entrepreneurs, there's always a million reasons why we can't do something,” says Caitlin. “It's really up to us to think about how we can. On any given day, anything that we have to do, a million reasons why we can't do it, but that doesn't matter. It's so important that we remain focused on figuring out how we can.”
No magic checklist will tell you when you're ready to start a business. It's a mindset shift that asks the business owner to recognize you are ready to start. You are willing to make mistakes. You are willing to encounter unexpected challenges. But it's a choice to get started and keep moving forward.
Evergreen model versus launch model
Launching typically requires two to three months of intense list building and content distribution, which leads to an open cart. The open cart can be for your services, for your one-on-one, for enrollment in your course—whatever it is. That open cart lasts anywhere from five to seven days, and no one can buy until your next launch.
“What most course creators find is that when that launch ends, so does all of the momentum that they've been working so hard to generate,” says Caitlin. “Then it's radio silence for your business until you begin the launch cycle all over again.”
Using an evergreen model allows you to enroll new students in your program on an ongoing basis, not just a couple of times a year, which allows you to grow over time.
You can continue to collect data on what marketing messages resonate with your audience. You can make little pivots as needed, and you're putting less pressure on yourself to make this one big thing go or else—evergreen doesn't have to be all or nothing, which is a feeling that comes up when you're launching.
“I think that a lot of times people, they get caught up in feeling like, ‘you know what, I'm launching and I really don't, I just don't like it. It doesn't really mesh with my lifestyle and my personality, but I feel like it's the only way to do it,’” says Caitlin. “And so I'm here to basically shed light on another approach that may be more fitting for someone.”
The cycle of competence, despair, and confidence
There is no specific timeline for figuring out the proper marketing message to start selling successful evergreen content. For Caitlin, her third year of business, the year she stopped launching, was her first million-dollar year.
As you start something new, grit and tenacity become key attributes when the honeymoon period wears off.
“As we become more competent, our confidence begins to dip because we're beginning to understand what we don't know,” says Caitlin. “We're beginning to see where the gaps are in our skillset, in our knowledge base. And it's not to say you can't learn how to do those things, but you're suddenly becoming aware. That is normal.”
But once you hit that wall when you realize something is going to be harder than you thought it was going to be, it's easy to latch onto the thoughts that it's just not going to work. When that happens, we return to square one and look for the next shiny thing to get excited about until those doubts creep back in.
Remember that the breakthrough is coming. You're approaching the wall, and on the other side is more confidence, proficiency, and the ability to achieve your goals.
“You can't skip from beginning to end,” says Caitlin. “You have to go through the pain, the discomfort, the challenge of learning something new.”
3 steps to a million-dollar course
For anyone thinking of selling a course, Cailin outlines three key steps to keep in mind.
- You have to love your topic. You won't find that key topic you stick with for many years until you first pick a topic you love. You're only going to get to where you want to go is if you take that first step. You can always pivot six months from now.
- Teach what you know. There's a caveat to this because it does not mean that you have to be the best person in the world at that thing. But you have to be a few steps ahead of someone else.
- Connect with your audience. Many people want to skip this step; they think they will create the course, put it out there, and it's going to sell. You have to consistently post content teaching people about the problems they are actively experiencing. You want to do that because you want to build an audience experiencing the exact problems your course can solve.
Caitlin notes that when she works with clients who scale past six or seven figures, they've learned how to manage their emotions. That doesn't mean suppressing them; it means pushing through when you don't meet a sales goal or someone leaves you a mean comment on social media.
And with managing your emotions comes measuring your results. Caitlin could have an off day that would negatively influence how she perceived her business – but checking the numbers showed things were going well.
For example, if you were testing out a webinar title and no one opted in that first week – you can’t just give up. Try the next one. Check the results.
“It's just like this constant iteration,” says Caitlin. “Every second that you spend stuck in the drama of it all is taking you further and further away from your goal.”
The drama can feel less lonely. When you're experiencing it, you might air your grievances, and people will come out and support you. But when your head's down, focus on your goals.
Nobody's there to applaud you. Nobody's there to tell you, "Good job". Nobody is rallying around you. They don't even know what you're doing. And that's why it is so important that when you are choosing a topic, when you are figuring out what it is that you want to do with your business, that it's something that you're very passionate about and connected to, so you have that to pull yourself forward.
Free gift for listeners
Watch Caitlin's free masterclass, "How to Generate Launch-Sized Revenue Without Launching"
If you have an online course, or you're thinking of starting one soon, and you want to be able to sell that course on autopilot, not through launching, sign up. It's about an hour long.
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