153: Close Your Cart With the Highest Revenue Ever

Melissa:

Okay. So today's session, I'm just gonna I love to share them with you guys, like, real time behind the scenes what's going on our own business. Right? So some of you guys are wary. We just went through our own launch and closed the door literally yesterday, 2 days ago. So we just went through our own 9 day launch. So for those of you that launch and do an open cart, kind of strategies. This is what I'm gonna talk about today. And I'm gonna share with you just really my insights and what we've learned.

Melissa:

time we ever sold it, I made $: 1200

Melissa:

ith I mean, I was pulled in a: 100000

Melissa:

Right? Like, people are really distracted, and so the enrollments were coming in slower. The attendees, there was less. But there was a ton of conversation in the DMs, and there was never seen so many people watching replays instead of attending live. And so to me and I had to tell the team, I think that the like, folks showing up live right now is just a leading indicator. It's not necessarily indicative of how many sales we're gonna close because people are just really busy right now. So having said that, I went to bed on Tuesday night of closed cart at 9:45. And keep in mind, our last launch on closed cart, we did 46 sales. Right? And, it was a big launch.

Melissa:

We did, like, 770, k. And so Tuesday night, we've done 36 sales. Right? 36 sales. Our last launch on closed cart, we had done 45, and I thought, well, this is it. Like, part of me thought. I'm a tell you the rest of the strategy and and what really happened in a minute. But, you know, it's a part of me at 9:45 that was like, well, we'll see what happens when I'm going to bed. I woke up the next morning, and we had closed 20 more sales, and we had ultimately closed 56 people.

Melissa:

In one day, we did $300,000 in 24 hours. We literally at this point, nearly 50% of our revenue was done in 24 hours. Okay? Here's my kind of take home message and just insights under the hood, like why and how I think our team really was able to execute on that, and I wanna take you to a couple of analogies. First of all, it was partially it's always a pep talk by my business coach who says people have more money in their bank accounts than they ever have right now. But the reality is because the market is unstable, people are having a harder time parting with their money more than ever. It doesn't mean the opportunity isn't there. Okay? What it means is that we have to work harder to earn the transaction. Okay? Chris said this the other day, and it really resonated in our mastermind call.

Melissa:

where we are in September of: 2023

Melissa:

People give up before the game is over. They feel deflated. Think about this. Going on to Tuesday, we had done 300,000 in sales, which sounds huge for you guys. I know. But I want you to keep in mind that we hadn't done half the revenue yet, and there was 24 hours left. Let that sink in. And what happens so many times, and this is especially for Claire to hear because she's in the middle of launch and she's opened her cart, bit like, winners sprint to the finish.

Melissa:

Right? And so many entrepreneurs get within 24 hours of closing cart, and they're so beat up and they're so deflated, and they feel like they've lost the game and don't realize half the revenue is on the other side of their energy, their tenacity, their strategy, their ability to follow-up. Right? And so winners sprint to the finish. However, what I want you guys to write down is that winners also pace themselves. Okay? And this is something I have learned from years of launching. The 1st 2 years, I almost threw in the towel to never do it again because I was so burnt out and exhausted when doing them. Right? And what I learned is what I've learned through trading for marathons and even going back to my days of, competitive soccer. When I played competitive soccer so just follow me on this for a minute. I had the most phenomenal coach from South America, and he would make us take our ball before practice and kick our ball on the cross country trail and run for 3 miles before the game.

Melissa:

Like, beef but not before the game, before practice. And you're like, we would we hated it. Right? But here's what would always happen. It didn't matter how talented the other team was that we played. By the by the end of the game, in 9th hour, no matter how talented the other team was, they didn't have as much energy as we did. They might have had more skill, but we had more endurance. And we would kick their ass at the end, the last minute. Right? And it's the same with marathons.

Melissa:

Has anybody ever done endurance endurance running, endurance training? Yeah. So what happens? In a marathon, you actually hold back. You hold steady. Right? You're a caged lion those first 10 to 15 miles. Right? But you know if you go too hard and fast out of the gate, there will be no glycogen left. You will hit a wall, and you will never make it across the finish line. Correct? Right? But if you hold steady, hold steady, hold steady, then when you get to what? That last 2 to 3 miles. Now it's time to pick up the pace.

Melissa:

You've got the reserve. It's time to sprint to the finish. Right? And so I use these analogies because this is, my friends, what we really have to do when it comes to launching. Right, as you guys know, your energy is everything, and your energy transfers through how you're showing up in consult calls, how you're showing up in the DMs. When if you've already thrown in the towel, also, how you're even not showing up. Right? And so we have to preserve our energy. So so where I wanna go with this is a couple of things. Number 1 is pace yourself as much as you wanna come out of the gate hard and fast.

Melissa:

Know that if you do not reserve energy in the tank for those last 12 to 24 hours. You could forego I could have forgone literally 20 like, $300,000 in sales, and and I'll share with you why in a couple minutes what I did in those 24 hours. Right? The second thing is as hard as it is to do, and I coach my team this all the time, during launch, it is an it is an absolute mandatory. You're getting 8 hours of sleep up until the end. Like, you must sleep. You tell yourself that you need to stay up. You tell yourself you need to follow-up with everyone. Again, energetically, where the game is won is at the end.

Melissa:

And if you have burnt yourself, burn the candle at both ends the entire time. You don't have the reserve to kick it into high gear at the end, and you give up so much. Right? So, religiously, I would go to bed every single night and get my 8 hours. There's days in the middle of launch I actually sleep in as, like, my midpoint. Right? So, like, typically on Wednesdays before open cart, I actually go to bed early, and I don't set the alarm. If you know me, you know I'm up at 5 AM every single day. That's the day I I literally sleep till my body tells me I'm I'm rested. Right? No alcohol.

Melissa:

Right? Some of us like to unwind at night. I'm here to tell you it will fuck up your sleep, and it is going to drain you, and you're not gonna show up as well as you could. Right? And if you move your body, continue to move your body. If you don't move your body, don't use launch as a time to go start training for a marathon. Right? I would say kind of dial it back just a little bit so that your exercise is invigorating, but not draining. Because people underestimate the amount of energy wired to be on point and present. When I wear my WHOOP Strap, you guys should all have a Oura ring or a roo WHOOP Strap, yes, or something. I listen.

Melissa:

I lifted nearly £20,000 in total at the gym the other morning with squats and all the things, and my WHOOP Strap couldn't tell the difference between the mental load and the physical load that day. If you look at the chart from my workout at 5 AM, and you look at my respirations and heart rate going live from noon to 1. My WHOOP strap thought that I was in the gym repping it out with heavy weights because of the mental load that triggers all kinds of adrenaline in our bodies, our heart rate goes up, our respirations respirations get short, and it mentally exhausts you. And and this is a a true fatigue. So some of you may be in the middle of launch, and you're like, I haven't even exercised this week. Why do I feel like I've ran a marathon? Your gut and your brain actually expend more energy than any other part of your body, which is why when you overeat over Thanksgiving, you wanna pass out. And it's why when you start a brand new job, the 1st couple of weeks you come home, just wiped because the mental load is like you're trying to take it all in. Right? So we can't underestimate the energy suck that happens in the middle of launch and the anxiety of the open cart that's coming and who's gonna buy and the stories that we're telling ourselves.

Melissa:

Right? So protect your energy through sleep, nutrition, and, just do away with the alcohol. Right? I think I've had 2 glasses of wine in the whole months because I've got my live event coming up too, and I'm just like, I preserve. You wanna be on point. No fog. Okay. Another thing is with protect your energy is clear your calendar. This is something I was not good at when I first started launching. I would think that, well, I can fit in client coaching around my livestream.

Melissa:

I can do these things around, you know, my launch calendar. I'm here to tell you every every minute that you're coaching, consulting, going into your inbox, it creates an energetic tug, and it pulls you out of alignment of being focused on your launch. So one of this may sound a little crazy, but the large majority of it, I have an outward bound email that says during launch, sorry for the delay, but I'm in the middle of a launch, and it may be a couple of days until I get back to you. Because the worst thing is, like, being squirreled by an email that takes you down into a rabbit hole of action or time or, like, thoughts about something that scroll your brain into a negative space. Right? So you can get really, my team knows we hold, hold, hold, like, as much back from me as possible until the cart is opened. So for those for us with a 9 day launch, the 1st 4 days, my team knows, like, any disaster don't bring me unless it absolutely needs my decision before the cart opens. Right? So, like, literally, yesterday, Ali was like, okay. Now the cart's close.

Melissa:

I gotta unload a bunch of shit on you. Here's what's happened. Right? So you you protect your energy, especially if any of you have, like, an assistant that can help with your inbox. It's a great time. The other thing about protecting your energy is making adequate space for consults so that you aren't exhausted. Right? If you're you have a packed calendar around your launch serving your clients instead of getting into a cadence of kind of creating a little bit more base from your clients during launch weeks. You're again, energetically, there's only so much you can give, and there's only so much energy you can exchange. And if you're doing consult calls around launch and around coaching clients, it can become really, really exhausting.

Melissa:

And some of you, your calendar's already jammed for this part of the year, and I get that, but be more aggressive with that next year. Right? It's one of the best things that I I've learned trial by error is in November of every year, I plan my calendar for the whole next year. Map out your launches for the whole next year. Go ahead and create buffers around those launches where clients can't book calls with you. You're not available for guest speaking. Right? You can get ahead of this so that you own the energy around that launch, and it's super protective. Right? Okay. What else? Get even get help with get get support from the spouse.

Melissa:

I you know, you we've you guys are amazing. We've got the we got the Buckleys here who know, and they're supporting each other. But if you haven't had this conversation I had to have this conversation with my husband literally this year, because I love him. He's supportive, but he made some kinda snide comment about how stressed I get during launch. And, you know, how it would be great if we could dial back the number of launches because mom gets stressed. And and the in a very loving and compassionate way, I said to him and this is where you may have to have these conversations with your spouse. Right? I'm like, look. Here's the deal.

Melissa:

For you, when you have some huge meeting and presentation that you need to make, you leave this house, and you either get on a plane and are completely separated from the chaos of day to day life and the children. And you can get yourself straight in a hotel room and then walk into a boardroom and do your presentation, and or you still leave this house and you go into an office. And what if, like, a 3rd of your paycheck for the year hinged on that week, and what came out of your mouth? Right? And I said, so if I seem a little tense, it's human nature. I'm I'm kinda stressed out at the load that's coming at me and the responsibility and the revenue that's gonna be coming in. And what I could really use is some compassion and support and maybe overlook my edginess during that time and know that I'm doing everything I can for this family, and and and just envision that my office happens to be me walking from the living room where there's a kid with fever of a 103 and the other one's barfing into an office to livestream globally with thousands of people just like you would walk into a boardroom. Mine just happens to be in the house. You know? And having that frank conversation with him was one of the best things that ever could have done because now he's like he's like team Melissa Henal. Right? Like, he is all about protecting my energy and texting me and, like, what are the numbers today, babe? How's it looking? What can I do? Where do I need to take the kids? He took he literally took the kids to Raleigh this past Saturday.

Melissa:

In the past, it would have been a debate of who could he leave behind. It's just a lot to juggle all the kids. He didn't even ask. He had a company picnic, which is, like, 3 hours away from here, and he's like, babe, I'm gonna take the kids. You do your thing. Right? He's on my he he gets it. So sometimes it's just giving them some perspective, on what it's what you're holding when you're doing these launches, right, what you're holding, and the vision with the family and what it's gonna do for them. Right? Okay.

Melissa:

Creating urgency. So I used to do rolling enrollment. Like, we would close the close the door in the sense that the price would go up. That was our closed door. It was like, tomorrow, the price goes up. And I used to do that out of and you guys can choose to do what you want, but I did that out of scarcity because I was afraid I was gonna lose sales if I didn't keep the door open. And what I have found is 2 things. People purchase when you give them a deadline, and when you continue to do that, you condition people to realize if they don't purchase their the the options off the table till the next time you come around.

Melissa:

Right? Number 2 for you all, logistically, it is a nightmare to continually onboard new clients versus bring them in as a cohort for those of you who do class style. And what we found is that doing the roll enroll rolling enrollments, quite honestly, it's just a couple, like, here and there, like, throughout, like, a number of months, and they would always get lost in the group. They were the ones that would complain because they didn't really know where anything was. They weren't really integrated in with the group. Right? And so one of the best things we did in my business in January of this year is say, cart closed. There's no we're not raising the price. The cart just closes and you can't get in, right, and holding to that. Hence, why when I laid my head down at night at 9:45 on Tuesday night, while I was sleeping across the entire world, people were putting their credit cards in and money was just going, all, you know, all envision it all over the all over the world.

Melissa:

Why? Because they knew if their asses didn't get that credit card in by midnight, they weren't getting none. There is there is power to urgency. And I'm not saying this to be manipulative. We are doing this to serve. We are forcing people to get off the fence. It is painful to be on the fence. Make the decision and move forward or get off the fence and stay stuck, but it's really uncomfortable to sit in the middle and I'm not gonna rub your back and keep you here. Right? Force the decision.

Melissa:

Okay. Be organized. So I think, Mandy and I were just talking about it. My sales manager, sure. I think a lot of people are surprised, even my Facebook ads manager, to know that I am still as big as our company is, as large as our launches are, I am still in the DMs with every single hot that we have. Does that surprise you guys or no? Like, every single hot lead. Right? And it's for efficiency. So my Facebook ads manager, she's like, your team is, like, the greatest of all time.

Melissa:

You guys are because you do the prework, you nurture, you follow-up, and a lot of people don't realize the importance of and we'll talk about this, the nurture up. I get into conversations with registrants before, the card opens on purpose. I wanna make connection with these people. I don't wanna just jump into their DMs the day the cart opens and say, hey. I know I've never said anything to you in the DMs, are you gonna join me? Right? So I'll and this is one of the reasons it's really important to have your calendar cleared out during launch because this is an income producing activity, but if you're totally booked with clients, you're not gonna be able to do this. Right? So I am literally in the DMs leading up to open cart asking people, hey. What light bulb moment are you having? Hey. What are you hoping to learn more about? Tell me a little bit more about your business.

Melissa:

Right? So then it's a very authentic transition when the cart opens to say, oh my gosh. I'm so curious after being in conversation with you. Are you considering joining us in the academy? Right? And so this is where getting really organized with who your leads are that are hot. Right, like, you can use an Asana board, you can use an Excel spreadsheet, but where it can become a really hot mess is if you don't have system to kinda organize who you're in conversations with that seem like a good conversation to come back to. Right? That they're really viable leads and a good candidate for your program based off of the questions you're asking them, based off of their engagement. And some of you may have, you know, an assistant a virtual assistant that's helping you with this, and that's awesome. You can kinda help them with some clarifying questions to help kind of tease out, is this a warm slash hot lead. If so, let's put them over in this column so that when the cart does open, I am really efficient my time.

Melissa:

What do you think I did when the cart opened? I went straight to the hot leads first. Right? I was organized. I didn't just go to my whole list of people who registered. I went to the people I've been nurturing, that were responding to me, that were you know, that that that seemed pretty qualified based off their profiles, right, and where they are in their stage of business. So you need to be tracking them. Right? And even for those who book clarity calls with you that don't purchase, that's another really good rock to turn over. Right? So when you're going towards closed cart and you've had 1 on ones with people, you wanna be really organized with maybe who showed up to a q and a but hasn't purchased, who attended a clarity call with you and hasn't purchased. But the thing is if we're a hot mess and we're all over the place, we're not organized with our time.

Melissa:

We wanna be or if you've got 20 minutes that day, where do you want it? You want it with the people strategically who are so hot. They've been on a clarity call. They're on a q and a. They're on screen every day. Right? So we just wanna stay organized, with our leads throughout launch. Okay? Then, my friends and that brings me to the final sprint. Right? So the reason we sleep 8 hours a day and pace ourselves it's for the last 48 hours. Right? This is where my WHOOPSTRAAP goes into the red, and I am exhausted, and I am not sleeping.

Melissa:

And I'm able to do that because I paced myself, and I'm not running out of steam. Right? And this is where my ads team and I were talking about this. This is where a lot of people in launch fall short. My mindset is I did this for 9 days, and the next 24 hours could be the difference in a double of my revenue. Am I ready to call it a day and go to bed, or am I ready to buckle up? Right? And a lot of business owners kinda new in this space or even just not willing to do the work, think about this. If you're not willing to do that work, but you have a certain revenue goal and you're not hitting it, then you're just gonna have to go back and do a whole another launch, which is a hell of a lot more work than just going hard for those last 24 hours to turn over every single rock and have a very solid follow-up process. Does this make sense? I know that this message is really not in alignment with living all out, right, those last 24 hours. But that is why I talk about the marathon, living all out, like, taking care of yourself, the large majority of the run, why it is so important so that you have gas in the tank at the end.

Melissa:

Right? So in the final sprint, in the last 48 hours, I personally message every hot lead, which is hundreds. K? 100. If you saw my calendar, it's all I do. I know it sounds crazy for a CEO of a multi seven figure company. I am it's me. Right? Because people are investing and working with me. They wanna hear my voice. Right? So I'm messaging all my hot leads, turning over every rock, and I'm able to do this because of the reserved energy that I have.

Melissa:

Right? What I wanna talk about here that's critical is you should all have a process to make sure that your attendees have every opportunity to have every question answered. The number one reason people don't purchase is because they think that their situation is different. Number 1. And what I have found that has jacked up our sales tremendously is literally from the day carte opens every day. I actually when I'm done with my content, we flip over to q and a. You already have a live audience sitting there. I have a list of top questions that people usually ask, and I say, you know, the cart is open. It's gonna be open for certain amount of days.

Melissa:

I'm here to address any questions you may have about the program. And here's the thing. You're gonna get asked the same thing, like, a bajillion times. Right, Allie? Oh my god. We've had the same question. I can't tell you how many times I had people say, well, I don't know what my offer is. Should I join? I don't know who my avatar is. Should I join? How much time is it gonna take in the program? Is it gonna be too much work? Is it not gonna be enough work? Those 4 questions, I bet I was asked 78 times in the past 8 days.

Melissa:

You know? But was it worth responding to those questions every single time because it feels like 78 times to me, but it's the first time they're hearing it. Right, it's the 1st time they're hearing it, and they just want some confidence directly from you that their scenario is okay. It's the right fit. We're here for you. We're gonna help you. So what we do is we actually from open cart day. And, again, you guys don't have to do 9 day launches. I don't recommend you start there.

Melissa:

But we from the day the cart opens on Thursday. We do a q and a afterwards every day. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. 6 days, and I promise you every day, it's the same damn questions because they're different people that are streaming live. They're different people who have questions. They haven't watched the whole thing. They haven't heard everything you've said. They're lost but inspired, and they need your confidence.

Melissa:

And I think that is a piece a lot of people miss. And then we actually host what we call closed door calls those last 2 days at night for people who can't stream during the live time. We give the opportunity to have conversation in the evening when people are done with work. And guess what? Those questions, they're the exact same ones that I got all week long during the q and a when I was streaming live. Exact same questions. But as we're addressing those questions, we see the sales just coming in. And what happens is 1 person asked, and 5 other people had that same question, and then you're acknowledging and confirming, and people are purchasing because they're hearing someone else's question that's relevant to theirs, and it's creating some confidence. Right? And the last thing I will say is as you get to, you know, building your business and you've got some clients.

Melissa:

It's really good to bring in some client testimonials. Those sell. They loved you, Claire. Like, they loved you. Like, the hearing from people who've worked with you becomes, they can see themselves working with you by seeing themselves through the clients you're working with. Right? And as you begin to build, like, a a client base. What we do is we have kind of an organized list of clients we like to pull from knowing different demographics, different types of businesses and also different angles that you wanna edify of your of your service. You know, if someone had a really incredible experience through community, those are the questions you're gonna ask.

Melissa:

If you've got somebody who has really good data on the, like, hard numbers on their business from working with you or the in transformation that you provide based off of what you do. Make sure you sprinkle that in. If you've got different types of client bases that you work with, you wanna mix those testimonials in as you go. Right? So we try to focus on having men, having women, having ethno like, ethnically diverse, different types of businesses. For us, it's focused on product based and service based. Right? And so knowing that that's our audience base. Right? And then that helps you overcome some objections, in the 1st place that people you know, instead of them saying, well, I didn't see this particular type of, you know, industry or scenario, right, if you sprinkle that in. Right? And if you can't pull the testimonials, share them.

Melissa:

Fold those client stories and their scenarios into you're launching. Right? I do that a lot. Like, for, like, for instance, doctor Christine Manukin. I we haven't had her on in a long time, but she's a perfect example of building a network on LinkedIn and then launching a functional medicine, mastermind. And she's did it over $100,000 in sales off of LinkedIn leads exclusively in her very first launch. And so it's a really good testament to people who don't know what their offer is, and they're not sure if they should invest in the academy yet. Right? We wanna encourage them. No.

Melissa:

It's important to build that network first. Here's a success story of how this happened. So knowing what some of your top objections may be, you can lean on client stories and how it worked for them. Right? The last thing I'll say, and then I'm gonna open up for questions, is the close. Some of you are comfortable with this. Some of you are really uncomfortable with this. Okay? These are my favorite questions to ask. And listen.

Melissa:

I'll do it in a group Zoom in in the evening with a lot of people. Some of you guys have seen me do it. Once I feel like I've answered their question, whether it's in a 1 on 1 clarity call or it's in a group Zoom. I'll just say with a smile, is there any reason you wouldn't wanna join us? That gives them the opportunity to share with you any final concerns they may have, or you get the verbal agreement that they're on board. Right? And so I get this, you know, out like, earlier this week. Is there any reason you wouldn't wanna join us? Oh, man. I'm I really wanna do this, but I I wanna pay in full, and and I'm not gonna be able to move the money around until Friday. Is there any way that I can I can you can send me an invoice on Friday? Right? Sure.

Melissa:

That's fine. I'm in that scenario, I'm not gonna close the door in your face. You're just you know, depending on your price point and people wanting to pay you in full. But had I not asked that question, she could have easily talked herself out of it, right after we're done with the call of, like, I can't afford it. And the the cart's about to close, and I'm not gonna be able to move the money around. But instead, it's validating. Wow. Melissa's willing to meet me where I am.

Melissa:

She's accommodating, and she's making an exception for me. That's validating to move forward. Right? So it's one of my favorite questions to ask, and don't be attached to what they say. Right? And it may it's a blessing when they say, well, they give you a hard objection that it's just not gonna work for them. Right? So, that's one of that's one of my favorite things to say. Is there any reason you wouldn't wanna join us today? And just say it with a smile. Right? Don't be intimidating about it. So those are my notes for you guys.

Melissa:

I just upcoming hot office launch and it being our largest closed cart day ever. I wanted to share this with you guys because my coach and the people in the mastermind, I mean, are like, what did you do? What was different? It it's still blowing my mind right now that the universe literally, digitally, like, $300,000 came into the bank account all in the same day because of it it wasn't just because of that day. It was because of all the work prior to, right, and that sprint and the energy that was left at the end. Right? And being a ninja weeks to months in advance with my calendar to make sure I had the space, right, to to be effective and efficient with the launch. Right? Okay. So that's that's my story. It's a marathon, not a sprint till the end, then it is a sprint. Make sure you've got energy for it.

Melissa:

So I'm a just open up for questions that you guys might have.