Bryan McAnulty: Welcome to The Creator's Adventure, where we interview Creator's from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. If you wanna sell digital products online, whether you have a business already or not, today's episode is for you because I'm talking with a seven figure online course creator, Molly Keyser, about all the details and story of how she transitioned her service-based business into a successful business selling digital product.

Hey everyone. I'm Bryan McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. And before we start today's episode, I want to announce the winner of our ultimate course Creator Toolkit giveaway. If you've been following the show, you know that last month we had a giveaway with over $6,000 worth of prizes, including a brand new camera lighting, set up our course, our software strategy called With Me and more.

So the winner of that was Michael Smith from Tacoma, Washington. Congratulations, Michael. We've already been in touch with you via email and for everybody else who entered. Thank you so much for supporting the show. It really means a lot to us. Now, let's get into the episode.

Hey everyone. We're here today with Molly Keyser. She is a seven figure online course creator. She started as a professional photo. For 16 years and then decided to turn her knowledge into a business course for other photographers. Today, she teaches online courses to help others build their own courses and grow their businesses online.

Molly Curl currently lives in New Mexico with her husband, Erin and her dog Franklin, and you can often find them camping in the mountains, road tripping, or around a campfire with friends. Molly, welcome to the show.

Molly Keyser: Yay. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Bryan McAnulty: So my first question for you, Molly, is what would you say is the either the biggest thing that you did or that you are doing that has helped you achieve the freedom to do the things that you.

Molly Keyser: Ooh, love this question. This is pretty much what I am just thinking about every single day. You know, how can I get back more time freedom, more financial freedom. The biggest thing that I've done is definitely digital products. As you shared in my intro, You know, I was a photographer trading my time for money.

And you know, I loved it, but I realized, you know, I would never be able to. I travel a lot. Like if, if I took time off to travel, I would lose out on, you know, the income. If I wanted to move to another state I wouldn't be able to do that, which I'm from Wisconsin and now I live in New Mexico, so you know that I was able to do that.

But yeah, I basically just saw it as, A way for me to have more freedom by adding digital products to my business. So that would be the number one way that I've done that is creating things like eBooks, but mostly online courses is like the bulk of the passive income revenue.

Bryan McAnulty: Got it. So what kind of photographer were you actually specifically?

Molly Keyser: Yeah, so I, I've pretty much done it all, , but I, I dropped outta college with 81 cents to my name. I was living with my grandma and I was able to rent a camera from the library. I didn't even own any equipment. I'm pretty sure I was still renting a laptop from like the college or something. And I started out doing weddings off of Craigslist,

So, I mean, yeah, I really hustled. I knocked on doors of businesses and I would be, For $200, I'll take photos of any products. Like I just, I was just like, I need to make money to pay my bills. And then over time it evolved into like a real business where I was making, you know, multiple six figures and I had a studio and eventually I went all in on a type of photography called Bou War Photography, which essentially is like an empowerment session for women.

So a lot of people think they would gift the photos to their significant other, but most women actually just do it for themselves. So I really have. Pretty much every type of photography there is out there for like 16 years.

Bryan McAnulty: Oh, cool. So, yeah. So you started your career as a photographer. I know I'm asking you to summarize a long period here, but how did you transition then into selling the online courses and now helping others build their online course businesses?

Molly Keyser: Yeah, it's crazy cuz it's actually not as hard as you're probably thinking like whether you wanna leave a nine to five or, or do less of that or do less of coaching or whatever it is you're doing full time. If you wanna do less of it or go all in on courses. It really just comes down to making the time.

I have a lot of people tell me, you know, Well, when I'm less busy, when I'm less this, when my life changes, it's never going to change. Like we all, I know you've heard this before, but we all only have 24 hours in the day. You're never going to find more hours. And the older you get, it just feels like the less time you have.

So what I did was I just simply carved out 10 hours a week in my calendar, and I was just like, this is a non-negotiable, you know, every, I think it was like Thursday, part of Thursday and Friday, I would focus solely on. What I was gonna do with my course. So, and then everything else would be my photo business.

And I mean, we were doing like 10 photo shoots a week. I had employees, like it was a lot of work. And so I made that time and what I really started out doing was building a following. and then kind of trying to monetize it at the same time. So I kind of did both right away. I didn't wait. You know, I didn't wait super, super long until I decided to start offering my course, which a lot of people, I think that's a mistake that can be made is, well, I'll launch next year, next year, and next year.

It's better to like do what's called like a pre say like a beta launch like a pre-selling period so that you. Test out your course study and make sure people actually wanna buy it before you spend all that time building it. That's probably like a whole other topic we can talk about, but that's essentially what I did is I blocked out 10 hours a week, started to build that audience, listen to what they wanted, and then came up with that course offer and all of that.

Bryan McAnulty: So Cool. Yeah. I like I like that point about forcing yourself to say, I'm gonna dedicate this 10 non-negotiable hours to work on. Because what you were talking about before that a lot of people think like, Oh, well I don't have time. I agree. Like, you're, you'll never have time and if anything you'll have less time going forward.

So I heard somebody else say this and it maybe sounds kind of aggressive, but I don't think it has to be taken that way. But it's like the idea that like, If you don't work on that thing, if you, you say like, Oh, I wanna do it, but you're not getting to it, then it means you don't want it bad enough.

And if you get to the point that you say like that, like this is like, it has to change. Like you have no money, you have something happened that like it has to change. Like that's when you, you see a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of the kind of people we interview, they talk about the story of like, that's when I made that shift or that transition, cuz I had no choice.

And so you don't have to make it so hard for yourself that you don't give yourself any choice. But if you realize that like, I really do want this, and then you can commit and find a way, like, yes, it will be difficult maybe to, to make that 10 hours fit in somewhere. Like if you have to sacrifice sleep or something or, or whatever during that initial period.

Molly Keyser: But and I, and I did for sure. I just wanna add that like, it was not a walk in the park. I definitely pulled some all-nighters, .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. But I think in most cases, I would say if, like you truly decide like, this is what I want it to do, and you make that commitment afterwards, not only will it hopefully get easier and you'll, you'll be able.

Reclaim or, or shift a little bit of that time into the new thing, but you'll feel so much better as a result instead of always feeling like, Oh, I wanna get to it, but just not quite there.

Molly Keyser: Yeah, I'd love to add something to that because. The first thing is all of my students, the first thing I have them do is set their why.

Because like you said, if you don't really know why you want this and you want it badly, you're just not gonna do it. Because a lot of my students are in the same boat I was in where, you know, I had a successful service-based business. So money no longer was like really the motivator because you know, I was already meeting all of my needs, saving a lot of money, all of that stuff.

But it really became more. I really, really wanted that freedom, you know? And so you have to figure out why do you want an online course? Because, you know, I do see it where people are just like, Oh, I want a course, but they haven't figured out why they want it badly enough to like sacrifice something to make it happen, because.

They might already have a successful business somewhere else, but for me, I used to have these visions during photo shoots of me at like 70 years old, lugging like a 20 pound camera up a ladder. And I was just like, I don't want that to be my life. I don't want to like I grew up in Wisconsin and I was like, I don't wanna live here for the rest of my life.

I wanna move around and travel and do things. And so yeah, you really have to find that fire to motivate you. To make the time, because if you don't make the time, you're never going. You know, it could be 20 years from now and you'll be like, Oh, I wish I would've started that course 20 years ago. There's not a better time than now.

You know, .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, I agree. I think that's, that's definitely a good reason. Yeah. The, the why can't be about money. Cuz even if you aren't making money that you're satisfied or, and that you need or whatever right now eventually, hopefully you will be. And if your only why was the money, then you'll get burn out and you'll, you won't want to keep doing it anymore.

So there's gotta be a reason. Why did you want the money to, to be able to continue beyond that and continue to grow.

Molly Keyser: That is solid advice. Very good. I love that . Awesome.

Bryan McAnulty: Cool. Yeah. Well, I think we're on the same page here with that. So you went from what is like the service based business as you're talking about the photography to selling the digital products.

So what would you suggest in addition to saying like, Okay, I wanna block out this time to start working on it. What would you suggest to somebody who they run a service based business and they say, Okay, now I wanna sell either online courses on the side or, or some other kind of digital product.

Molly Keyser: Yeah.

Are you saying like what would I recommend for them to like, get started?

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Like how, how can they transition to do that?

Molly Keyser: Yeah. So yeah, Blockout the time obviously is important. And then I would recommend choosing one social platform to start building an audience on, because. I do have a method that I can share about how to get sales for your course right away, even if you don't have a following.

But whether you do that or not, eventually you are going to have a following, like, it doesn't matter. Who you are, what your course is like, you're going to need traffic at some point. And with my photo education, you know, I started with only organic free traffic and, you know, we had 80 to 90% profit margins which I would highly recommend

It is very nice to have very high profit margins, so, I'll share with you guys what I have my students do. The first thing I have them do is, believe it or not, I have them start, If they don't have a following, I have them start a Facebook group. And I'm with you Facebook, you know, it's not my favorite platform anymore by any means, but a group is su still such an easy way, and you only need to get 200 people in your group and then start conversations with them.

You're not gonna cold message them or anything. So essentially what you're gonna do, Is you're going to invite people to your group. Keep doing that until you get to 200. You can friend ideal clients from other groups. You can invite people from your friends list. There's a lot of different ways to do it.

Once you're at about 200 people, you're going to make a few like nurture posts where you're sharing your knowledge and just adding value to them. And then you're also gonna make a couple posts saying, you know, Hey, I'm looking to help, you know, Insert ideal client here with insert problem here to get, you know, insert results here.

So like I'm looking for three women who want to. Gain time freedom by creating their own profitable online course, something like that. And then be like, comment your favorite emoji below. So all they have to do is just comment an emoji. Very easy, they know exactly what to do, which is important. People are not gonna engage with your posts if you're not like, clear on what the action is they should do.

And then once they engage, you're gonna comment, reply to their comment and say, Hey look for a PM from me. And then you're going to private message them and just say like, Hey, I have this. Course coming up. So what you're gonna do is you're going to only think of what's the result your course is gonna get?

What's the name of your course, what's the curriculum, and what's the price? So you're, you're not gonna build the whole course out. I definitely don't recommend that. And then I. What you're gonna do is you're going to decide on a date that the course is gonna start live. You only have to teach it live once, but what you're doing is you're essentially lowering your risk by a lot.

Instead of spending months and months and months building up this following and building up this course before you even know if anyone's gonna buy it, you're gonna go ahead and pre-sale and beta launch this course. Right. And the worst case scenario is no one buys it and you adjust your offer and you adjust your price and you try again until you get a sale.

The best case scenario is people buy right away. You teach the course live and then you can go ahead and put it into a software, automate it, you know, eventually turn it to passive sales. So just to recap, the first steps I would do is if you already have a following, keep growing that or start a Facebook.

Decide what your course, name, price, offer, and course start date. You're gonna do it live, start to sell people in, teach it live, then automate it. That's as boiled down as I can get it. .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Perfect. Cuz I was gonna ask you, so like, okay, well which social media platform, So Facebook group is what you recommend and then I like that idea.

Having the very easy to answer question, just to have somebody in some small way express some kind of interest so you know that they're somebody who. They want to communicate with you, they're inviting you to do that in some way rather than you going out there and having to, to cold message people.

Especially like if you're somebody who you don't have a sales or marketing background. Even if you do, maybe it doesn't, doesn't feel great to do that you don't enjoy. Probably like going around all day messaging people and, and hoping that they have some interest. But this way, like they're telling you, Hey, like basically I wanna talk with you.

I want to hear more from. So I think it's an easier way for like, not only more effective, but an easier way for someone to get into it and feel more comfortable doing that. I also like that. Yeah.

Molly Keyser: And as you could Ima Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Bryan McAnulty: I was just gonna say, the last thing I liked is how you mentioned the importance of first thing you do is have the result for your course.

We always say that, that you've gotta base the course around the result. So yeah, that's the number one thing. Don't worry about all the curriculum and, and all that just yet. It's just what are the. What's the result that you wanna promise and, and give to your customers?

Molly Keyser: I love that. And yes, what is the one result?

I would love to share a little bit about that, if you don't mind. Yeah, yeah, sure. I have you know, I just wanna give you guys some examples of what would be like a good course topic or, you know, there's no bad course topics. I wanna start with that, but, You might just be too broad and you need to like narrow it down more and position the course idea correctly.

So one of the number one course ideas I get from people is I wanna help women be more confident, or I wanna help women be happier. And these are good starting points, but that's not like a clear result. Who are you helping? How are they gonna be he happier? What are you teaching them to make them happier to help?

Get that result. So for me, you know, my course could be I help women become happier. Like my, my course profitable courses, that that could fall underneath that. Like I help women make more money, you know, and, and be happier. But that's not what my course is. My course is helping you create your own profitable online course one clear result.

So that's just something I really wanna share cuz I I do find people, I don't wanna call it a mistake because you're on the right path, obviously, but you do need to hone it in more. You have to think of, why would somebody pay me, you know, for this result? And when people look at exchanging their money for something, they're going to look at.

Okay, I'm handing over this much money for this result. And so if they were like, Well, why would I hand over a thousand dollars to be happier? Versus if your course was like, I help women shave a minute off their marathon, that's like a very clear result that people would be willing to exchange money for.

So anyways, just wanted to like rant on that for a little bit. .

Bryan McAnulty: No, yeah, I like that. That's a great point. Like, yeah, we do a lot of, for our own creator. Asking them like, what's your result? And then reviewing it to make sure it is actually clear. They're not like, using too many buzzwords or, or something like that.

Because I, I really like this point. You're making that like, yes, you may understand what the person wants generally, but when you can describe it specifically to that specific problem that somebody has, then that does like the marketing for you in a way that your potential customer can see that and say like, This is my problem.

That's, that's what I want. . And so if you just tell them like, Oh, you're gonna be happier, then like they could, they could respond to that and say like, Well, everyone wants to be happier, but I don't, how, how is this going to relate to my problems and my unique situation? So when you're able to communicate,

Molly Keyser: the carwash can make you happier, but the car washes aren't gonna say, We help you become happier.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So that's a great point. . Well, so how did making this, this switch from the photography, the service business, to the online courses how did it change like your day to day personal life and also like impact your mental health, would you say?

Molly Keyser: Yeah, so I do wanna share that. It definitely wasn't like an overnight thing.

I definitely. I did it slowly over time. Basically, you know, I had my studio with my employees and then I started doing this and it basically was like part-time courses was like part-time for me for like a year, and then it basically became me running two full-time businesses for a long time. And then slowly over time I just took less and less.

I basically just charged more and more for my photography services and had less and less clients. And I actually had a, at a very, very good, great balance until I decided to just fully go all in on, on digital products. But how did it change my life? Going full time? I mean, so many ways, honestly. I just, you know, I, I did photography for 16 years and I was extremely passionate about it, but I feel like my passion just shifted over time.

I mean, I was only 17 years old when I started my photo business. I don't, wasn't even really like a fully developed human at that point, you know, to know what, like my. My path in life was, and your path can change and shift over time, and that's okay too. So yeah, basically when I went all in it changed in that like I just have such a passion for digital products and helping others with that.

So it did make me happier, funny and also it got me a lot more time freedom because when I had my photo business, I always had to say no to. Family get togethers or like friends wanted to hang out last minute, I'd be like, Oh, well I can't because I have a client or whatever. So now, you know, I do plan my business in advance and I set goals and all those things, but really every morning I wake up is a new day.

I can do whatever I want. It's very rare I ever have anything on my calendar. I do do quite a few guest podcasts, so that would be one of the only things I really have on my calendar. So yeah, I would just say that the number one thing for me is waking up every morning with like a blank calendar and getting to decide like what I want to do each day.

And also, even though I have these projects set, if there's one thing I don't feel like working on for that day, I'll just be like, Okay, well I'll work on this thing over here and then I'll do this one later. And it works really well for me to get to sort of pick and choose what. Feel like working on for that day.

So yeah, just overall freedom. And then of course, you know, there is more money, which is always nice, but once you make so much money and you meet your needs, like you said, it's no longer the why , and that's why you have to have a better why, Because once you, you meet all your needs financially, it's just no longer like that motivating, at least for me.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I. I, I like what you mentioned about the service business, how you were raising your prices when you transitioned eventually into only the digital products. Like we kind of did the same thing actually in our business. We started as a web design studio. We figured, hey, we wanna build our own products now, our own services.

And so that was the same thing. We eventually said, Okay, we're gonna keep raising our rates. We'll take on less clients. And that that helped the whole thing happen. So if, if you are someone listening to this or watching this, you're in a service based business right now and you're thinking like, well, what's the best way to like slowly transition?

Definitely I would recommend that because raising the prices helps get you in some, some cases a, a better quality of client. So you're able to usually work on like better projects, less projects, and then keep your, your focus enough of your focus on what you wanna transition your business into.

Absolutely. So with with your first ever course then, so you mentioned like it's, it wasn't like an interesting switch. Can you tell us a little bit about the story of the first ever course, like maybe about the launch? How did that go? What did you learn from like the experience of doing it the first time?

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: Yeah. Yeah. I love this story. So, you know how I just taught you guys all about like beta testing and pre, like pre-selling? Yeah. I did not do that with my first course , I fell victim to what I like to call the old way, which is, you know, I didn't spend like. Like, you know, I see people spend more than a year trying to grow their following.

I did not, I didn't wait that long. So I did okay in that aspect. But or more than a year, something like that. Anyways, but the very, very first course I made a lot of mistakes. I would love to share them with you guys because then you hopefully never have to make these mistakes. But the first mistake I made was, again, using the old way.

So I think launching can be good down the line, but I don't think it's the best way. Get your course going. The first time, just like I, I just shared with you guys, that is what I do and what I recommend, what my students do, what I always do going forward is I do like the, the pre-selling, right? So the first time I did it, I fell victim to the old method, which was like, build your following, nurture your following.

So build your following for months, nurture your following for months. Do a pre-launch for like a month, do a launch for a month. Like it was like a long time, right? And I ended up having a very vague. Course idea, just like I told you guys, like helping people be happier is not a great course idea. And my course idea was like helping photographers with business, which even that you might think it's, wow, that's a lot more niche than helping people be happier.

Right? But it wasn't niche enough. I only got, I don't know, like a few sales. It was a huge disappointment. I remember being like, I'm a failure. I suck at this, you know? But really looking back, it was just a few tweaks that I had to make. What I ended up doing was I came out with another course, and even though the content was almost the same, I changed the positioning, which is what I talk about all the time.

So this one in particular was marketing for BWI photographers, so it was very specific. It was like we help BWI photographers get more book. Very specific. They know exactly the result. And in fact, I think it was even like, we help you get X bookings in X timeline or something like that. I don't remember the exact timeline, but, so yeah.

And, and it's interesting how like the content wasn't really that much different. It was just the positioning of the actual course. And I have people come to me, you know, with these really broad topics and then I ask them what's in their course. And I'm like, Oh, well the content's amazing. Like you're just.

you just haven't pulled out the result and like positioned it correctly. So I'm trying to remember what went on a tangent. I'm trying to remember what your question was.

Bryan McAnulty: Oh, that, that's such an excellent point. Um definitely I wanna draw attention to that because. If, if you're listening to us and you're saying, Oh man, you know what?

Maybe my result that you talked about before, maybe it's not clear enough, I gotta go redo everything. Chances are you probably don't. So just because you want to change or, or, or specify like your result a little bit more, it doesn't mean that you have to change your content necessarily. As you're saying, it might barely have to change at all.

Because you're, you're offering essentially still the same thing. You're just clarifying who you're offering it.

Molly Keyser: Yeah, and I think it's, it's great if you can get really specific on your ideal client or the result, but it's even better if you can get really specific on both. So yeah, I definitely agree with you there. So yeah, that was kind of the journey of my first course was. , You know, I didn't know what I was doing.

I did it like I did it the old way that a lot of the like core gurus teach still, but I am more of a. I like, I like to use this example of Elon Musk with the cyber truck, which is a hilarious analogy because I don't even think he's actually rolled that out, so we can all laugh about that. But if it's not like he spent billions of dollars making all these cyber trucks before he even knew anyone would want 'em, he had one cyber truck on a stage and pre-sold.

I don't know, probably like tens of thousands, if not more than that of people to give him cash up front. A lot of my friends did this. They gave cash up front for this truck that doesn't even exist. Because, you know, they wanna support him and they eventually want the truck if he does roll it out. Bad example, because you will roll your course out

But he, you know, that's what he's doing is he's pre-selling. He wants to make sure that there's actually a market for this thing before he's gonna go and spend billions of dollars making all these trucks. And that's exactly what you should. is, Yeah. Make sure people want it. And again, worst case scenario is you just adjust the offer, the price, the messaging.

You're not like redoing an entire program, so,

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And finding out that the first time you try something is a failure. It doesn't mean like, Oh, I'm done. It just gave you a data point. Now that you can say, Okay, well now that I know this, I didn't know this before, now that I know this, how can I adjust or improve?

To try again and that's something that everything is data .

Molly Keyser: What was that? I just say like, I love that everything is data. Like if you start looking at your business from a data standpoint, pretty much only and not an emotional standpoint, it will change your life. Like the second I started doing that, it's like there are no failures, there are just lessons, there are just things to learn from, and I no longer have to feel like emotional about my business.

Like I just released a YouTube video last week that I spent a ton of time on, and it didn't do as well as I. And I could have been like crying on my office floor, like, Oh my God. Like I suck, I suck at YouTube. You know? But instead I just looked at the data and I was like, Oh, like the average view duration like isn't high enough.

I need to, you know, change this for next time. So anyways, I can talk about data all day, but I love that .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. And yeah, it doesn't mean you have to be like a super analytical person to necessarily like, take advantage of this. Like, Yeah. Where, where you can put the emotion into it is realizing that it's, it isn't this one thing that you're launching, you fail and then it's done.

It's a constant journey of improving and progressing. Cuz like let's say you're successful, it's still not like, okay, I'm successful and I'm done. Well, what are you gonna do next? So it's a constant journey. You're, you're gonna have successes and failures along the way. The best thing is when you can create some small successes for yourself to help keep yourself motivated, that is helpful.

And I think what you're mentioning about your strategy for how you would do to pre-selling is something that kind of helps with that, right? Because if you were to do this big planned out launch, spend months and months before somebody can even buy something from you. Then you get to the situation that if they don't, it's a lot harder for you to continue because you feel like, Oh, I was really leading up to this moment.

I, I was hoping I would get something where if you could pre-sell it and right away, even if it, even if you consider it a failure and you get like one person to buy, at least you got something. You got your, your first dollar from something. And oftentimes, like I think from what I've seen of Creator's for myself even, that's enough motivation to keep you going and go to that next.

Molly Keyser: Absolutely could not agree more .

Bryan McAnulty: Cool. So on your website you talk about the the course kickstart framework. Can you explain a little bit of like what that is? Is that like this idea that you're talking about? The, the, the pre song strategy or,

Molly Keyser: Yeah, so that's, I called it like a pre-selling or beta because that's just like the terminology people know, and I know that there's course Creator's listening, but yes, that is my kickstart framework.

I just gave it its own name. It's not exactly the same as how everyone else beta launches, you know? So yeah, .

Bryan McAnulty: Cool. Can you share then like, maybe a little bit of details about the story of like your, your most successful course launch? Like, did you use that framework? Like how, how did that go?

Molly Keyser: Yeah, so I don't like, So I used to do a lot of launching.

I've had multiple six figure launches before, so I had a launch that was multiple six figures, just to clarify. And then some of my other launches were, I don't know, 50, do a hundred and something thousand. So I used to do a lot of launches. I don't do a lot of launches anymore. So like I said, whenever I start a course, I always do my kickstart method, which is kind of like a beta test.

But I'll te I'll talk, Oh, excuse me. I will walk you through , what I do now. So launching again, like nothing against it, if it's something you love, that's totally cool. For me, it's just like really stressful, you know? Because again, unlike beta testing, even if you already know your core cells, you're essentially.

Building your email list a lot of times with ads, and then essentially just like crossing your fingers hoping that these people convert, especially if it's the first launch you're doing. Now, of course, if you have a launch that you do that is successful and you repeat that, that is super smart because then you pretty much know for a fact that it is gonna convert however, Maybe, maybe Facebook ads change.

Maybe you're targeting changes. Maybe you don't get the right people and maybe it doesn't convert. So I do find launching to be very, very stressful in that regard. I do something very similar though. It really depends on what your definition of launching as I think of launching as like, Getting these, like adding a bunch of people to your email list you know, pre-launching them, like doing certain content and then having this big email series, probably like a handful of webinars or a challenge or something like that.

I do something that's sort of like, I guess it's kind of like launching light. I never thought about it that way, but essentially what I do is I beta test the course and then I teach it. And then I focus on, I either take those live recordings and just put, put them in course hosting if they're ready to go.

If they're not ready to go, like maybe you've learned. Cuz another great thing of doing your course live is you're gonna get a lot of feedback from people because you might be sitting there thinking, Well, I know exactly what needs to go on my course. I'm gonna tell you right now you don't because the second you teach it live, you are.

So many questions from people that you never thought of, and then you're going to be able to either go back and edit those videos or just rerecord them all together. Whatever you wanna do, it's totally up to you. Usually since I've done this a number of times, I'll just take the recordings and then maybe record another like FAQ video or something to go with it, and then I'll host it in my course hosting software.

Then once I have that, I like to do. I l so you don't have to go this extreme. I'm a little bit extreme cause I've been doing this for a long time, but I like to do a live webinar every single week until I get it converting. So essentially what I'm doing is I'm sending traffic to a webinar that is promoting my course, and I just do it every week until that webinar converts at the stats that I want.

So that could be. That could be six months. It just depends, you know, how hard is the market I'm going after, like how much competition is there, Like how long will it take me to nail the messaging and all of that. Once I nail that webinar and I get it converting really well, then I just simply automate it.

So I'll take it take the recording and I'll put it into an what's called an automated webinar funnel, which is essentially a series of webpages where they put in their name, their email, Then they can watch the recording and then it goes to a checkout page. So it's pretty easy. Like an optin page, Thank you page webinar replay page, and a checkout page.

I don't even really do sales pages at all. I really, I don't even think we have a sales page, , we just do webinars. So that's pretty much it. So the beta. The beta, you know, kickstart, which is what I call, do the kickstart. Then you do your live webinar over and over until it converts and then you automate it and then, then your job just becomes sending traffic to your automated webinar funnel, which is where I'm at now.

Which I love so much more than launching. I do still, you know, occasionally do like a promotion or a challenge or something for like an influx of influx of cash. , but I just find it so much nicer every day to wake up being like, Oh, like I know we're gonna get consistent sales every day from our auto webinar, and then we can just, you know, supplement with little promotions and things if we want to, but we don't necessarily have to versus, you know, spending six months crossing your fingers and be like, We need this launch to work because we just spent six months of cash or whatever.

So yeah, I hope that makes sense and maybe resonates with some of.

Bryan McAnulty: No, it does. I think that's great. What I wanna like, maybe add to that is the point, so like you mentioned that your strategy feels like a little bit more relaxed than the whole like, complex launch. So if someone's not familiar with like, either of these concepts, What I would say is if you just heard like everything Molly said and you're thinking, Well that still sounds complicated.

What I would say is I think that like the important point here is when you say, I'm gonna do the webinar and I'm gonna keep doing the live webinars the reason that that's more relaxed and easier. Is because you're able to basically practice. And so that's, that's why you're doing the live webinars, you're practicing and you're figuring out, Oh, are there new questions?

Are there different questions? And you, you get a better feel when you're there, really with the audience. And they can chat and see things and, and ask things. Are they asking things? Are they engaging? Are they asking things you didn't explain? Like, what's going on with that? That helps you figure out for the next time so you can practice again versus saying, I'm gonna just record the.

And then I'll just automate it and put it up. I'm not gonna do it live. Cuz so if you're thinking that's easier I think maybe it's not because then you're not getting that feedback quite as easily. And when you say, Okay, well it didn't work, now you have to go record and edit and, and produce this new video, which you don't necessarily know why it didn't.

So doing the live webinar, like you're getting the opportunity just to hang out and tell everybody about what you're doing and ask them questions and you can find out like, oh, like are you not understanding this part? Or, or like, why, why are you not buying? Or, or something like that. So it, even though there's still steps involved, it, it's a more relaxed process, I think.

Molly Keyser: Yeah. And I was told to share with you all of a huge, another huge mistake I've made, which by the. I now look at mistakes as like a great thing cuz like the quicker you can fail and make mistakes, the quicker you're gonna learn that lesson and move on. So I just wanna share that. But back when I used to do a lot of launches, you're gonna hopefully die laughing at this if you've made this mistake.

Hopefully this is about to change your life, . But every time I would do a launch, I would do a new sales page. Mm-hmm. a new webinar. Mm-hmm. new branding. Why I was just making it harder on myself and costing my business way more money, and I think it's because I just am a creator by nature. And I think, you know, if you are a course creator, you're also a creator by nature.

So, I don't know, I, I what I learned now is just like Brian was saying, like, just because I'm doing the webinar every week, it's the same webinar. I'm not like making a new webinar. It's the exact same. So it is really easy in terms of like, it's gonna be work up front to make that initial webinar. But once you've done it, let's say the first time.

Do the webinar live. Let's say that only two people show up. Well now, you know the data point you need to fix is either you didn't get enough people to register or not enough people showed up. So you need like more reminders for them to show. Now, let's say a lot of people show up, but you know, only 1% of them bought on the live webinar really you wanna go.

I like to shoot for 10 to 20%, but even like, you need at least like, probably five depends on the cost of your course. Now, now you can look at, oh, well my offer probably isn't as good as it needs to be, or I didn't like nurture them enough or explain my, you know, my offer throughout the webinar. Then if you get people to show and you get people to buy, but you're noticing like people are going through your course and they're not the right people, like maybe now you need to adjust.

Make sure that you're attracting like more of your ideal person, you know, so you're really just doing it every week so that you can speed up the process of. Because if you the speed of the process of getting it good. Because basically a lot of times I've, and I've made this mistake so many times when I started profitable courses, I was like, Oh, well I've done hundreds of webinars.

Like I don't need to do it live. I'll just automate it from day one. Like, I know everything. I'm a goddess, you know? And it bombed . It totally bumped. We spent like, I don't know, $15,000 running ads to it. We lost money on it. So yeah, I don't know. I've just learned like, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how advanced you are with webinars.

Like if you're doing a new offer and a new webinar, I can't recommend enough to do it live and get it converting because if you automate a webinar that doesn't convert, that's all you're, you're just automating something that's not gonna make sales. So anyways, I'll get out my, get off my soapbox now. .

Bryan McAnulty: No, that's a, that's a excellent point.

I'm glad you explained. And yeah, just tweaking the things that you have rather than redoing it is the solution. And like I think some Creator's. Yeah, some Creator's I think might say, like I would've said to myself early on well what about like, everybody saw this and so now I have to change it.

It has to be different. But like if you look at it and if it didn't work out for you and if people didn't see it, then like the reality is people didn't see it. So like you don't have to change it. You can keep the same offer. Cuz if it wasn't successful, People haven't seen it yet, so show it to some more people and change the thing that didn't work out for you.

So as you mentioned, like was that the point of getting people to register? Was it the point of okay, they registered but they didn't show up? Or did they show up? But then like, figure out that spot where you can find some information of what you need to adjust and just adjust that part first, and then from there just keep building on that into eventually what you can improve into the best possible.

Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. All right. Well, Molly, I have one more question for you. We'd like to ask on this show, if you could ask anything to our guests. So anything you're curious about, anything like you want our guests to think about? What would, or, sorry, not our guests, our audience, . So you're, you're our guest.

If you could ask anything to our audience that you want them to think about that you are curious about to hear from them, what would you ask?

Molly Keyser: Yeah. Something that really changed the trajectory of my business was a mentor asking me, Why are you doing so many things? And it, the question was also, if you put all your focus on one thing, do you think you could grow further than where you are now?

So my question for you all is, because I know, you know, I was, I had a service based business, I had an agency, I had a course business, I had all these things. Ask yourself if you, do you think if you went all in on one of those things that you could be more successful if you're putting more time, cuz you're putting, splitting your time.

If you put all your time into one, do you think you could be more successful?

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah, it's a great question. Great thing to think about. And if the answer to that is a hundred percent yes, then then maybe that's what you should do. . Right. Cool. All right. Well Molly, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Molly Keyser: Yeah, so my name is just Molly Kaiser on every social, so just my name. And then we do have a free, it's, it's a webinar, so it's an automated webinar. So if you guys wanna. How I do my webinar, or you wanna learn more about how to position your course, how to create your curriculum, how to sell your course.

The link is profitable courses.com/class. All right.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Thanks so much, Molly. Thank you. If you enjoyed this interview and want the chance to ask questions to our guests live, tune in on Tuesdays when new episodes premiere on the Heights Platform Facebook page. To learn more about the show and get notified when new episodes release, check out The Creator's Adventure dot com.

Until then, keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.