Make Sh*t Happen is the biggest project I've worked on since the book, so I'm going to do things a little differently today. I could tell you about all the bells and whistles of the program, but you'll get that when sales open in two short weeks (there will only be 36 spots for the pilot run, so
join the early notification list if you're at all interested!). Nope -- no shiny gloss for this newsletter -- today I'm going to tell you about the fears and growing pains I've experienced while building it; though 95% of the time I'm over-the-moon excited about how it's coming together (HUGE thanks to my MSH Angel Emily Smith for all of her help!). Keep reading below for all the dirty details....
I hope you've all had a phenomenal summer!
Jenny
-------------------------------
MSH COURSE INSIDE SCOOP
-------------------------------
Huzzah! You've read this far. Maybe you're building a course of your own. Maybe you're excited about signing up for mine (I'll love you forever!). Maybe you're just curious about what goes on in someone's brain when they're working on their own ridiculously big goal.
In no particular order, here are the things that would keep me up at night if I wasn't so tired from working on this 24/7 (happily, of course :)
- The Sales Process -- in my post Live for the Dip I share the learning curve, in which someone learning a new skill goes through four phases: unconscious incompetence (ignorance is bliss), conscious incompetence (THE DIP), conscious competence (think student driver) and finally unconscious competence (auto-pilot). I am in perpetual conscious incompetence with all of the sales copy! I feel like an idiot half the time, I'm unmotivated because I get stumped so easily, I have writer's block, and I have no effing clue what I'm doing.
I know I can build a killer course (that's what I did for 5+ years at Google), but I have ZERO sales and marketing experience. Building the course is only 50% of the work -- getting people to buy it adds another 50% of work -- emails, sales pages, sales copy, related blog posts -- I get tired just thinking about it all! But I know it's important, especially in light of Fear #2...
- What if no one buys it?! -- This is a MAJOR fear. By major, I mean GIGUNDO (new word!) GINORMOUS. If no one bought my book, it would have been a huge accomplishment anyway because I finished it, I am an author, and I got a traditional publisher at a time when many were going out of business. Selling 4K copies (our current count) was just icing on the cake! But if no one signs-up for my MSH Course, it feels like all of my entrepreneurial hopes and dreams will be crushed within a 24 hour window.
Of course that is over-dramatizing things, and I would bounce back, learn and adjust, yadda yadda. But I'm definitely in the red this month, and I'm placing a big strategic bet on MSH as my flagship product (to be run once per quarter if all goes well). At Google I could build a course, have it flop, and still get paid. If this flops, well a) I don't get paid and b) I have to seriously re-think my six-month strategy.
- What if it doesn't work?! -- Another GIGUNDOMUNDO fear. I believe I have built an amazing course that will change lives. I have vision flashes where people send me emails two months after the program ends saying they achieved their giant goal which then changed their life forever. Weeee! However, I have no guaruntees that will be the case. There is absolutely no way to know until I try; until 36 people say "I trust you!" and jump on board my big scary goal bandwagon.
That's why I'm keeping the pilot class so small -- I want to really get to know everyone in it, and do everything I can to ensure they'll be successful. They will all be treated like coaching family, and I'm hoping they give me lots of candid feedback to improve the course for future participants in return.
- What if people don't do the work? -- For those of you who are curious, the 8-week outline is as follows: declare your dream, build a support network, vision & purpose, bust through your barriers, make a plan, don't just dream, do, survive the dip, and celebrate.
Every Monday, people will get an email with that week's assignments (short videos to watch, reading material from the book, coaching exercises and homework). Every Wednesday, they will get an email with 4 case study snippets where they can "choose their own adventure" and click on any related to their goal to read more. On Fridays they will get an accountability email with the same four questions that they forward to their assigned triad. There will be four Q&A calls with me, and the first 10 to sign-up will get a private 1:1 coaching session.
Pretty snazzy, huh?! But here's the rub: I know people get busy. I know they get scared, and I know how easy it is to get overwhelmed. What if I've built a great course, but people don't do the work or see results?
- Other misc. concerns -- Launching this course RIGHT after I move to NYC so that it doesn't run over into Thanksgiving. Fears about technical errors or problems, especially regarding payment. Fears about people wanting refunds halfway through. Fears of exhausting my blog readers by talking about this non-stop (I can't help myself!). Fears/questions about wondering if I should be doing something fancy for the launch. Silly fears about having to write the most EPICALLY MOVING BLOG POST OF ALL TIME in order to get people to sign-up.
Whew! I think that's it for now....inner-most fears have officially been released! I hope that gives you a little more of the "behind the scenes" view of this big undertaking, and that it's helpful to you in some small way. I'll share any new things that come up during the next newsletter, after which I'll probably have some big updates on how this all went down!
Here's how the communications sequence will go for any of you who are curious:
- When the course opens in two weeks I'll will email the MSH Early Notification list first, which is currently about ~350 people. Fun fact: the list has a ~70% open rate which is actually super high considering the industry average of 20%!
- If it doesn't sell out, I'll email all of you next...
- If it doesn't sell out after that, I'll post it on the blog.
- If it doesn't sell out period, I'll go cry in a corner. LOL, kidding. Sorta. ;-)
Ahhhhh, can't wait to share the results with you after this whole shindig goes down!
-------------------------------
RECENT BLOG POSTS
-------------------------------
A quick update on the Chicago keynote (short video snippet here): it was an absolute blast, and felt like the best speech I've given to-date. I was BEYOND blown away seeing that people had tears in their eyes by the end (a level of impact I wasn't sure I'd ever reach), and many wrote great
recap blog posts sharing how inspired they were, which was the best feeling on Earth. I think part of the reason I felt so great up there despite my fears of being keynote-y enough is that it was my first speech post-Google and I really felt like I could own my life and my message. That's part of the reason I left; so that I could step fully into being ME and help others reach their fullest potential in the process.
-------------------------------
QUOTES
-------------------------------
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
--Ambrose Redmoon
"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."
--Bertrand Russell
"Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves."
--Dale Carnegie
-------------------------------
STANDING LINKS
-------------------------------
Feel free to forward this email to friends. View past issues of this newsletter at:
Requests for specific content in future emails? Reply and let me know.
That's it for now! Best of luck with all of your projects and creative pursuits until we talk again :)
Jenny
The Book: http://LACBook.com
Speaking: http://JennyBlake.org/speaking
Return to Archive