Nicki Krawczyk: Great. I figured it out. I know exactly what to do, and then six months later, they do the exact same thing to the exact same audience and they get crickets.

Jade Boyd: Welcome to the show, Nikki.

Nicki Krawczyk: Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Jade Boyd: I’m so excited for this conversation today, and I was just saying, we should really get started because I have lots of questions for you. But for those of you who are not familiar with you, do you want to start by just giving a little bit of a background of who you are and what you do?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, absolutely. Me in a nutshell. So I’m Nikki Krawczyk. I, own a multi brand digital training company and we have three different brands. And I think that’s where we need to stay for now. Three is a lot to manage. But, the brand we’ll talk a lot about today is the circuit sales system, which is the automated system that I developed to sell the other courses, but my background really is in copywriting. I’ve been a copywriter for more than 20 years. And the first course that I created, way back in 2012 was, and still is the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy, teaching people to become professional copywriters. And, you know, started it in 2012 thinking like many brand new entrepreneurs, like, all right, it’s a great program if I just put it out there, people will buy it. Unfortunately that’s not actually how it works out. So it wasn’t until 2018 when I stopped trying to do, you know, all the things live launching challenges, Facebook group, membership, all of that stuff that I really kind of leaned back and said, okay, what do I know?

I know messaging. I know customer psychology and I know what I do and I don’t want from a business for myself. So what I did was, put together a system to sell the copywriting course on autopilot. And what that ended up doing was 40 X ing my revenue between the end of 2018 and the end of 2020, of course, we’ve grown since then we’re a multi seven figure per year company, but, at the end of gee 2022, I guess, I had other business owner friends say, hey, you know that, that system, that thing that you use that did so well for you, can you teach us how to do that? So, that system that it developed, we now call the Circuit Sales System. And I now also – it’s our third brand – I now also teach, other course creators and group program creators and even some one to one service providers to, to make sales every day on autopilot.

Jade Boyd: So this is the perfect intro because that’s exactly what we’re talking about today. How you’ve kind of mixed your evergreen funnel with some concepts from live launching. And I do think that’s something that business owners really struggle with when they are launching new offers, wondering, should I just have this be always available, but then what’s going to make people buy, but also I don’t want to have to show up and live launch it all the time and put so much pressure. What if I don’t get enough people in? So can you start by kind of talking about what you see and what you have seen in your business?

Obviously your system is a little bit in the middle, a little bit different from both of these strategies, but kind of the pros and cons of evergreen funnels versus live launching.

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, absolutely. So live launching, which I think most people kind of in our space kind of understand that it’s, it’s, you have kind of an open sales period a couple of times a year. Some people even just do it once a year, and the concept is that because it’s a short period of time and you’re live and there’s a lot of excitement and people are going to purchase during that time period.

There are a lot of problems with that though. Number one, it’s just, it’s incredibly stressful. That is a lot to put on yourself. Number two, it’s unpredictable. Just because a lot of business owners have had the experience where they put together a launch and they put it to a certain audience and, you know, maybe they do ads, but they do it and it does really, really well. And then they’re like, all right, great. I figured it out. I know exactly what to do. And then six months later, they do the exact same thing to the exact same audience and they get crickets. And it is very, very risky to run your business that way. And on top of the fact that not only is it just risky to run your business that way and stressful, but then you don’t have the opportunity, any missed revenue. If you’re launching every six months, if your launch didn’t hit, guess what? It’s not like you can go back out and be like, oh, just kidding I’m going to launch again. You have to wait another several months, and then in the meantime, you’re, you’re trying to figure out what are you going to do to make up for that money that you didn’t make.

I think of it as being a lot like gambling, you know, kind of walking into a casino, playing roulette, putting all your chips on one number and going, okay, here we go. Let’s give it a shot. It is very risky and stressful way to run your business. And it absolutely can work. Live launching can work, but it’s, I think it’s unnecessarily stressful and risky. And I think a lot of people are like, yeah, it absolutely works until the launch when it doesn’t work. And then they go, oh, wow, what do I do now? And what a lot of people do then is they say, oh, I’ve heard about evergreen. I’m going to try evergreen.

Nicki Krawczyk: And evergreen usually means one of two things. Either it means we’re going to just put my course up on the website and then whenever people want to buy it, they can just buy it. But the problem with that is, is that whenever people can buy something, when it’s, when it’s available at any time, they just don’t purchase.

Human beings need deadlines. If they can buy at any time. They won’t buy. So usually when people just put their course live, it seems like such like, oh, if they want it, they’ll just get it. It’s not how we operate. It’s a just not. Then the other half of that is the concept of an evergreen funnel where you get people into your email list. You send them some sales emails, maybe you send them some support materials, you do a lot of the stuff that is very, they’re kind of flawed marketing tactics, you know, like teach, teach, teach, teaching is great. And the more you teach, the more people want to buy, not the case, not true.

So then get people into your evergreen funnel, your evergreen funnel just doesn’t convert, and then you kind of throw people to languish on your list until you get nervous again. And then you do another launch and then the launch goes badly and you get nervous and you go back to evergreen. And there are a lot of business owners who are kind of stuck in this, what is the best way to do this? How can I make this a sustainable living? I mean, for a lot of people it doesn’t feel like it can be a sustainable living, but it absolutely can. You just need to use a system that kind of falls somewhere, you know, like you said, kind of somewhere in the middle, but also kind of different from both of them.

Jade Boyd: Right. And at this point, people might be thinking, wow, Nicki, this is a little depressing. You’re telling me that both of these options are kind of crappy. So can you share a little bit, I mean, everyone is asking at this point, well, what do I do then? What does work? So do you want to share what your system is that you came up with like what the mentality is because you as a copywriter have worked and seen a lot of launches and funnels and have that inside perspective of what works and what doesn’t work. And so how did you come up with the system that you have today and how is it different?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, exactly. I have worked as a copywriter for certainly for digital businesses and, and solopreneurs and that kind of thing, but I’ve also been doing this for a long time for a lot of big companies, you know, I’ve written for Adidas and Keurig and Marshalls and Reebok and those kinds of companies.

So I’ve seen the full gamut and that’s what I’m able to pull from or what I was able to pull from as I was creating the course, the, the thing that I think a lot of us in the digital not to go too far down a, down a digression, but a lot of us in this digital marketing world forget that we are the only industry that does this whole live launching thing, the only one, and that has got to throw up some red flags, you know, if, if all of these other multi billion dollar companies and even just the small, like, nobody else operates like this. And that can’t possibly be a good thing. That’s got to throw up some red flags, you know? Like, yes, Apple may say, hey, check out our new watch, but then they don’t take it back after a week and say, you want to buy that watch? Come back in six months.

It’s not how it works, you know? but so anyway, so, in creating, of course, I think one of the things that, or I should say the, the system, I think one of the things that gets people really confused is like, well, I have to, I have to show up live, and when I show up live, it’s that energy that gets people to purchase. And it is absolutely, yes, that energy can help get people to purchase. But first of all, you don’t have to be live to convey that energy. And often that energy is masking the fact that you are working with inadequate messaging. There is definitely within the Circuit Sales System. There are specific structures to the way we do things and the way we order things.

But the foundation of all of it is, is a very different approach to messaging. I mean, like I said, 20 years, I couldn’t take the messaging out of the program if I tried and we have, you know, the Circuit Sales System, certified copywriters in our Facebook group every day, giving feedback to our students, but it’s the, the first foundational thing is that the way that we have been taught to message our audiences and try to, to get them to purchase is just inherently wrong.

And I think with a lot of live launching, being live and being big and going, hey, show up, it masks the problems. And the more that you live launch, the more that these problems are going to come to light. You don’t have to be live to get people to purchase. I can tell you that for sure. I’ve sold more than 12,000, maybe 13,000 courses at this point.

You don’t have to be live, but you do have to have messaging that catches people’s attention and opens their minds up in a very different way than the way that we have been taught to do it in the digital marketing, arena.

Jade Boyd: And I love that you point that out because I think that’s a common thing for business owners, especially when they’re launching a new offer. If it doesn’t go well right off the bat, they immediately assume, well, it must not be the right offer. I must need to create a new offer. And then they go back to square one instead of optimizing, but getting the messaging right is a really tricky thing and on this podcast, we really emphasize focusing on what matters and that’s what it really means to be productive. And in your strategy, you really emphasize that getting your messaging right is one of the things that really, really matters. So for the business owner who is struggling to create that messaging that actually is compelling, even though they do have a great offer that could really help people, what tips do you have for them?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, absolutely. The, the first one is that you, and nobody likes to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway, it’s the tough love. The first one is that you have to talk to people. You have to do actual market research interviews and you have to do it, not just with the people who’ve purchased from you, but the people who opted not to purchase and the people who have not yet purchased. And what I hear a lot is people saying, well, I don’t have to do that because I’m my, I’m my target audience. This is a problem that I solve for myself. So I am my target audience. So I know exactly what’s in their minds. And so I don’t, I don’t have to do that, but that’s not true. You were your target audience, you know, a year ago or two years ago, before you figured out the solution, you were your target audience. But you’re not your target audience anymore. You know, you have evolved as a person. The words that you use have evolved. But also the, the world has evolved and the way that people talk about things has changed. And the way that the, fears and concerns and desires and all of these things have changed since you were last in that position.

And if you’re not using the same words that they are using, if you’re not keyed into the same concerns or fears or things along those lines, then you’re not going to be connecting with your audience and you’re not going to be able to, talk to them in a way that, they understand and that they connect with and that makes them want to purchase from you.

And I know that people are like, oh, well, how about, oh yes, totally makes sense, I get it Nicki I’m going to send a survey. Like no, you can’t send a survey because surveys work when it’s like I click one button, I click and that’s my choice and then off and that’s, first of all, it’s, it’s you only getting a certain subset of people who are even willing to take the survey, but you’re only ever going to get surface level answers and to get at the real, the important pieces that are going to, to create a foundation for your messaging, you need to it get at the, the real, the below the surface issues that are going on. And the only way that you’re going to get that is when you talk to people one to one on the phone or on zoom, give a little bit of time for them to warm up when they finally start to share with you, what’s really going on with them, and that’s when you get to the gold. And that’s when you get to at least some of, or at least the foundations of the messaging that’s going to help you sell to them.

Jade Boyd: So would you say in most cases, and maybe this is a both and a non either or question, but do you feel like with messaging, it is a matter of getting the messaging around the offer, correct? Like really understanding who it’s for and what problem it’s solving and what the transformation is, or do you feel like it’s a problem with now that you have this offer, it’s actually really good. You just can’t sell it or like can’t communicate to other people where the value is. Either it’s like an email marketing problem or it’s hard to write captions, you know, the actual marketing messaging itself rather than the way you talk about the offer.

Does that make sense?

Nicki Krawczyk: It does and nobody is going to like the answer that I have. Nobody. it could be, it could be either, or it could be both. As I coach our students, we will, obviously we coach them through the Circuit Sales System but there’s also just inherently some business coaching in there as well.

And I’ll talk to students who say, you know, I created this program, and the more that I talk to my target audience, the more I’m realizing that it’s not what they want to buy. And sometimes as business owners, that’s what we do, we have the program that we want them to want, but it’s not what they want.

You know, we talk a lot about sell them the chocolate, but give them the vegetables because humans, children, whatever we, we want the chocolate. That’s what we want, but we need the vegetables. So as we’re crafting our offers, you have to sell them, you can’t force someone to want something. And that’s unfortunately a mistake that, that a decent number of business owners make. So you have to give them, sell them what they want, but then give them the other things that you know are going to support their transformation, support the, the positive results. So that’s one part of it. But then, yes, the other part of it is you could have the right offer, be selling the right thing, you could be selling it to the right audience, but if you don’t know how to talk about it in a way that your target audience identifies that you’re talking to them and really makes it clear what that transformation is going to be for them and not just say, it’s an ads course. So they’re going to learn how to do ads.

Okay, great. But what is, what is it deeper? What is it? Is it, are they going to be, are they gonna learn a confidence as they are running their ads? Are they going to get a, a three x return on ad spend and confidence? Are they going to be, you know, all that. You have to get to that deeper benefit, before you can, even, before you’re gonna start seeing, you’ll see some like residual sales ’cause. People like you, they’ll follow you, but you need to get beyond that, just that surface level, this is what I want, to lower, lower, lower, the real reason that they want it. That’s, and that, that deeper benefit is when people get their credit cards out. But unfortunately, most business owners, if they identify the benefit at all, only stay at that kind of surface level.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, I love that you pointed out it’s a difference between what you get or what’s in the offer versus what that does for you. And I feel like even in my own messaging, that’s something that I’ve really struggled with because it can be so hard to think of like, okay, for every individual person, this might be different.

But like you said, that’s the value of talking to people. Cause I’ve been very, very surprised talking to past clients and potential clients about why they’re actually interested in working with me. And for me, one of my promises is working less, which a lot of people promise for a lot of different industries. Right? And it can be very cliche. But then getting to the bottom of like the exact reasons why people want to work less and being really specific on like taking a 12 week maternity leave or working four day weeks or picking up their kids from school, like all of the specific ways, all of that content resonates so much more, but I am not yet mom, I’m 21 weeks and so off the top of my head,

Nicki Krawczyk: Congratulations

Jade Boyd: Thank you.

It’s a, it would have been really hard for me to think of those specific examples without exactly being in their shoes, even though I want to work less too, right? It’s the same thing, but the way that it looks for individual people is different. So I really love that you pointed that out, because I think a lot of people do stick to the surface level, just work less, you know, the cliche example for their industry.

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Well, and a way to get to that as you’re talking to people on your phone, because hopefully people are listening, they’re like, okay, I’m going to do it. I’m going to take the challenge. I’m going to get someone on the phone. Ideally five to 10 and each of those three groups we talked about, but ask them why something matters. Ask them what they want to get out of it. You know, like, oh, oh, well, I’d like to let me just think of a good example, I worked with someone who had a course that originally what she was trying to sell was a course for mothers of toddlers, and she wanted them to help feel overwhelmed because let’s face it.

You don’t have children yet, I don’t have children at all, but I know toddlers, right? Like I’ve interacted with enough toddlers to know that they are so sweet and also sometimes little tiny little demon people and they take over your entire life, but so her her offer was all right well, well, I want to feel I I want I want them to feel less overwhelmed like oh, okay okay, all right and she got on the phone and she talked with people, which she got to, and this is the, the tactic that I would recommend when you say, right, well, you know, what are you looking, what are you looking to experience? What are you looking to get out of this? What is your, what is your desire? If the world was perfect, how would you look and feel about this particular scenario?

And they’ll tell you. And then you say, okay, interesting. And, and why does that matter to you? And then they’ll tell you a little bit more and you say, okay, mm, great, thank you so much, okay. And why does that matter to you? Because it’s going to take a couple of diving downs, just, okay, and why does that matter to you? Great. Can you get more specific? Why exactly does that matter? It’s gonna take at least two or three down to get to what they’re really, really thinking about. And as she was going through this, she got to the point where as she would talk with these women, she got to the point where, they would say, you know, I, I don’t like the person that I am being when I am parenting. I find myself being short. I find myself being angry quickly. I don’t remember who I was before I had this child, I can’t be a good partner to my partner. I don’t even know who I am as a woman anymore. It’s not just about parenting this child. It’s about completely losing touch with who I am as a human. And apparently everybody says I have to just wait it out until they’re five or six when they go off to school and I can finally start figuring this out again.

And so she got to this level of, they, they wanted to get back to a sense of self as a woman. They wanted to be the best person that they could be for this child. They wanted to be the best person they could be for this partner. They wanted this to be an, an important and formative in the best ways years for all of them. That messaging, that messaging is what gets people to take out their credit cards and go that.

It’s not the, I don’t want to be overwhelmed anymore. It’s the, oh, I want to get back to who I am as a woman. And I want to not just, not just focus on this tiny person and not lose my mind, but also grow and thrive as a mother, as a, that’s the kind of stuff you get when you get on the phone, get on Zoom, and ask these deeper questions. And this is real, this is just the beginning of the marketing journey.

Jade Boyd: So, on a practical level, getting on the phone and having these conversations, how often, how many, what format would be your favorite for doing this customer research? Because there’s lots of different ways that you could do this, but I’m sure that it evolves over time too, especially with evergreen offers that might be changed and tweaked over time.

So what are kind of your more practical recommendations for how to do that customer discovery?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, I would do it, at least once a year. and you want to have between five and ten interviews for all three groups. So again, that’s people who’ve purchased from you, people who haven’t purchased from you, so they had the opportunity to purchase and they decided not to, and then also people who have not yet had the opportunity to purchase from you. It’s people who are on your list or they’re following you, but they haven’t, you haven’t had the, the, the launch yet. Cause you’re going to get different answers. You get some similar answers, but you’re going to get to some different answers from all of these groups as well and it’s all going to be very valuable.

So you want to do this at least once a year. And yes, you will have to incentivize people. You can’t just ask like, hey, can you get on a call with me for 15 or 20 minutes? Whether it’s a discount, maybe it’s a free, you know, laser coaching call with you, maybe it’s something like that. You will have to incentivize them. But it’s going to be so worth it. And I strongly prefer doing it on Zoom because I think people open up a little bit better when they can see when you can kind of relax. And maybe you, if you’re nervous, then you will relax as well. And then on Zoom too, you can hit record. You should be taking notes. Absolutely. If that doesn’t disrupt the conversation, but when you record it on Zoom, then you can go rewatch it certainly, but you can get it transcribed as well. Cause when you’re looking at between 15 and 30 interviews, then you can start seeing the phrases and the words that come up again and again, like, oh yeah, this person said this. Oh yeah. You’ll start to see a pattern.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. Okay. I love that. It’s really helpful to break it down. I’m like, okay, I should do this, but what is that actually going to look like? Sometimes the tangible tips are really helpful, but say we do do this. We get really clear on the messaging and then we do set up this evergreen funnel. So people can enter this funnel at any time. The messaging is there. It’s driving sales. But also you have to get people into that funnel. And sometimes that’s another thing that can overwhelm business owners, the feeling that they’re constantly having to go out and find new leads. So what are some of your favorite strategies, especially for the business owner who is really relying on this, like they, it’s a little bit more urgent for them to get people through the funnel now, what are some of your favorite strategies for building up that funnel?

Nicki Krawczyk: Well, you know, here’s the thing is that the nice thing about the Circuit Sales System is that it does all of the sales work, you know, because I think that one of the things that as business owners, we struggle with is, yes, you have to get people into your system, your funnel, whatever you’re using, or just call it your list.

That can be a lot of work. there. And then on top of that, they also have to figure out a way to convert these people into sales. So the, the nice, one of the nice things, many nice things, is that the Circuit Sales System does the selling work for you. So you set it up and then, then you can focus just on getting people in. But it’s really going to be, it’s going to be one of two ways. It’s going to be, organic traffic or it’s going to be paid traffic, right? The thing is, though, is that we are paying no matter what. It’s a little bit of a misnomer to call it paid traffic, but yes, paid traffic, I’m talking about ads.

You’re literally putting your credit card down and you, and Mark Zuckerberg is taking your money. Thank you for that, Mark, it’s worked out very well. But don’t forget too, that with organic traffic, we’re still paying, we’re just paying with time and energy. And by organic, we are, we’re talking about posting on our social channels.

So, you know, for example, for our circuit, you’re opting in to get a free video training, and then obviously there’s all kinds of other stuff along the way, but, you’re opting in to get that, that free thing. So you’re going to post that on your social channels across all of your social channels.

If you’re doing podcast interviews, for example, very meta of us, but if you’re doing podcast interviews, you’re going to mention that as well. You’re going to put yourself out there. Maybe you’re getting yourself in front of, in front of people’s groups, you’re doing summits or you’re doing live events or you are getting some PR, getting yourself featured in stories, getting yourself, there’s all kinds of opportunities, and I mean, really, you can Google organic traffic and you’re going to get a list that is bigger than you could even possibly begin to dig into.

But the great thing is that there are, there are a lot of different things that you can do to get people in there, and I do, quite frankly, I do think that ads are fantastic. I know that a lot of people are hesitant to do ads, and I get that, but the nice thing is, I think part of why people are hesitant to run ads is because it feels very unpredictable to them. Well, I get them into ads, but what if my launch doesn’t perform or I get them in through ads, but what if my evergreen funnel doesn’t perform, which makes complete sense. That is way, way too risky. So one of the things that our students, when they had their circuits built, they send their list through the circuit, absolutely. Cause they have a list might as well make use of it. It can be a little bit stale, frankly, but send your list through, the next step is they’re going to send organic traffic through it. So the people that found them through social, the people that opted in, all of that kind of thing. Because that is your perfect target audience, right?

That is the audience that you know wants the solution that you have, and so once you’re sending organic through that and you’re seeing the results, then you go, okay, yes, I know that my circuit is working. It predictably works, then you can start looking at ads and then you can start experimenting with audiences, experimenting with messaging, experimenting with all of that stuff.

The risk, if you go to ads before you know that you have a system that converts, the risk is that you get into ads and if something’s not working, you don’t know what it is. It could be the system that’s not working. It could be the landing page. It could be the messaging. It could be the audience. It could be, there are any number of things. So with, with our students, it’s very important that we do it systematically so that when you get to the ad stage, you’re truly ready to be at the ad stage, that you’re not jumping over it. You know that if you get the right audience into it, your circuit is going to convert like crazy.

It’s just a matter of getting that right audience in there. So I am a fan of ads. They can be intimidating and I totally get that, but if you really do want to get your business, you know, there, we have students that are in the, the less than a $100,000 a year range. Plenty of students that are in the hundred to $500,000 range, some students in the five to $1,000,000 range, it’s going to get you to those next steps a little bit easier. Certainly possible to do it all, maybe not to the million and multi million, but certainly possible to do it with organic, but ads are just going to give you that boost. It’s just important to do them in the right order.

Jade Boyd: So you mentioned that on the front end of your own evergreen funnel for your circuit sales system, there’s a masterclass that leads in and that’s kind of your opt in that you talk about wherever you guest podcasts or that’s kind of the thing that you’re leading people to. In general, are masterclasses kind of your go to for conversion rates when it comes to evergreen funnels, or are there other mediums that you would suggest business owners try out?

Nicki Krawczyk: So I, the, there’s a very specific reason that, and again, see and, that’s part of the problem with evergreen funnels is that they’re very loosey goosey. It’s like, oh, just send them, send them some emails or send them, you know, you, you did a webinar before and it was the teach, teach, teach webinar. So that’ll do just great. It’s, our system is much more buttoned up than that. So yes, all of our students go through first, so there’s a very systematic step by step way that we build out the system. And it is very meta to talk about the circuit for the Circuit Sales System. But if you’re interested, opt in because you’re going to see exactly how it works from the inside, not all of it will make complete sense until you are. Inside and learning it and you go, oh, I didn’t realize she was doing that there. But oh, that’s what she’s doing and why. But anyway, yes, we start with a masterclass, and here’s another tip, I keep saying teach, teach, teach because we are quote unquote taught again and again that, oh, the best way to get people to purchase is just to teach.

Give them wins. Give them teach what you know. It’s great. Just just give it away. And that is so wrong. So wrong. It can work with, with content to support certainly, in small bits and pieces, but learning is fundamentally an energy draining experience. It’s an energy draining activity. And don’t get me wrong. Learning is very, very important, but learning is for after people have purchased from you where you can support them to stick with it. But learning is tiring. And the thing is, is when people first interact with us, when they first get on our lists, when they first start following us, they are at the peak level of excitement. We are fresh and new to them, and they’re excited at the possibility that we have the solution for the, the problem that they have. And the problem with teaching is that first of all, a lot of us, when we, we wait for the, the launching, we, we just, we drain that excitement in the like, oh yeah, I’m so interested.

Great. Come back in three months when we’re doing a launch. Awesome. which usually they just won’t come back. They’ll buy from one of our competitors. But what happens when we take someone who’s at this peak level of excitement and then we enter them into something where we just teach at them and teach and teach and teach. We’re taking that excitement and we’re draining it through that learning. So it’s, and I understand why we do it. We fall back to it. A lot of us, if we, if you have a program, you’re used to teaching, you’re comfortable with teaching, but it’s the exact wrong way to go about things. It drains that energy.

And then also, if you give them that small win, most, yes, some people will purchase, some people will purchase anything, but if you give them that small win. Most people either go, ooh, great. I have this small win. I need to focus on this. So no, no, no, I can’t buy your big program. I need to, I need to focus on this. Or they go, ooh, I got this little small win. so I can probably, and I get this, so I can probably figure out the rest of that. I don’t need to buy their course.

Nicki Krawczyk: So not only have you drained their excitement, drained their energy, but now they’re thinking that either they don’t need you or they’re not ready for you.

And then they go back on your list and then they, they languish indefinitely. Instead of teaching, what we need to be doing is we need to give people breakthroughs. We need to open their minds up to the possibilities where learning sucks energy, giving people breakthroughs energizes them more, gets them gets them hopeful. Previously, they probably everybody who’s who’s following us has tried something in our arena before, right? Nobody’s coming to us completely fresh, never having tried anything. And because they’ve tried stuff and because it hasn’t worked, they’re coming to us with some inherent disappointment, some inherent skepticism, some inherent feeling like I just don’t know if it’s really possible for me. So when you give them these breakthroughs, you give them, first of all, you, you, there’s a whole way to do it, but you, you will validate the fact that the things that they have tried in the past didn’t work and that helps them be more hopeful.

But then you also explain to them why the way that you do things is totally different and explain to them why it will work. So they, they feel validated and they understand why what they tried in the past doesn’t work. And then when you show them what will work and why they get excited and they get hopeful and they’re in a really prime place to move on to the next phase with you.

And on top of that too, when you break this all down for them a couple of different times for a couple of different pieces of advice or things that they followed, when you break that down for them too, they get more and more bought into the fact that you are an expert. When you take bad advice that they have followed before, show them why it doesn’t work, then show them what does work and why, not the how, but the what and why, they get it, and they go, oh, wow, okay, she knows what she’s talking about, I want to hear more.

So instead of that drop off that you get with webinars, like, here’s step number one, how to do this, you are, with each step, you’re opening their minds even more and getting them more and more excited for the possibilities. You take them from that point of excitement and you keep them there instead of like draining it out and then being like, hey, want to buy now?

Instead, when you keep them at that level of excitement, they’re all in. They’re ready to go, they want to be a part of this.

Jade Boyd: I love how you differentiated between the breakthrough and teaching because that’s also one of my go tos because I love learning. So it comes really naturally. And I think a lot of business owners are like that, but also what you said makes a lot of sense because something that I’ve noticed, I’m sure a lot of business owners have noticed this.

People are always most excited about a new offer when they can’t have it yet. It’s like before they know what it is even is when most people will sign up because we’re just like afraid of missing out or like that curiosity is peaked. And so I love that you differentiated, it’s okay to tell them what without telling them how, because it does make people more excited.

I don’t know why that is psychologically. You said that you, you operate your messaging around psychological principles, but why are we more excited about things when we don’t even know what it is that we would be excited about?

Nicki Krawczyk: Exactly. It’s the how is where we get into the actually doing things, right? The how is the actual implementation, and we get very excited to do something until we get into the actual implementation, right? Like, way back when, even before I was a copywriter, I worked at a health club for a while. So gyms are a really good example of this. People love joining gyms. They love it. They love buying the clothes. They love signing up for the membership. They love being like, oh, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to this class. Until the day when they actually have to show up for that class, or maybe the first day they’re excited they show up for that class.

And then after that it’s like, oh, I actually have to, I have to do the work. So it is, it’s the actual work, which in our case for us is the showing up and learning, that is, just inherently less, I don’t, I hate to say it’s, it’s less fun, but I think realistically, that’s the fact. It’s still very valuable, still very important, but it’s less like shiny and bright and fun, but that’s part of the reason why for us, the teaching and learning has to happen after the purchase. You have to get them and keep them excited through the purchase so that after that, then you can support them to take action, to go through your program, to participate in the calls. All of that stuff, so you can help them get the transformation that, that you promise them.

Jade Boyd: Yes, I love this. This has been so, so good. And obviously the system has been a huge part of your own business journey. And another thing we talk about a lot in this podcast is scaling your business and you’ve scaled your business to multiple seven figures. So I think we’d be missing a great opportunity if we didn’t dig in to a little bit of your story.

And I would love to know, throughout the past few years of your business, there’s obviously a difference between what gets you to six figures versus seven figures, versus multiple seven figures. So I’d love for you to speak into what did it take? Like what has changed throughout your business as you’ve grown and scaled?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah. Well really they’re kind of two parts of it. There is the actual revenue and then there’s the way it works behind the scenes, right? Like the team and the systems and all of that kind of thing, the actual revenue, and I’m going to say this and people are going to be like, what a jerk, but the actual revenue itself is in a lot of ways, the easy part, because the thing about the way the system works is, and we have this running on, I have never not never, I haven’t live launched since, well before 2018. So the, the 98 percent of the revenue that I’ve ever made has been through this system on all of our brands, but it’s, it’s predictable, which means that I have a very clear idea on any given day, how much we’re likely to make across each of those brands.

And then if I want to make more, then I go in and I just turn the dials. We turn the dial up on organic on our social and all that kind of thing. We, maybe we have me doing more podcast appearances, that kind of thing. And then also don’t get me wrong. We turn the dial up on our ad spent, but it’s, it’s a very clear input leads to output because the system is so predictable. So if I want more, I turn the dial and I get more out of it. So it’s, I know that it’s like, oh, okay, great money is easy, but, but in a lot of ways it is, and quite frankly, it should be. I don’t know how you run the business unless you have that level of predictability.

But on the other side of that. When you’re getting more income, it means that you have more students coming in. And it means you have bigger needs on your social front. It has, you know, we have two podcasts, one for each of two of the, that can’t seem to make those actual words work. We have three brands, two of them have podcasts.

That maybe that works.

But all of that, the, the more people that come in, the more, the more support we need. You know, we were talking, I had a student coaching call in the, in the copywriting course this morning, and it used to be that I did them every month and then actually we added it to, now it’s two coaching calls a month and I, I can’t do that much time and still be running the business and we also have Facebook groups and we support our students across all of the brands because we want them to be as massively successful as possible, but I can’t be all of those people anymore. So we’ve trained up the most phenomenal coaches so that they can do calls, they can be, especially in the copywriting, they can be in the group, and then on the Circuit Sales System, yes, I’m in the group and I’m coaching calls, but we also have trained up some of our expert level copywriters on the Circuit Sales System specifically, so they are in the group Monday through Friday, giving feedback as part of the program to our students to make sure, because messaging is hard. The hardest messaging is writing it for ourselves. But so, I’ve had to bring in those team members, train those team members to make sure that this, this all runs.

And we have, we call it our executive team. There’s me, there’s our operations manager and our marketing manager. And the three of us are constantly strategizing, figuring out what we’re going to do next. But also these team members, Kate and Caitlin, oddly enough, are so fantastic and so dialed in, and so bought into the goals of not just the company, but the goals of what we want our students to be accomplishing. That they’re doing all kinds of stuff without me even having to be a part of it. There will be times when I’ll be on a call with them and they’ll say, oh yeah, yeah, and we did this and say, wait, what we did what? They’d say, oh yeah, yeah, we did this ’cause we knew that this would be a, a benefit. There would be no downside. So we didn’t, we didn’t tell you, which great as someone who is as busy as I am, it’s amazing to have team members that are so good. It’s like true A players that can execute and don’t even necessarily need me to be aware of some things. No, that’s certainly just those team members.

We have, 14, 15 total, not all employees and not all full time, but, it’s, it’s a large team, so it takes a lot to manage it and keep it all moving. But that has been on the, the, on the other side of the back end of the business, creating the teams and, and creating the systems that lets everything run smoothly.

Jade Boyd: Can you speak a little bit more into timeline wise in your business? Where was your revenue at when you started building your team? And how did you overcome the mindset issue of no one can do it like I can? Because I think a lot of service providers like the idea of having a team, but they don’t love the idea of a team, not being the person face to face with their clients day in and day out.

So can you speak to those two things? Like timeline wise, when did you start doing that and what did it take from a mindset perspective to make that shift?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, exactly. Well, so, so timeline wise, income, I can say that the revenue, which this always makes me laugh, but my revenue for 2018 was about $40,000, 40,000 I think so. I have it all written down somewhere. I think it’s on our opt in page, which was the most I’d ever made in the business at that point.

I was very, very proud. Always a great program, but didn’t know how to sell it. So at the end of 2018, I made $40,000. At the end of 2019, I made $268,000. At the end of 2020, I made, $1.6. And then we’ve just continued to scale up from there. So when I want to talk about that 40X ing my revenue, and that was all just the copywriting course then, you know, it wasn’t like, oh, now I’m teaching people to sell a course by selling a course to them on how to sell, you know, all that kind of stuff.

That was just the copywriting course that I, that I 40 X the income to go from $40,000 to $1.6 million in like 26 months. In terms of building up the team to support that, the place that I started and the place that I recommend people start is when you look at your day, what makes you miserable? Because that’s going to be the easiest. First of all, it’s going to be easiest thing to unload because you’re going to be glad to have it gone. But second of all, if it’s draining that much energy from you, it’s taking a massive toll on your business that you’re not even seeing. A lot of times people think, well, I have to bring on someone who’s going to earn more money.

I have to bring on someone who’s going to, who’s going to make back their salary and then some salary or whatever, hourly, I have to, they have to be someone that’s, that’s going to earn. And sometimes that is absolutely the case. And we’ll talk a little bit about how you decide when you bring people on as well, but the first thing to do is to look for the energy drains in your business. So for me, the absolute first person that I brought on was customer service. And it could be, because I think this is true for so many of us, a glowing email from someone, you know, we get emails from people saying. This is amazing. I can’t believe, I can’t believe this program.

This has changed my life. You know, this has changed my life. It’s changed my children. That is amazing. And I read those and I cherish them and I save them and I feel great for like 20 minutes and it’s not just me, this is how human beings work, but then you get some random email from someone who’s just opted in who says how dare you charge for this.

This is something that you should be making free or, you know, just all kinds of like, or, or I want to stop my payment you told me I could stop at any time. Like, there’s nothing that we offer that you can cancel at any time. That’s just, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but that’s not, that’s not an us thing, that’s a you thing, or the Facebook comments from random Facebook or Instagram or whatever the comments on your ads from random people, dudes in their mother’s basements in the middle of the night, and that stuff throws us off our game. For me, it would be like a half a day before I could get my head back in the game and get refocused on work.

And, sure, I think a lot of people say, well, it’s, but it’s customer service. You can just do it. It goes so quickly. I don’t need to hire someone to do it. I should hire someone to do so- if it is draining that much energy and you are dreading it that much, you need to get it off your plate as soon as possible.

I don’t care if you can do it quickly. I don’t care if it’s easy for you. I don’t care if you feel like you’re the best person in the whole wide world. And this isn’t obviously, it’s customer service for me, or it was first customer service for me, but you need to get it off your plate because if it’s something, if it’s truly something you don’t enjoy and or it’s something that drains your energy, it is having a massive toll on your business and you don’t even realize it.

You will feel so much lighter once someone else is doing it and you will feel freer and you will feel empowered to get other stuff off your plate, stuff that you just kind of don’t like, or stuff that you’re like, well, pretty good at it. So I guess anything other that you want to get to the point where, and I’m not quite there yet, but you want to get to the point where the only things that you’re working on are the stuff that is in your zone of genius that you are exceptionally good at and you really enjoy doing because all of the rest of that should go to somebody else who for them, they are exceptionally good at and they really enjoy doing because that’s the direction we all should be heading. We didn’t start businesses to be miserable with the tasks that are on our to do list. Right? We started businesses to feel more empowered and to feel more flexible, but so many of us just end up with miserable desk jobs and that’s not at all the way that it should be.

So start out with what drains you and then two, and let me know if I’m just going on and on. I get very excited to talk about

business

Jade Boyd: No, this is good.

Nicki Krawczyk: So excited. I think that the next big mistake, and I, I, don’t get me wrong, I have made this mistake again and again, is you think to yourself, oh, I want this person so that I can build the revenue to the next level. Think, alright, I’m gonna make money, and then I’m gonna get this person in, and then we’re gonna make, so I, I, I need this person in my business, but I’m gonna make enough money first to cover this person’s salary, or this person’s cost, or whatever.

And that’s, that’s not how it works. Or so I should say it’s very very rarely how it works, because usually when you’ve identified you need this next person, you need this person to help you get to the next level. And you can’t get to that next level until you have that person in place. Now again, because we have the Circuit Sales System, we can be a little bit more predictable about it.

But it was even the same thing, you know, as we were getting in thousands of students a year, we needed various types of people in place to support that and we needed them in there before we turned the dial and we got all of those students in there because after you start, first of all, because you need them to, to help you get to the next level, but specifically if, if it has to do with the number of students coming in, it would have been too chaotic to try to train them up after we had this, this massive number of students coming in across all of our brands.

So it’s, it is, it’s, like I said, I make that mistake and I know it and I know it too, but I still it’s that like, oh my goodness, it’s one more person I’m going to be responsible for and, but it’s every time you identify you need another person to get to the next level, don’t run the mind game of, oh, I’m just going to make more money.

I’m just going to work harder now and make more money now. And then I’ll pay for them ahead of time. You’re already working at your max capacity. You’re not going to add more on top of that. And then, bring in this person, what you’re probably going to do is just burn out, be miserable, and don’t forget that it’s going to take some time and effort to find this person anyway.

So hire to get you to the next level. You won’t be able to hire after you’re at that next level, or you know what I mean.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, that’s a really good insight because I do think that there is so much fear around hiring, not only in the, is this person going to do a good job because hiring and finding those A plus people can be kind of difficult, but also not knowing on the back end if you don’t have a predictable system like Circuit Sales, where you know that it’s going to have ROI if you invest in this person, it can be a really scary situation to navigate. So I think it’s really helpful to see your insight on the other side of it, of mistakes that you’ve made and what you would do differently. I also want to pull out of your story. And you mentioned very early in the episode that your breakthrough really came when you were like, okay, what am I actually good at?

What, what is my thing? And then you made the course and figured out messaging and built the system. And ultimately that led to other opportunities in your business. And now you have three brands, but I want you to speak a little bit into from, from a multiple seven figure business perspective, having the experience of building two, seven figures with one offer, one copywriting course to the business that you have today-can you speak to kind of like the need of multiple offers and would it even be possible for you to get where you are today without creating multiple brands and offers? I would love to hear your side of the story and your thoughts on the process as you’re reflecting on your own trajectory and what your business has grown into.

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, the real deal truth is that I probably would have been able to be much more successful faster if we didn’t have three brands. It has split my focus in ways that in retrospect, have made it much more difficult than it needed to be. Now, I will say that as we, you know, we had our copywriting course and that was chugging along, we had our systems down. Then we started building our freelancing course, which is, it’s very similar to the other one. So, it, there was a lot that we could borrow, but it was as we were scaling the freelancing course, that, business owner friend said like, hey, could you, could you teach this, the system to us?

And I went screech and started focusing then on the, the Circuit Sales System, which means that my focus was, was split. And I love all three programs and I don’t have any intention to get rid of any of them, but it has taken a lot to get to a place where they can run smoothly. If I had to do it again, I would either just stick with one, or make sure that as we added each one, like, the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy, up and chugging along nicely, that was, that was step one and that was good, but then, what I should have done, instead of, instead of kind of hitting the brakes in the middle of the, the freelance success framework, the Fired Up Freelance brand, And then trying to build that and Circuit Sales System simultaneously, I should have been patient, built up, Fired Up Freelance, and then got that chugging along nicely, and then added the, the Circuit Sales System brand.

So it’s, it is. It’s a lot. There’s a reason why people tell you not to split your focus and I, and I can say that having a team of 14 or 15 people helping me do all of this. So whenever I talk to a business owner, they’re like, okay, well, I think I want, you know, people get very excited when they see how the circuit sales system can work.

And they go in and they go, okay, oh my gosh, I have this program and I have this program. I think I want to, there are two different audiences and I think I want to build them out. I think I want to build them out. Like, I think I can do this at the same time and do it for both. And it is, it is the hugest mistake because when you try to do two different things at the same time, all you end up doing is slowing down the progress on all of it versus focusing on one, and then, like I said, if you, if you really, really want to add a second offer, great, but focus on one, get it chugging along and mostly running on its own, or at least then you get team members in to keep it running before you start doing the other thing, cause that’s splitting the focus is, is one of the biggest and frankly most common mistakes that I see business owners make. And I get it right. You have like, we’re full of ideas and like, this is genius. This is also genius. I wanna do it all now. And it is, it is, it is huge, huge mistake. It takes a lot of self-discipline, which clearly I didn’t have enough of, it takes a lot of self-discipline to just really go all in on one thing, maximize it, and then add something else on.

Or you may decide you don’t even need to add anything else on, you might get to the point to where you start building up your business and you go, wow, I have a lot of success. I also have a lot of freedom. I have a lot of, and that may be it. I think there’s also a lot of we get so this was a, for me, last year was a big like in my head thing, a lot of comparison about where we are in our businesses and where we are in our lives and all that kind of stuff. And stepping back from that, you may go, oh, actually, I’m, I’m actually happy with where I am right here.

So having that, having that focus gives you the ability to discern like that about what you really want and what your business really, what you really want your business to be.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, and I think it’s interesting, I think we all have that mindset of once I get to this level, then I won’t struggle with this anymore. You know, maybe, maybe next year once I hit that, but I think it’s really helpful and interesting to see from your perspective, like struggling to want to do everything is a problem that’s not going to go away. So it is a muscle that you have to build.

Nicki Krawczyk: Yes, I agree. And it’s, it’s for me too. It’s, it’s, I, and I don’t want to be like, well, look at me I’m multi seven figures and I struggle with it too, but it’s true, you know, you do think that at a certain point, I’m going to have it all figured out. It’s going to be easy, but it’s just a new set of different problems and a new set of different things to scare you and to get you outside of your comfort zone and to learn and opportunities to grow, and it’s, I agree. Whenever I hear someone who’s making even more money or who has a bigger business and, and to hear them say like, oh yeah, I’m like, who, who was it? I want to say it with someone like Cody Sanchez, who is very interesting and teaching all kinds of different model, but still big business, and she said something like I’m scared every day. And I was like. Oh, thank you. Cause maybe I’m not scared every day, but the days when I do get scared or there’s something new that I’m working on or something I don’t understand or something that I go, oh, shouldn’t I be past this by now? It’s, it’s really, it’s almost a little messed up to be like, I’m never going to get past this. And isn’t that great?

Jade Boyd: Strangely comforting, but

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, exactly. But it is, it’s, it’s good to know that other people. Other people are struggling with it too, or have that opportunity to grow as well.

Jade Boyd: So one more thing that you talk about, and I want to end on this, you talk about overcoming self doubt and feeling stuck along your business journey, and you have some favorite tactics that you suggest to work through those feelings of self doubt. Is this possible for me? Am I capable? Is this going to work? And feeling just absolutely stuck in our business because a lot of business owners, especially, service providers can relate to that feeling of, man, I just feel like I’ve built this thing. Like you said, that is a day job and I feel stuck, so can you speak into that? And can we close on how do we go from feeling stuck or unmotivated or doubtful about our businesses to attracting the level of success that we really want.

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, I think, I think the first part is understanding possibility. I think a lot of us go, well, I don’t know. I like, I just don’t, is it, is this possible? Is this something that’s possible for me? Set aside your feelings about yourself for a second, it has to be very logical, but the concept is, if someone is capable of doing it, then it is possible for you too. If a human being has been able to do it, then it’s possible for you too. You know, it’s a whole like the Roger Bannister four minute mile. People saw him do four minute miles and they were like, I can do that too. Now, do I want to put in the effort to be able to run a four minute mile? No, not at all interested. No way. However, it’s possible for me. And it’s the same thing with business. I think sometimes we go, well, I’ll never get to hear, I’ll never get to, no, it’s possible. And you have to keep your mind on now, whether or not you want to, is a totally different thing. And that’s something that you have to decide for yourself because all of our businesses are going to look very different, but you have to understand that it’s possible.

And then when it comes to, and I think this might be the, the kind of playing with the, the ideas for my next book. And I think this might be the direction that we go, but when it comes to business, nothing is, or I should say very little is like mystical, right? It’s, it’s, it’s just a matter of luck and if you fall into the right thing, it’s actually very, very straightforward. The problem is that most of us are asking the wrong questions. We’re asking ourselves things like, oh, why can’t I do that? Why is this such a crummy day? Why am I so dumb? Why am I? These are the exact wrong questions because our brain, any questions that we ask ourselves, we’re going to answer. We need to be asking very strategic and logic based questions. So anytime in our business that we encounter something that we don’t like or what isn’t working, we need to take a step back again, feel the emotion for a second, because there’s no point in trying to, you know, feel the disappointment, feel the, the, the, whatever you’re feeling, and then set it aside and start breaking down into individual questions.

Okay, what in my business is not working the way that I want it to? Okay, well, I’m not getting the number of leads that I want. Okay, what are the number of leads that would get me to, to the number I want? Okay, the number of leads, okay, how am I currently getting leads? Okay, and Is that, is that a successful method of getting leads it’s about asking the objective questions to get at the objective answers, because once you start to do that, it all gets very empowering.

Like I was saying, until you get to the point, like, oh yeah, I’m doing this to get leads. Oh, but actually those leads are the ones that aren’t converting, or I’m doing this to do leads, but it takes me four hours to get four leads, so this isn’t a very effective way of doing it. Okay, what are other ways that I could be getting leads?

Okay, and just asking these questions, so you get at the end, you, you set aside all of this like, I don’t know what to do, how am I, how am I, what you get at the very end of the question is a very specific action to take. And yes, sometimes the actions will work, sometimes they won’t work. But if they don’t work, it’s still an experiment, right?

You go, alright, well that didn’t work, back up to top again, and let’s figure out what else I can try. Because it’s not. It’s not mystical. Business is really just executing a series of steps, and don’t get me wrong, because I am not, I, I am as emotional as the next person, I am just as, as likely to get in my head, and to get disappointed, or excited, or any of the full, full range of emotions, but when it comes to making decisions about my business, I take all of those and I set it aside and I break it down into individual questions and I hand write out the answers to these questions so that by the end of that, I know exactly, I’m not guessing, well, maybe I could do, maybe it could run ads, maybe I could do Pinterest ads, or maybe I could do, I know exactly what I’m going to do next and that makes it all so much more manageable. And then when you have a path, you just follow the path. It’s not a matter of getting up in the mornings and going, what am I going to do today? I don’t know. It’s a matter of going, okay, this is my plan for following through on these next steps.

And again, if it doesn’t work, all right, then not everything we do is going to work. In fact, a lot of the stuff we do is not going to work. Great, then go back to the beginning and start asking yourself these questions. But when you ask yourself very specific, logic based, and the questions are logic based and your answers have to be factual. It can’t be, well, I feel this way. You do. I get it, but, it has to be fact based. When you, when you are viewing your business that way, it’s all so much easier and so much more manageable and it’s so much less scary.

Jade Boyd: This was the perfect question to end on. I’m hoping everybody else is feeling as fired up as I am and you’re right. I feel like a lot of overwhelm just comes from trying to decide what to do and do the thing at the same time. But if you can, at least when you’re in that right headspace to decide what to do, give yourself the grace and the privilege of showing up to work and just doing the thing without overthinking it, a lot of that overwhelm and overthinking goes away overnight. So I hope everyone here has that thing in their mind that they need to sit down and think about what questions they need to ask and what they need to do next. But for everyone who’s interested in getting into your circles and seeing more of what you do, where’s the best place to find you after the show?

Nicki Krawczyk: Yeah, absolutely. You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at, Circuit Sales System. and also if on Instagram, if you want to follow me, you can, it’s Nikki dot Krawczyk, which you’re definitely going to have to put in the show notes because bless these people, if they could spell out Krawczyk, good for them.

I think it was like five before I could spell my last name. No need, that’s more my personal one, you know, just if you feel like it, pop over, let me know you listen. and then also if you want to get into it and see it from, from the back end, experience a circuit, you can go to circuitselling.com and opt in there.

Jade Boyd: Perfect. And we’ll make sure to link all of that and the show notes to make it really easy for people. So thanks so much again, Nikki, this was fantastic.

Nicki Krawczyk: I had so much fun too. Thank you so much for having me.