235 – Get Customers to Buy Over and Over and Over with Marisa Murgatroyd

Gift biz unwrapped episode 235 finding out a way to turn

one time customers into repeat customers is absolutely essential.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters,

and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there Sue,

and I'm so happy that you're joining me here today.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

How'd your day go yesterday?

Maybe a crazy question.

I know and yes,

you heard me right?

If you were to rate yesterday,

how much did you get done?

How far did you advance toward your goal or maybe in

your mind you're saying what goal?

Many of you have told me you aren't sure whether what

you're doing is the right thing for your business.

You're confused that you may be focusing on the wrong things

and wasting time and money and you compare yourself to others

and feel like you're just not keeping up.

Sound familiar?

Maybe you find that you're busy all day long,

but when you finish up,

you haven't accomplished much of anything at all.

I've been there too until I started working with what I

now call the power of purpose.

I made a free video for you that explains how to

boost your productivity and get results using the power of your

purpose. Isn't it time to make all the effort that you

put into your business and your life do for you what

you've intended.

Now full disclosure,

this video does lead into showing you my brand new inspired

daily planner.

But listen,

you don't need the inspired planner to get all the advantages

out of the power of purpose that I show you in

this video.

So if you're interested in discovering a new way to work

through your days,

so your time is intentional and your results are real,

I encourage you to go over and watch this video and

you can find it.

It. Gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash.

Planner. That's gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash.

Planner. I'm excited to bring you today's show because it addresses

two important topics with some interesting twists on how to grow

your business.

So I want you to keep an open mind and put

your innovative,

creative thinking cap on while we talk.

First, we're going to hit on the most important moment in

your customer's journey.

Now you may think that's the point of purchase.

You know the transition between someone being a Looker and turning

into a customer because they've now exchanged money and giving you

dollars for your product,

but that's not it.

You'll find out where the most important juncture is and how

you can capitalize on it.

Secondly, we'll talk about how to extend your moneymaking opportunities.

Now for all of us,

gifters, bakers,

crafters and makers,

let's face it,

when you sell more,

you've just given yourself or your team more work because you

have to make more product and fill all the orders.

But what if there was an easier way to scale your

business that still relate to your product but doesn't increase production

or sales fulfillment time.

Sound good?

Have I peaked your interest?

Then let's dive into the show.

Today's guest is Marisa Murgatroyd,

the founder of live your message and creator of the experience

product masterclass where she helps people who teach online programs get

better results for their students faster.

Marissa launched her career as an artist who built a mid

seven figure online business despite being told that she had no

marketable skills.

Since then,

she's shown over 5,000

students how to succeed online and she's here today to share

a few secrets with us.

Marissa, welcome to the gift ms on wrapped podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm so stoked to be here because my roots are as

an artist and so there's a huge part of my past

and my heart with your audience.

I love it and you know what?

It's a really perfect fit because this is a concept that

I've really been wanting to approach with everybody.

And you've entered into the picture.

So I know we're going to get into some great conversation,

but I have to stick with tradition and I always start

off by having you share with our listeners a little bit

more about yourself by describing a motivational candle that would match

you and your personality.

So if you were to describe a candle by color and

quote, what would it look like?

Mm, love that.

So I have to go with the traditional white candle,

and I know it sounds boring,

but white is all the colors of the spectrum combined.

And our house is very modern.

There's a lot of whites,

blacks, grays,

and then splashes of turquoise.

So I could say that's good for a turquoise candle,

but I'd want to go for white because it's able to

accentuate everything else in this space.

And I would probably,

instead of going for color,

going for an incredible smell,

I love citrus,

Japanese, citrus,

like a yuzu sense.

So it's a little bit exhilarating and fresh to go with

the white candle.

And I would say the quote on the candle is my

all time favorite quote by Zig Ziglar,

who's the late,

great motivational speaker.

And it's a core value and philosophy behind my business as

well. And also behind what we'll be talking about today.

And that is you can have everything you want in life

if you'll just help enough other people get what they want.

And it's so interesting because it's easy as a business owner

to lead with what you want to give and what you

want to sell,

but when you start to shift your perspective to what people

want to receive and what's going to really support them in

getting what they want in life,

I think it changes the game of business in a very

unique way.

I think that can really resonate with everybody here too.

Because just by nature of the fact that we're creators and

makers, that's giving right,

giving of yourself and your talents and your creative skills to

others. So falls right in line.

I'd love it.

It's perfect.

Excellent. So I'm really curious,

I'd love for you to share how you got your start

and specifically an artist.

So that peaks my curiosity.

Share with us.

Yeah, well,

you know,

my first career was as a documentary filmmaker.

So I graduated from art school.

I went to the Royal college of art in London with

a degree in communication,

art and design.

And I got back to LA and started exploring film.

And I was seven years as a documentary film maker and

producer and it was working for someone else.

So I was actually a hired gun.

So I was a hired producer,

hired director,

and I loved the work,

but I didn't always love the job and I definitely didn't

always love the boss.

And one day I was up against a deadline to just

finish a project and get it into production,

DVD production,

all of that.

So I was working in my office on my laptop boss

walks in about one o'clock in the afternoon.

I'd already been there for maybe four hours.

It says,

Oh, I forgot my power cable,

can I have yours?

And I said,

well, no,

I kind of needed,

my computer wasn't plugged in and we're up against this deadline

to get the film to DVD production.

And she proceeded to say,

well Merissa that laptop you're working on,

I own that laptop and that power cord,

I own that too.

So give me the power.

No. Yes.

And the funny thing was is we had an office full

of production assistants.

She could have asked somebody else,

but in that moment she needed my power cable.

Even if it would have thrown the entire project off that

box. Did she know the situation?

She knew the situation,

But she wanted my power cord in that particular moment in

what she didn't say.

But she might as well have said as Merissa I own

you. And I had this realization that I'd spent the last

three years working with her,

building her business,

building her bottom line,

building her profitability.

And at the end of the day I was taking home

a thousand bucks a week and that was it.

If I didn't work,

I didn't get paid.

And I just started to realize,

what am I doing?

I've got so much skills and so much creativity,

why am I giving it to this person who doesn't necessarily

appreciate it?

And that started me down a spiral of asking what could

I do?

And to be honest,

as an artist,

I did not have a good answer.

The only thing I could come up with is I know

how to make things look good and good and tell a

damn good story,

but who's going to pay me for that?

And as an artist who is used to kind of scrounging

around to make a living at big,

kind of undervalued and under appreciated,

I didn't realize that those skills of making things look good,

sound good,

and telling good stories was the basis of all business and

marketing. So sometimes you just don't know what you don't know

and the same skills that you've been developing over a lifetime

can be used in an entirely different context and have a

lot more value than where you're currently using them.

And that's what I discovered and that kind of set me

down my path to start building an online business.

Did you ever think what your life would be like if

that moment wouldn't have happened?

No. Sometimes you've got to be grateful for the.

Agreed. I love that because so often it's a moment in

time that just flips the switch and opens your mind to

different things just like you're describing.

Absolutely. I am so grateful for that moment.

And so grateful for many of the other tough lessons.

Probably not in the moment though.

No. Like probably not right at that time,

no. But retrospectively,

yes, yes,

yes. So what happened next?

Well, what happened is I just started to ask myself,

well, where else could I work?

And I just started to think that maybe somewhere at the

intersection of the internet and entrepreneurship,

and that's about all the clarity that I had.

I didn't know that this whole online education world existed.

I did.

I didn't know what I could do.

So I actually started down the path of creating a branding

and web design agency and we still have that branding and

web design agency,

which was a great use of my creative and my artistic

skills. And from there I started to realize that what I'd

done, other people want to know how to do.

And I started teaching people how to do what I was

doing in my business.

And that side started to grow and grow and grow and

grow. And at first I thought,

well, who would want to learn from me?

And it was so interesting.

Kids, I have so much value to share and I didn't

even realize who would want to learn from me.

But like a lot of people who get started teaching other

people, all I knew was what I knew as an expert

and I didn't understand how to be a good facilitator,

how to get the same results for somebody else that I

may have been able to get for myself.

And so I remember creating my very first online program and

pouring everything that I had into that program.

And then watching people get stuck and get frustrated and a

lot of them give up.

And what I didn't know at the time is that it's

a dirty secret of the online education world that up to

97% of people who buy products don't consume those products and

get the results that were promised.

And I remember going to a friend,

a colleague,

and saying,

you know,

is this normal for people to not finish?

And she told me,

well, maybe some people just aren't meant to succeed.

And I was like,

ouch. That doesn't feel right.

I believe that everybody is meant to be successful if they

have the right circumstances,

the right training,

the right tools that they need to be a success.

And so from that point on,

I got really obsessed with figuring out how do I create

a game people can win?

How can I stack the odds in favor of my students,

clients, and customers so they can get huge results and get

so excited about their life goals as excited about their life

goals as they are about safe surfing,

Facebook or Instagram,

and excited about busting through their challenges too,

and getting what they actually want.

Yeah. I have so many questions for you right here.

I'm trying to decide which way I'm going to go,

but first,

there's so many online courses now just as you're talking about,

and you're right,

I mean I see this all the time.

A lot of people will buy courses,

a lot of them don't complete them,

which I think is where you're going and so your skill

is how do you make them interesting,

exciting, fascinating,

and produce the result that they initially bought the course for.

Right? We're going to get into that,

but that is a way of positioning what you do.

Unlike I've heard before,

so I just want to clarify first that I'm on the

right track,

right? Yes,

you are on the right track and I did want to

say that the a series of principles can also be used

to engage people around physical products,

especially if you're selling something that's not just a one off.

If you're selling something where you want people to come back

and buy from you,

the same customers over and over and over again,

then it can be super helpful or useful to engage people

around them.

Or if you really depend on referrals for ongoing business and

you want people to engage and kind of fall in love

with the product in you so they refer you and kind

of do your marketing for you.

So if you want one of those two things,

even with the physical product business,

then this can be super helpful even if you have no

intention of creating an online course or program.

Okay. So let's take both these paths.

Normally I'd get to a fork in the road and choose

one or the other,

but they're both so important.

So I'm hoping we can cover both of these and let's

start with how you get people to continue engaging with you

buying your product over time.

Yeah, so part of it is what happens after they buy.

So a lot of people think that the most important moment

in your relationship with a customer is a moment that they

buy. And I actually believe that it's the moment after they

buy. What do they do immediately with your product?

So how could you have instructions,

for example,

that come with your product that might be fun and might

be engaging or maybe even rewarding consumption and engagement.

So for example,

let's say you sell jam,

right? And just making that up.

It could be all kinds of things,

but let's say you sell jam.

Most people are just going to go home and maybe they'll

use the jam at some point.

Maybe it'll sit in the pantry for awhile.

There's nothing else that really happens in that transaction.

But what if you sell the jam and then you basically

let people know that you have a creative jam contest.

So you know if they can go home within a week

and do something really unique or creative or use the gym

and innovative way,

do you feature your monthly winners and you're going to kind

of reward them by sending them a free month of jam,

for example.

Right? So you have all these people going home and then

doing really creative things with the gym and sending you pictures

that you can post on Instagram and they're inventing new recipes

and submitting new recipes and maybe they're naming whatever their creation

is. All of a sudden you have all this user contributed

content around the jam that you just gave them.

So what I like to say,

or the exercise I like to encourage people to think about

is what happens in the hour or the day after they

buy? How can you get them so excited to go home

and use your product or do something with your product or

share your product with a friend that's going to start them

on a very different journey with your product than if you

just hand them the jam and a bag and say,

Nope, here you go.

Thanks. Right?

Yeah. What I'm thinking is it gives people a deeper experience

and a deeper connection to your product because even if your

jam is delicious and they use it,

that additional experience is going to keep them top of mind

and more integrated in,

and I love your example.

I know you just pulled it off the top of your

head, but it's brilliant because showing winners,

everybody likes to be shown and called out by name and

possibly face and recipe or whatever it is and I was

just thinking that these ideas have legs because if there are

different recipes that are posted that could be merged into like

a pamphlet that goes along with the jams.

I mean there could be a million extensions of just that

one idea.

Oh yeah,

yeah, for sure.

Like I can see you,

obviously your Instagram account would be full of this.

You could create the artwork for your booth where you have

all the pictures of these are my customers,

my audience,

this is how they're using the jam.

These are their creative recipes.

You could be having an email list where you get them

on a list and you send them the monthly recipe of

choice too.

That's all user contributed content.

So they get these ongoing recipes that may include jams that

they haven't even bought yet,

so that they're going to want to buy so they can

try this new recipe.

So there's a lot of different things that you could do

to encourage consumption of the jam and have people want to

keep buying from you no matter how delicious the jam is.

Sometimes they're just like,

Oh, they just happen to see you at that particular fair

and buy it as a one off,

but there's no reason for them to seek you out again.

Right. Well,

and I would also say just since you brought that point

up, you also want it to be the type of situation

where you're not leaving it in their hands to seek you

out. You have some type of a connection with them.

Yes. You have to tell them exactly what the next step

is. And that's a key to experience escalation because one of

the principles is,

well there's 10 principles to experience.

Escalation are things you want to do and 10 things you

don't want to do.

But one of the principles relates to bird's eye view,

which you're actually showing them the path from mission to mission

accomplished. So say the path for in this case mission is

basically an outcome.

What's someone going to be able to do,

be, feel,

have, overcome or achieve through using your product?

And mission accomplished is what happens when they cross and realize

that state and you want it to be so clear and

so specific that you could film someone crossing the finish line.

So say the mission accomplished here on the jam is super

simple. There's three things you can do with this gym.

One, as you let it sit in the pantry collecting dust.

Two is you put it on bread,

right? Like most people do with Jim three and this is

really exciting,

is that you create something unique with this gym.

You create a new recipe,

you use it on something that you never thought of using

it before.

And you share that with the community because we want to

reward you for your creativity and feature your recipe feature your

jam creation alongside of ours.

So I really wanted to invite you to get creative and

to do something really unique and to take this jam out

of the jar and do something super special with it.

So you're actually telling people what the mission is,

right, is to use this gym in a unique way.

You're telling them the exact next step.

So my challenge to you is to sometime in the next

seven days,

use this in a really fresh and unique way and either

uploaded on Instagram and tag me at whatever,

or just send it over to me and I'm going to

put you in the drawing or a contest to win sort

of jam creation of the month,

right in the soil.

If you want it your picture,

your story is going to go out to my entire audience

of Jim connoisseurs.

So it just changes things all of a sudden.

Yeah, totally deepens the connection for sure.

Right? It's also creating what I call a feedback loop,

which is one of the principles and leveraging community,

which is another principle.

Will you share with us another example?

Yeah, so let me actually give you an example of my

friend Shelley brander,

who's also started out as a maker.

And Shelley created a online summit called knit stars and knit

stars features every single year.

Some of the top people in the knitting industry to share

some of their creations and things like that.

So Shelly went from being a knitter to someone who actually

has a seven figure business around teaching other people how to

knit. And a lot of the people she features,

it's not even herself.

It's really bringing the entire knitting community together around some of

the knitting creations.

So that's an example of every year.

She creates this really unique online adventure,

like an online adventure for people in the knitting community.

And usually knitting is hyper-local,

right? It's one of those things where you have a knitting

circle maybe or the girlfriend that you like to knit with

and you're not tapped into this global audience of other people

who are knitting.

So this is an example of really leveraging community in a

much bigger way and bringing a group of makers together who

aren't normally made together.

And it's also about kind of monetizing your knitting creations.

So she's got a very clear mission for that summit and

some of the followup products and things that she does in

terms of helping people become a nit star,

just like the guests that she's featuring.

How do you go from being a knitter at home for

fun to really becoming a nit star?

So that would be an example of creating like a mission

around what it is that you do.

Okay. So in Shelley's situation,

so she was a knitter.

Was she also selling her knitted products or yarn or anything

like that?

Did you have a business First as a product?

You know,

she was a crafter and a lot of different ways.

I'm not sure specifically if she was selling knitting or not,

but she's kind of a,

was a hardcore crafter.

So she went into the education side of things,

really teaching other people how to build their niche businesses and

knit patterns and that kind of thing.

Okay, so this is a perfect segue.

Now we're going to go back and go down the other

fork of the road.

Okay. And I think this is something that's going to be

really different to here for some of our listeners,

and that is they've always been so busy making product,

selling it at craft shows,

maybe wholesale,

but it's all around the income is coming around selling product,

selling something tangible in exchange for money.

And you and I both see an opportunity and some of

our listeners understand this as well,

but I want to get everyone on the same page here,

that there's an extension of your product creation that can be

monetized and that is teaching people who are interested.

Maybe a portion of them are your customers.

A portion of them might not be.

They're interested in knowing the skill that you know through,

just like you're showing with this example Merissa of Shelley through

some type of online training.

So let's get into that a little bit.

Can you expand on what I was just laying out?

We'll hear Marissa's thoughts on this.

Right after a quick word from our sponsor.

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Yeah, so there's so many different things that you can teach

when it comes to crafting.

I mean,

one of my coaches,

a coach on our team,

Don Crowder,

actually supported his entire mortgage for a decade by selling patterns

and they were sewing patterns.

I can't remember what it was sewing patterns for.

It was for some kind of toy that was really big

in the eighties and it was some kind of thing that

they sold patterns for and he literally paid for his entire

mortgage for a decade selling these particular patterns.

And so whatever it is that you do,

whether you're on the peak of a trend,

which is something that a lot of people want to be

learning how to do,

like a new kind of jewelry or a new kind of

knitting or a new kind of sewing or new kind of

woodworking, whatever it is,

or on the business end of teaching people how to say

really master Etsy or YouTube or Instagram for crafters specifically,

like going into that niche if you've done one of these

things well,

or even how to rock craft fairs,

right? And kind of set up your booth so you know

the exact positioning to have,

you know,

a how to get the most sales,

you know,

how to get the most followup sales.

So there are all these skills related to becoming a professional

crafter. And this is becoming a really big industry for so

many people,

a lot of up and coming generations,

love crafting and love crafting as a way of life,

as a way of generating their full on income.

So there's all of these skills that you,

that you don't even realize you have,

that you've needed to not just create your craft,

but to actually turn it into a business.

And that's something that's so many people,

thousands, tens of thousands of people want to do.

So if you figured out how to do something unique and

you can basically teach other people how to do that,

then there's a way for you to diversify your revenue stream

and be able to make money,

not just from the physical product that you're selling,

but from teaching people to do what you've done.

Such huge opportunity.

I completely agree with you,

but I do know that there are a couple of Jackson's

that would come up and one would be,

it's been done before.

People have shown how to start at T sites before or

show how to exhibit when set up your craft show booth.

So since it's already been done before,

I can't do that.

Every single thing that I can think of for myself has

already been done.

Well. It hasn't almost every kind of jewelry been done.

Every kind of jam been done,

every kind of candle been done,

every kind of soap and done.

When you really think about it,

it's the same thing.

So what's going to make your program,

your course,

your online education,

unique, indifferent.

It's the same thing as being a maker.

You're just applying your creativity to a different context.

So what I teach my specialty of teaching people how to

create online programs,

there's a lot of other people who are doing it,

but I created a really unique methodology for creating programs that

kept people hooked on taking action and getting results and ultimately

wanting to buy from you over and over again by combining

things that someone else has not combined before.

I combined gamification,

I combined adult learning theory.

I combined good old fashioned curriculum design into this really unique

cocktail that meant I was teaching people how to create products

that have really different way than other people were.

So just like you would apply your creativity to making a

unique version of the candle or the soap or whatever it

is that you make,

you would do the same thing with online education.

So the topic and the result might be the same but

first off,

and I'll say a lot of people who would buy from

you are probably current customers so they know you and already

love you so you have a connection with them already and

then combining something so that it sounds to me Merissa it's

the experience that they would go through by taking your course

that's unique.

It can be a unique experience.

It can also be a unique way that you bring together

community. It can also be a unique methodology,

something that you do that's different.

A technique that you may have invented and there's a lot

of creative techniques that you might invent that other people don't

know how to do.

I mean my friend Ryan Laveck tells the story of,

I think it was Scrabble necklaces,

so for a while,

Scrabble necklaces,

whether you use the Scrabble tiles,

you cover them with different patterns and textures and make necklaces

out of them.

His wife was noticing this was a giant trend and they

actually found someone who had just a crappy book teaching other

people how to make Scrabble tile necklaces.

Who is making something like thousands of dollars a month,

five grand a month or something from a single PDF ebook

teaching people this one crafting technique that was just happened to

be trending at the time and they said,

well, her stuff isn't even very good.

Why don't I do the same thing and just teach people

how to do it better with videos and things like that.

So they did and they actually made some really good money

for about a year on this particular thing while this kind

of crafting was trending.

Got it.

Talk a little bit about gamification.

Yeah, so the idea behind applying gamification and a lot of

people hear gamification and think it's not relevant to me because

my product,

it's not fun or whatever it happens to be,

but it's really about applying game theory and game principles to

non-game activities.

And I've got clients who've gotten boring businesses such as financial

planning, for example,

or even businesses that are about trauma recovery that have been

able to leverage gamification and the tools that I teach,

which go way beyond gamification.

Just for the record.

It's really what I call experience escalation.

And that's one aspect of it.

Here's the thing,

if someone's going to get excited about a game or win

a game,

they've got to know what winning looks like.

So you've got to actually have a winning state,

which is what I call the mission accomplished.

So you've got to get super clear on what winning looks

like and what people are actually going to do,

be feel,

have overcome or achieve through your program.

And then you show them the path from getting to accepting

the mission to crossing the finish line of mission accomplished.

And the gamification comes in by making sure that people feel

like they're winning every single time they interact or engage with

you. So for example,

one of the things that I do,

which is a little bit unique,

is that every single time I offer any kind of training

on anything,

there's an action for someone to take,

right? Instead of doing a lot of just generic information that

gets people stuck in their head,

I'm always giving them something actionable.

So what's the action that they're going to take every single

time they engage with me.

So they might be able to check off watching a training,

but they get like double the points for taking that action.

So simply doing that and also understanding how do you structure

actions to create unstoppable momentum.

So usually I don't drop people in the deep end of

the pool with the most boring stuff or the most challenging

stuff. I ramp them up with very small,

simple actions with small rewards to larger and larger and more

complex actions and larger and larger rewards.

So for example,

when someone signs up for our experience product masterclass program,

rather than having them go in their inbox and get a

logging code and then log onto the membership site and then

try to find their way to the membership site right there

in the confirmation page before they even have to go to

their inbox.

I get them started on their very first training in that

training's like about 19 minutes long.

I call it the show me the money video.

They very quickly when,

which is they figure out their minimum,

their target and their stretch goals for how much money they

want to make from their product in the next 12 weeks

of the program and I give them formulas for how to

set the goals based on being someone brand new to business,

someone who's made some money and someone who's made a significant

amount of money before,

so instantly they already have a vision for how much money

they want to create and generate in that time period of

the program.

I think Andy,

that it's achievable to them because if you're giving them that

really small Win right in the beginning,

traction's gotten started,

right? They're moving forward.

Even if it's just the littlest step and I'd say they're

more committed already to the program.

Absolutely. They've already got momentum.

Very few programs give them that instant momentum and that was

kind of what I was talking about with some of the

other crafting examples there is building that instant momentum.

As soon as they buy that has them want to go

and start consuming the product,

or if it's online,

you get them into consumption right away.

Right, Right.

Let me get back to the objections real quick for a

second. So the first one was,

it's already been done before and I think we've taken care

of that beautifully.

The second one is,

I don't want to share with anybody how I make my

candles because I'm going to get copied.

Yeah, well the truth is you're probably gonna get copied anyway.

And the other truth is,

is that there are something like eight or 9 billion people

in the world right now,

right? And if you're selling something that's handmade,

you probably only able to sell it to your local market

or a regional market.

And so there's so many people around the world who are

never going to be able to buy your candles just because

you don't have the production capacity,

you don't have the marketing capacity on your candles.

So sharing that recipe and if you able to make an

extra, let's just say $2,000

a month,

let's just do something kind of reasonable and you made an

extra $24,000

a year and you helped other people create their candle business,

it wouldn't necessarily impact yours because you were going to have

a different way of different fairs that you're at and a

different web presence and a different way of marketing and selling

what you do,

but you have this whole other income and revenue stream coming

in. So I tend to look at things from a perspective

of abundance versus scarcity.

Oh absolutely.

Love that.

You said that.

I'm also thinking that if people start to see how intricate

some of the products are that we make,

yeah, they might get all the steps.

They might try it once and then say,

you know what?

This is not something I want to do.

I love the result.

I love the product,

but I don't want to do this.

And that further invests them into your product because they know

how hard it is to make.

So then they just come back and purchase from you anyway.

So one or the other scenarios could happen.

Absolutely. It could absolutely happen.

Yup. Such great information.

I'm going to ask you for one more tidbit.

We've been talking about how you get people to buy over

time. Can you share with us one more example of how

that happens?

We talked about the moment after they buy and what's the

next step,

but give us one more goodie.

Yeah. So I like to really think about your product is

your product does a certain thing.

Ideally, if you're thinking about it as a trip or a

journey, maybe the first product that you sell can get someone

from LA to Joshua tree,

right? And your next product might get them from Joshua tree

to Ohio.

So if you think about it as every product that you

create, it's doing something for somebody,

whether it's solving a problem or it's a delivering an experience

or it's delivering an outcome.

And once they have that,

they may have a new,

bigger problem or a new,

bigger outcome that they want.

So you can keep selling products to people when they have

an ongoing need for what you do.

So if you want to think about your products in terms

of both a,

how do you get people to engage right away so they're

going to want to buy again.

How do they know that they're winning the game?

And then also showing them that there's a next step.

Ideally you have more than one product in your line,

so you might have a bigger product down the road for

them to invest in beyond the very first product.

So sometimes when they hit the mission accomplished,

for example with the jam example,

if we go back there,

how can you show them that now there's a new bigger

opportunity. So say they bought the jam and they hit mission

accomplished and they submitted did something really,

really creative with their gym.

Now maybe the next offer is a jam of the month

club in the jam of the month club is not just

sending them the jam,

but it's sending them creative recipes for that jam every single

month. So,

for example,

one of my friends at a tea company called Zenas gypsy

tea, she sold the company and the company kind of went

downhill after it was sold.

But now she's created a brand new kind of team membership

program where she takes a transformational leader of thought leader and

she features them and she designs a specialty around them.

And so they get the tea and it's beautifully packaged and

they also get this inspirational message from this thought leader.

And so they're getting this package every month where it's combining

personal development in tea.

So instead of just doing a onetime tea purchase,

she's getting them this ongoing kind of experience where they're getting

these different kinds of teas and they're getting exposures to different

thought leaders in the field of personal development and messages from

them. And it comes with a complimentary training as well.

So she's actually fusing online education with her tea product and

it's doing super well.

This is so great because we also,

often when we're posting things and we're talking about our business,

it's so often just the focus on the product and we

all know we're not supposed to be just promoting our product

all the time.

Online promotion of your product should maybe be about 20% of

the whole and what you're talking about,

Marissa, are great examples of how you can educate them,

share experiences when you're involved in an audience,

all of these different types of messages that you can put

out, whether it's newsletters,

social media posts,

whatever it might be that still gets eyes on your product,

but in a direct way that remains valuable to your customer.

Absolutely, and by partnering with all these thought leaders they might

want to share to their audience about being the featured tea

of the month too,

right? Yeah,

for sure.

There's just a lot of different ways to think about your

product new and different,

like new contexts,

different contexts,

ways to understand that you can go beyond one off sales

and really look at the customer journey with you and what

does that look like?

Right? Because the truth is,

is that it takes a lot more work to get someone

to buy from you for the first time than it does

to get someone to buy from you for the second or

third time.

And the most successful businesses have very active repeat customer audiences.

And so if you want to kind of take your business

to the next level,

finding out a way to turn one time customers into repeat

customers is absolutely essential because it cuts down your marketing budget,

it cuts down all kinds of costs,

and allows you to focus more on just creating great product.

Absolutely. And it's so much easier to,

I mean,

if you just think of one customer coming through,

they come in the front door,

they walk out the back door,

they're gone.

And you have to keep bringing in more people from the

front door.

Why not shut that back door?

Have people stay,

you know,

some people might leave over time,

but that's another way to make your business grow.

All right,

so online courses,

and I know that you are the expert.

You teach how to do online courses.

If someone's starting to think about this,

what questions should they ask themselves to decide if it's a

right fit or where should their thought pattern go next with

this? Yeah,

I think really the question is what can you help someone

do? What problem can you solve for them?

Or what outcome can you deliver for them?

Which is something that they really want.

And so I actually teach creating what I call mission-based products,

which is products that allow people to overcome a specific problem

or get a specific result.

And I give a very specific template for doing that.

I call it the mission possible template and I actually borrowed

it from the mission impossible movies and it goes like this,

your mission should you choose to accept it is blank.

And using that template gets you out of the head of

what you want to offer and into the shoes of your

audience of what do they want to receive.

So, for example,

with our experience product master class,

your mission should you choose to accept it is to design

market and make $2,000

or a whole lot more from an experience product in 12

weeks or less.

So it's very,

very specific what someone's going to do and how they're going

to benefit.

So I recommend starting with can you create a mission that

other people will want to say yes to?

And if the answer is yes,

then you've got something.

Is there a way to test that mission before you fully

commit to it?

Absolutely. Run it by a bunch of people and see if

they're interested in it.

And maybe not all your friends because they're just going to

tell you what you want to hear.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, so I would run it by people like even at

say if you're out there at a craft fair,

run it by your buyers,

for example,

that would be a great place to start.

I call this a chatter box campaign that you actually try

to sell it before you fully make the program.

It doesn't mean you haven't thought about it,

you haven't planned it.

It just means you're testing the market to see if someone's

actually gonna pull out their wallet and want to buy before

you commit a massive amount of time and energy on the

program. And this is all part of your experience product masterclass,

correct? Yes,

it is.

okay. Do you want to talk a little bit,

you were just sharing The first part of it already,

but do you want to expand on that for everybody?

Sure thing.

So really what I do is I help you understand the

knowledge and the expertise that you have buried inside of you

from a lifetime of being in this world and doing the

things that you do.

And how do you translate that into a product that whether

it's one person engaging with,

there are a few people or a whole lot of people

that you have this other revenue stream that you're able to

sell something else.

Whether you want to apply these principles to what you're doing

already to your physical products,

or whether you want to create an online education or course

or training program around it.

Whether you want to coach and mentor people privately to become

crafters or whatever it happens to be,

there's a lot of different ways that you can leverage your

experience beyond what you're actually selling.

So that's what I teach people how to do soup to

nuts from choosing the idea and the topic all the way

to creating whatever the offer is to launching it into the

world, marketing it and making the money and then delivering on

it. And so I teach that with the emphasis on creating

a unique experience that's going to really engage your customer.

So they're going to want to keep coming back to you

and buying more and more and more.

Wonderful. And if someone who's listening here is interested,

where would they go to find more?

Yeah. Well first of all,

I created a kind of a checklist that includes all 10

core principles of experience,

escalation, or how do you get people hooked on your products?

In a good way and have them want to come back.

So the 10 principles you want to stack into your products.

If you want to create that excitement and you want to

create that experience escalation,

I call it the viral product checklist and also the 10

principles that you want to avoid.

If you don't want to send them like have your product

sit in the pantry or on the shelf or have people

ignore them,

overlook them,

give up midway through and I put that up at live,

your message.com

forward slash gift biz live your message.com

forward slash gift biz.

If you go there,

you can download that for free.

Love it.

Thank you so much for that.

I know a lot of our listeners are going to be

doing that download for sure and then that will lead into

an extend into more information from you,

correct? Absolutely,

yes. Perfect.

So such great information.

I really appreciate all that you've shared with us.

I think you've triggered some new thought patterns for some people

here and some new potential and opportunity that exists around their

product for growth of their business.

What's coming up in the future for you?

What do you see coming out like 12 months or past

that for you?

Well, my main commitment is to reinvent online education around the

world. So engagement and results become the norm and not the

exception. And so I'm motivated to grow my business to the

next level and build an eight figure company because I know

that when I have the resources and reach,

I can really help to reinvent this industry in a much

bigger way.

And my vision is,

it kind of comes out to how I started dabbling in

videos when Pokemon go came and I was watching videos of

grown adults literally double parking their cars in the street in

New York city to jump out and go chase after this

little virtual rare Pokemon that spawned spontaneously in central park.

And I'm like,

what in the world is going on?

And I just had this vision of it.

I get people that excited about their life goals and overcoming

their challenge and achieving their biggest dreams in life,

that they would double park their cars and just run through

the streets.

And that's kind of the mission that I've been on ever

since. And so I'm motivated to grow my company and so

I can help more people do that.

Whether they're just wanting to apply this to their own life

goals or help other people achieve their as,

because I think when people are on track in life and

getting what they want and fulfilling their biggest hopes and dreams

and expectations,

I think that'll change the world.

Yeah. And you know what I've heard from you that kind

of is an underlying tone throughout our whole conversation is the

goal to not just get a product out,

but to make sure that people see results,

but with it is this positive energy and element of fun.

This can be work.

I think we can agree to that,

but it can be a lot of fun in the process

too. And then on the very backend when you're seeing results,

it just wraps it all up into just this perfect experience.

Yes, for sure.

Love it.

Thank you so much.

I so appreciate your being on today sharing these golden gems

with us and the checklist.

I am going to make sure that a lot of people

come and download that because it's going to be really valuable

to them,

so thanks again.

I really appreciate your time today.

Absolutely. It was fun.

Marissa has just given us a lot of ideas for how

to accentuate the customer journey and in return insure repeat business

versus one-off sales.

I encourage you to go back and listen again with pen

and paper in hand and then take just one of these

concepts or your version,

your twist of it and incorporate it into your business.

What if even a quarter of your current business resulted in

a repeat purchase?

What would that do for your numbers?

Think about it.

Okay. Moving on.

We are right now headed into the middle of October and

the holiday season is definitely upon us.

With that comes huge potential to capture new customers.

The best way to grab attention online is with the quality

of your photography.

Taking pictures that attract attention will help you sell your product

and that is the topic up next week.

I can't wait for us to be together again then.

Bye for now.

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