How can you launch a program that can earn you 6K in 4 days? Kendra Perry’s guest in this episode is Dr. Shannon Curtis, a naturopathic doctor who is passionate about helping women heal their skin. Dr. Shannon shares her experience of how email marketing that creates urgency and scarcity in an ethical way is key. Don’t worry if you flop your first launch; both Kendra and Dr. Shannon did too! What’s important is that you learn from your mistakes so your second try will have better results. Do you want more tips on making a successful launch? Tune in.
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Listen to the podcast here
How Shannon Made 6K In 4-Days
How are you doing? How are you feeling? Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to hang out with me. I am extra pumped about the episode because I’m hanging out with a Group Program Academy student, Dr. Shannon Curtis. GPA is my self-study course that teaches you how to turn your one-on-one services into a profitable group coaching program and launch it so you can fill it up with ideal clients and create more freedom, income and impact in your business.
Shannon came into my GPA course in summer 2021 with our first relaunch. She launched her program on Black Friday of 2021. She was able to pre-sell ten spots into her program, which generated $6,000 for her business, which is more money than she had ever made at one time. We’re going to chat with Shannon about the ups and downs of her launch process because it’s not all unicorns and roses.
We’re going to talk about how she was able to enroll ten ideal clients into her brand new program. Here is a little bit more about Shannon. Dr. Shannon Curtis is a naturopathic doctor who helps women clear their skin naturally without medications or harsh topicals so they can feel confident in their bare skin. After stopping the birth control pill, she experienced years of cystic acne but was finally able to heal with holistic medicine.
She has gathered her years of knowledge and clinical experience into her Naturally Radiant Skin Program, a truly holistic and transformative group coaching experience. You can learn more about her on her website, WildRootsAlchemy.com and find her on Instagram at @Dr.ShannonCurtis. If you’re interested in doing what Shannon has done, I invite you onto my free on-demand training, How to Turn Your 1:1 Services into a Profitable Group Coaching Program. You can access that training at KendraPerry.net/launchmygroup. Let’s do this and hop on the call with Shannon.
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Shannon, welcome to the show.
Kendra, I’m so glad to be here.
Thank you so much for being here with me. Before we dive into it, I want to hear all about your group program and all that stuff that we talked about. I would first love you to tell the readers how did you become a health coach. How did you start specifically to get into the niche that you’re in? Tell us everything.
I’m Shannon. I’m a naturopathic doctor. I help women clear their skin naturally without medications or harsh topicals and finally feel confident in the skin that they’re in. My journey started many years ago when I got off the birth control pill. It was three months after stopping it. I had no idea. I woke up with a face full of acne. No one told me this could be a thing that could happen. I had no idea what to do about it. I worked my way. This was right before I went to naturopathic school and started getting into natural medicine.
I started working on healing myself and how do I clear my skin and the struggles that happened after the birth control pill that I had no idea existed. It took me about four years to clear my skin and discover what was going on, what these imbalances were and how to heal from within. I know so many women go through the same process. Many women get off the pill and don’t know what’s going on when all of a sudden they develop these symptoms like acne. They need support too.
My goal is to bring support to these women who are dealing with post-pill symptoms, specifically acne or who have acne from other causes too. There are a lot of different things that go into it. With that being said, my journey to naturopathic medicine got started when I was going through my acne-healing journey. I’m so grateful for all I’ve learned and all that I’m able to share with people because of my education and also my experience with acne.
This speaks to me because acne is what got me into health. I got acne from taking birth control. I took this birth control. Within a couple of weeks, I broke out in cystic acne that I had never had before, just on the left side of my face, weirdly enough. The right side was perfectly clear. The left side was messed up. Even to this day, my left side is way more acne-prone than my right side. Even though my skin has significantly cleared, I still get some breakouts but it’s always on this left side. I’m always like, “That is so weird.”
Mine was always my right. There’s always a side. I hear that all the time.
We have very similar stories. Your niche is so important because people are aware of acne in teenagers but when we start talking about adult people and adult women, there’s not a lot of help. It can be debilitating and destroy people’s confidence.
That’s the big thing. It’s not knowing, “What do I do with this? It’s right here on my face.” It’s not like diarrhea where I can be like, “I don’t want to tell them when I have diarrhea.” Everyone knows when you have acne. It’s a confidence plummeter. That’s for sure. Part of the healing comes from getting the confidence back despite the acne.
I would love to know. When you came into Group Program Academy, how were you running your business? What were you selling? What did you want to shift or create? Tell me exactly where you were at in your business.
I started my online business right at the start of 2020 when things hit the fan. I was like, “Now is a good time as any to start an online business.” I started my Instagram account. I wasn’t quite sure of my niche. That took me over a year to get solid in my niche. You were a big help with that. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I knew my story. I knew I loved helping women. I knew that hormones were a thing for me. I started sharing about that, offering one-on-one consults at the end of 2020 and scattering here and there. I’ve seen clients in one-off visits. Now I know I wouldn’t do that again.
There are one-off visits of trying to find clients here and there through Instagram. After doing that for about six months. I was like, “I need to do something that’s going to generate more income. I don’t know what this is. It feels like a course to me.” I started getting this inkling of, “Maybe I should build a program. I know a lot about acne. Let’s build an acne healing program.” I started putting all the puzzle pieces together and I was getting so stuck on it and not moving forward with it.
Something was holding me back until I got that email from you that was like, “Are you thinking of doing a course” I was like, “I am thinking of doing a course.” You’re like, “Don’t think about that yet. Have you done a group program?” When you brought that up, that’s when I got down this whole rabbit hole of the journey of launching a group program. I haven’t done a course. I switched from doing one-on-one consults to doing a group program and a course in the future at some point. You were big on helping you shift that thinking.
I remember you told me that you had already built out the start of your course and slides. You were like, “This is what I’m going to do.” Was that true?
I had the slides ready to go and the materials. I had already been using some of this stuff in my one-on-one consults. There was this something holding me back. It didn’t feel quite right. Not feeling quite right was the universe saying, “Maybe think of doing this in a different way that will be more successful.” I’m so glad I did that because my content has shifted quite dramatically from what it was or what I was originally going to put out there as a course based on feedback that I’ve received from my clients, what has worked and what hasn’t worked. I’m grateful that I didn’t do the course from the get-go.
What was it about the group program versus the course that appealed to more? Why did that feel like, “This is the thing,” versus the online course?
The big thing that you mentioned was that you’re going to get feedback from working with people in a group setting and see if it works and offers this transformation. That was my biggest a-ha like, “I’m getting transformation on a one-on-one level but I don’t know if this material that I’m putting out there is going to get what I’m looking for in the long run.” I love working with people one-on-one. I’ve always loved teaching, so the idea of being in a group setting was like, “That sounds nice too.” You still get that person-to-person interaction but you get to reach more people than being one-on-one. Those were a couple of the big takeaways for me and why I decided to go with that group program.
You’re like, “There’s no course. I’m going to go for the group program.” You invested in Group Program Academy. Walk me through your experience of going through that course and planning for that first group program beta launch.
Once I started doing your course, everything happened so quickly. It was so fast. It was exactly what I needed. That was the juicy part about it. I started your program. It was the summer of 2021. It was July or something like that. I had been having this course outline in my head since December of 2020. I had been sitting on it until June or July, when I started your GPA program. As soon as I did that, everything fell into place within four weeks. My group program was ready to go. That’s how I knew. It’s like, “This is what I should be doing instead.”
Once I started doing that, it was so fast. I worked through your program. The great thing about your program is these bite-sized tangible pieces. You can make it happen fast. I was able to sit down. You gave me the straight shooter or exactly what I needed to do. There was no fluff. It was right to the point. It helped me exponentially get on that path towards getting the group program started. I was busy for a month doing that. That was August of 2021. I was like, “I’m ready to launch.” That’s when I did my first launch.
When I created that course, what I had in mind was, “Let’s do this quickly.” It’s because what a lot of people do is what you were initially trying to do. Create the whole program, spend all this time creating it and then hope that it sells versus what we teach inside Group Program Academy. Essentially, launch with your outline. Teach it live. You don’t need much infrastructure. You don’t need to create a ton of content. You just need an outline.
You can depending on your audience size, be ready to go in four weeks. For some people who need to do some audience building, that’s what’s going to take you the amount of time. We had been connecting on Instagram. I knew you had a pretty decent audience in social media to sell to an email list. Let’s dive into that first launch. Tell me exactly what you did. Let’s then talk about the results of that first launch.
My first launch was so important for me because even though, on the surface, it looks like a complete flop, I learned so much about how to be successful the next time around. I went into the launch. Here are some of the things that I did differently the second time around. I went to the launch right out of creating in the four weeks of my program. I had been working hard for four weeks. I’m riding this high. I ended up doing a three-week launch, which looking back, was way too long for the price point of my program for what I was trying to sell. The next time I did it, I did a one-week launch, which was so much better.
Shorter is always better. Unless you’re doing sales calls, you might need a bit longer launch. I used to do ten-day launches and now it’s five days because it’s too long to be on for.
It was so long. Three weeks were draining for me. I was like, “If I feel drained, my audience feels super drained listening to me beat that term of, ‘Sign up for my program. You have three weeks to do that.'” That’s urgency right there, “You have three whole weeks. Get on it.” With that being said, the first thing that I switched was my timeline. We can talk about the Black Friday launch later. I ended up doing that prior to my program launching in January 2022. I did that in four days. That was gold. That was perfect.
My launch started with three weeks of me priming my audience, telling them they could enroll and then crickets. There’s nothing. September 21st, 2021 was the day that launch ended. No one signed up. I got zero signups for my first launch. I was pretty bummed. I was solidly expecting maybe 4 or 5 people. I had 100 people on my VIP email list. There are 100 people that had expressed interest in, “I would love to sign up for this. Give me more.” I was offering at a great price point. There were all these things that I thought made it desirable. Nobody signed up.
With that being said, it caused me to go back and look at how I was launching, shorten my launch, see how I was sequencing my emails and marketing myself on social media and reframed the way I was selling it too. I started speaking more to pain points going forward, which I didn’t so much during that first launch. The other thing was I went into those other launches much more rested and open to receiving the abundance of people coming into my space and wanting to work with me because the first time, I was throwing out vibes to the universe of, “I’m tired. I don’t want to do this but I’m doing it anyway.” Honesty was a part of it too.
I love that you speak to the energetic side of things. This is something I’m trying to talk more about with my students because it’s such a big thing. It’s the energy you put out there. People sense it. They don’t always know what they’re sensing but they’re like, “Something is off.” They may not even consciously pick that up but there’s a subconscious, “I don’t know.” It’s amazing that you have this first failed launch. It always sucks. I get it because my first launch was a total flop too. I also got no signups. I thought I was going to make $15,000. I was like, “I’m making $15,000.”
I had Post-its all around my office. I was manifesting it. There were no signups. I was stumped. I was in the fetal position on the bathroom floor. I was devastated. It’s a rite of passage. Everyone has to go through it. This is why in the course, I talk about what you do if no one signs up because it’s always a possibility. I do know people who have had amazing first launches but I know more people who have had more like this. Either they get a few people or no people. It’s a total gong show but what it gave you was data.
It gave you that data point to be like, “This is what I did and what happened. How can I improve?” To everyone who is reading, think about that because without data, you’re always just testing. Something is going to work. This will work but it may not because everyone’s audience is different. As soon as you do it, even if it doesn’t get the results that you want, it’s the data point. You have something to work from. Let’s talk about what you think you did wrong and how you improved that for the next launch, which I know was the Black Friday of 2021.
That was such a hot tip you gave me to launch on Black Friday for my first launch. To anyone reading, if you’re doing the first launch, do it during Black Friday.
I would love to run Group Program Academy in a live version and have everyone launch on Black Friday because it’s such an easy and amazing time to sell.
I was so shocked. I launched during that time and I had so many people that were vibing hard. They wanted to sign up during that time. I set a goal out into the universe. I was like, “Let’s have ten people.” I had eleven people at the Black Friday event sign up. That surpassed the goal that I put out there. I was excited about that. Here’s what I did differently from the first launch. That big one is I shortened the launch period because my price point did not warrant a super long launch.
I created urgency and scarcity in a very ethical way in my email marketing that I hadn’t done prior to that. I was using your email copy the first time but I had picked and chosen some of the ones that I wanted but this time, I went all in. I was like, “I’m doing these emails and making it my own. I’m going to go with it.” That helped. Your email copy was spot on. It was helpful. I reused pretty much the same emails for my January 2022 launch. They worked great too. Those two were key.
The other one was being consistent on social media and not surprising my audience. I let them know about a week or maybe ten days before Black Friday. I was like, “I’m going to have this Black Friday sale.” I gave them a little behind-the-scenes preview of what I was doing. They were already primed to know that I was going to be launching. That was helpful. I showed up very regularly those days. If you’re doing a short launch, it’s so much easier to show up every day consistently than if you’re doing three weeks.
Those emails that I give you are very specific. Each one has a purpose. It’s like, “This one is for this.” If you can make them your own, then they will work. I love that you’ve used essentially the same emails. One time, they didn’t work. The next time, they did. The other thing I want you to dive into a little bit is the thing about pain points because the first time, you didn’t discuss the pain points too much but in the second launch, you did. Tell me what that looked like. What were the specific pain points that you were diving into? How did that differ from the first time?
The first time, I’m not certain what I was going for in terms of pain points. I had my niche. I was like, “I’m marketing to these people and trying to help them with this.” I promoted very much the solution but I didn’t promote the pain points as much. There was part of me that was hesitant to do that because I work with acne patients. I was like, “They know their pain points. I don’t know if I want to keep opening up that wound.”
There’s a great way of doing it and saying, “I’ve been there. I know how this feels. Here’s the solution.” With that being said, the second time I launched, I focused more on, “I know you’ve spent thousands of dollars on skincare and dermatology visits. I did too. It makes you hesitant to go and spend more money on a program. My goal is for this to be the last program that you spend money on. You don’t have to go to spend money on skincare and dermatology visits because you have all the answers.”
I focused on those. I went into my stories and asked my audience what their pain points were. I thought that was brilliant that you told us to do that, “Put up a story.” I was like, “I have this little giveaway. If you answer all of these questions, I’ll enter you in this giveaway.” I got so much amazing information. I was like, “What is going on with your skin? Does it keep you from doing? How does it affect your life?” Those were the key points that I spoke to in my marketing. That was a game-changer.
I hear what you’re saying. It’s like, “I don’t want to twist the knife more. They’re already hurting.” There is a way to go about it. You don’t have to twist the knife and leave them there. I love how you were like, “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’ve been there too. Many people go through this.” They probably felt like you understood them better than anyone else. For someone like you who has struggled with the problem they have, it’s powerful because no one else gets it. If you haven’t had acne, you can’t talk about all these little things with acne. We have discussed some of these things on coaching calls and stuff. No one else gets it.
It’s the same thing for any other condition. I’ve never had rheumatoid arthritis. I’m like, “You’re you get sore. You’re swollen. Your hands don’t have good mobility.” That’s about it but someone who has had rheumatoid arthritis can go into all those little things that no one else would even think of. That intimacy piece, that understanding, connection and helping people feel seen and heard are what we’re going for with our marketing. For Black Friday, you did four days of OpenCart. Essentially, what you did too is you pre-sold it because the program didn’t start until January 2022. Were people cool with buying six weeks ahead of the start date?
They seem to be. They bought it and I sent them those Bonjoro welcome videos. They loved that because it was a great way to be like, “Thanks for this.” They email me back saying, “I’m super excited.” I was like, “It’s 6, 7 to 8 weeks away but I’m going to keep in contact with you. Expect email correspondence from me at this time.” There was this waiting period but they still heard from me occasionally. I had an email sequence set up for that to make them know, “It’s coming. Be ready.” They all were fine with that.
I do think Black Friday is this unicorn day for online marketing. All my biggest sales of the year have always been on Black Friday. People are ready to buy. They’re in that buying mindset. They know they’re going to get a deal. People are out there looking to put down their credit cards. It’s an amazing time to launch. You relaunched again in January 2022. You filled up the rest of your program in January 2022.
I did. I said it was about a week. I don’t think it was a week. It was more like five days. There’s another launch in January 2022. I got a few more people to sign up at a higher price point than the Black Friday price point. I far surpassed my goal originally, which was great. I made a decent chunk of change for my first launch. I made $6,000. That felt good for my first time doing this. I have a goal of $30,000 for my next one. I’m going to launch at the end of April 2022. I’m stoked about it. I put the numbers out there because you put it out there and it manifests in some way, somehow and some time. I did that shorter launch. It went well too. It’s similar in terms of what I did email-wise and what I did on social media. It was a good time to do it.
How has it been like running the group program and leading it in this live format? Tell us a little bit about that.
You saw the posts that I did the very first night. I had my first group call. I was so excited and nervous at the same time because I’ve taught before but I’ve never done a big program of my own and led people on this journey. I was super all sorts of feels about it. That first call went so well throughout those eight weeks. I wrapped up. It was such an amazing feeling to be able to show up with the program that I created with all these women who were there to heal, transform and wanted to learn this information.
The feedback I got from it and the community that it created was amazing. I am so grateful to have been able to do that with your help. I’m excited to do it again, even bigger and better. It was a phenomenal experience. I’m so glad I did the group program instead of doing the course first because I don’t want to miss out on these feels.
I remember that post in the Facebook group and you were like, “I was made for this. This is what I was good for.” I was like, “Yeah, girl.”
That is how I felt. It felt so good. I was like, “I feel like I’m in alignment.”
What’s coming up next is you’re going to relaunch again in April 2022. That’s coming up soon.
I’m giving myself a little bit of a break. That might be a short period but we will see how that goes. Maybe I’ll give myself more time in the future. That’s the estimated date.
Are you running a group? Do you also take one-on-one clients? You’re doing a hybrid.
I have been doing the group program. A group program is a group. No one-on-one is part of that program. Occasionally, I do open up my schedule for one-on-ones in between because some people aren’t a good fit for the group program for different reasons. If we can ascertain that to be the case, then I’ll see if we can get them scheduled for a one-on-one. My goal is to transition fully to the group eventually, maybe create some one-on-one component within a group setting and then eventually, this is the big goal, turn that group into a course that’s evergreen with seasonal launches and everything like that.
This is the perfect progression. You were a model student. I love it so much because I’m like, “It’s a one-on-one or group program.” If it feels good, go for the course and then you can get a membership there and bring all those things. There’s the amount of feedback you’re getting from your students. I’m sure even with this next round, you’re like, “This needs to be updated. I need to make this different.” I’m sure you’re getting so much amazing information.
The best part is to have this group experience so I can get that feedback like, “That was super awesome. I loved this but I would have loved this little part too. It would have made it easier for me or easier to implement.” Getting that has been so helpful. Knowing that has been helpful too because you have all this theory. You’ve seen it work one-on-one but to give it to someone and be like, “You’re on your own. Go do this,” and see them still able to have that transformation is so beautiful. I’ve been enjoying that.
Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the results that your members have been having inside the group program?
It’s an eight-week-long program. By no means do I expect them to fully clear their skin in their few weeks, although it’s possible. I’ve seen it. With that being said, the skin is the outermost organ. It usually takes the longest to heal. Your sleep, mood and poops will get better. Everything will get better before your skin gets better. That’s what I’ve been seeing. Some people are like, “My acne is healing faster. I’m not getting as many breakouts. This one area on my face completely went away.”
Other people are saying, “My acne is still here but I’ve noticed way better periods. I’m sleeping so much better. I feel so much better about my skin. I’m not picking it anymore.” All of these things are huge. You’re on the right path to clear skin. It has been so wonderful to see that because all of these changes are going to add up. My expectation or goal for them is that hopefully, by the end of 3, 4 to 6 months that they’re seeing much more significant improvement. I have an email launch sequence to follow up with them in that time to see where they’re at and what has shifted. We will go from there.
I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of this and your success. It’s amazing. I love it so much. Why don’t you tell our audience if they want to connect with you or get in touch with you where you hang out online? What is the best way to get in touch with you?
You can find me on Instagram or Facebook at @Dr.ShannonCurtis. That’s my handle. You can also check out my website at WildRootsAlchemy.com. That’s where I run through my online business and everything. I will love to connect with you on Instagram if you happen to be on there. That’s where I’m most active.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and being so open and vulnerable. This has been amazing. I do appreciate it. Thank you everyone for reading. I will see you again at the same time and same place where I will help you become wealthy AF.
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I love chatting with students like Shannon who have had so much success, especially with launching, because it honestly is mind-blowing when you make that much money at once. It feels crazy. If you’re interested in doing what Shannon did and Group Program Academy, the best place to start is my free on-demand training, How to Turn Your 1:1 Services into a Profitable Group Coaching Program. In that training, I will go through the exact process that Shannon went through to launch her group coaching program.
Plus, we’re going to talk about how to determine if your business is right for a group coaching program and if you’re ready to launch one because this is important. At the end of that training, I will go into all the details about Group Program Academy and offer you a little discount. If you want to sign up for that training, you can go to KendraPerry.net/launchmygroup. I hope to see you at the training. I will see you at the same time and same place where I will help you become wealthy AF.
Important Links
- Group Program Academy
- Naturally Radiant Skin Program
- WildRootsAlchemy.com
- @Dr.ShannonCurtis – Instagram
- KendraPerry.net/launchmygroup
- OpenCart
- Bonjoro
- @Dr.ShannonCurtis – Facebook
About Dr. Shannon Curtis
Dr. Shannon Curtis is a naturopathic doctor who helps women clear their skin naturally, without medications or harsh topicals, so they can feel confident in their bare skin. After stopping the birth control pill, she herself experienced years of cystic acne but was finally able to heal with holistic medicine. Now she’s gathered her years of knowledge and clinical experience into her Naturally Radiant Skin program, a truly holistic and transformative group coaching experience. You can learn more at her website (wildrootsalchemy.com) and find her on Instagram @dr.shannoncurtis.
