Evergreen Sales vs. Launch Strategy: Which Revenue Model Works for Service-Based Businesses [Ep. 349]

Speaker A: 00:00:00

All right, today's episode is the big debate of Evergreen versus Launching. And I see this all the time. People launching the same program three times a year and they burn out. Launch energy gets them down, right?

And they say, I'm never going to launch again. And then they do it, right?

But then on the flip side, because there's always flip side, I also see people with these Evergreen offers wondering, like, why nobody is buying. Okay? And so I want to talk about what Evergreen actually means, when it works, when it doesn't, and how to decide if it's right for your business.

Okay? Because it really, truly is a strategic decision. It's not a this strategy is better or worse or it works better.

As I always say, every strategy works, but they're not all going to work. So today we're going to talk about the Evergreen strategy, the Evergreen offer strategy, and just kind of all the things good, bad and different.

Okay? So if you've been thinking about moving to Evergreen versus Launching, this one's for you. All right, let's dive in.

Okay, so let's talk first and foremost about what Evergreen is, okay? What does it actually mean? And it's not just that it's always available, right?

It's that it's a complete, like enrollment and conversion system that like works without launch urgency. Okay. And what happens is most people kind of go Evergreen and they don't build out the system to support it. Okay? So I think so.

For example, VA Focus Visionary Accelerator, which is my group program, that's an Evergreen offer. And I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to use it as an example because there is some, and I'm always transparent, honest with you guys, right?

Because there's some, there's definitely some pros and cons to it as far as switching to Evergreen. That's Evergreen. You can sign up for it whenever. It's not like you're listening to this episode and the doors are going to close.

You know, I talk about it on every episode because it's Evergreen. It's Evergreen. It's there, it's ready when you need it, right?

Then on the flip side of that, like I have usually like my pop up offers, I don't do a lot of launching, but at the end of the year, because I hate launch energy. But that's a topic for another day at the end of the year. I run that biz plan program every year, eight years in a row, right?

That's considered a launch because it only opens the date, only opens a certain time of year. And once it's over, it's over. It's not like you can get it again. Okay?

So again, but with Evergreen, you've got to have, like a system that flows and like, you've got to have a pipe. You've got to have your pipeline.

I know I talk about this all the time because again, it's like a core pillar because you have to have a pipeline that leads into these Evergreen offers. They don't just. Just sell themselves. And I think that's another thing is, like, Evergreen does not mean passive, okay?

I don't think there's anything is. I don't really think there's anything passive, truly, because all of it takes work.

And it's not like you can just create an offer and people come running to it, right? You can start to. Things can start to move more passively. But again, there's still a lot of work behind passive offers.

But again, that's a topic for another day, okay? So let's go back to Evergreen and launch. So the trade off with Evergreen is that launches, right?

Why people do it a lot of times is because it creates this, like, heavily concentrated revenue, right? You. You see people say they had a $50,000 launch, a thousand dollar launch. We had. We had an episode about that.

So go listen to that other one about like, the deceptive marketing, because there's like some real stories there about launches. But again, so people get this, like, influx of cash, right? These big launches, it creates this influx of cash. Everybody starts at the same time.

You know, there's. There's a lot of power in that.

But Evergreen, my opinion, creates a much steadier income, but only if you have the consistent traffic and the proven conversion mechanisms. Like, if you already have like a conversion process in place and that doesn't constantly rely on fomo, right?

Because part of why, and this is, is the problem, I find with Evergreen is that there is no FOMO to create, right? Because there's no deadline, right? It's always open, always available.

And a lot of people, I mean, buyer behavior, buyer psychology in general, we love a good deadline, right? Myself included, I love a good deadline. So, like, if I know the doors are closing, prices going up, right?

Like, it forces me to make a decision on something that I would perhaps waffle about. And I'm saying this as somebody who has an Evergreen offer and knows that, like, there's people out there that need deadlines, right?

So again, like, that's what I mean by, like, there's pros and cons to it, right? So without deadlines, like you have to create these urgencies inside of it, right? So it could be like a price increase.

So I just went through and did a big price increase for fba. Not just like. And I, again, not that I need to justify my price increase, I don't.

But one of the things that was important to me was keeping FEA affordable.

But what I also wanted was it to be this like all encompassing program where it was like you invested into it and you didn't need to keep investing in other professionals to make sure that you got the full like everything that you needed.

So I'm bringing the other professionals in, paid as resident experts, which is why the price changed because it's, they're coming in so it's still affordable, but now it's like you're getting these experts available to you in what would normally cost you 10 times what you're paying. Okay. Because they're coming in through me.

So anyways, so that was an urgency creator that I had put in for FVA was like, if you want in, sign up because the price is going up and it will not come back down again. All right.

There's also like, I'll run these private trainings and inside the private trainings, if somebody books a call or something of that sort, then I usually will offer some type of incentive if they say yes within a certain amount of time. Right. So you can create these urgencies. But again, you're always having to offer some type like whatever that urgency is.

You can't just create fake urgency. Right. And you don't want to constantly be discounting your offer just because it's evergreen to create urgency.

So it could be like a bonus that they get some type of bonus. It could be that, you know, they get an extra call with you.

Like for my group calls, that's a lot of times what I'll do is like, if you book this, I'll give you an extra one to one call because I don't. It doesn't include any one to one. Right. So but there's this always selling, right?

And that for some people, as much as I don't enjoy the launch energy, there's other people that don't enjoy this constant state of like selling all the time either, right.

They like having this like open cart, closed cart, knowing that like, okay, I'm going to be in a sales mode here, but after that, like then I don't have to be in selling mode. They can kind of move back into visibility or whatever.

So Evergreen though works best when you have a pretty significant audience or like consistent traffic, at least, like you're doing the things consistently, you've created enough consistency in your business where you have new people flowing into your business on a regular basis. Right. So again, in the last episode we talked about long term marketing.

So like if you've got a good long term marketing strategy that's consistently bringing top of funnel leads to you or, you know, people into your funnel, Evergreen works well. You have a proven offer with very, very clear positioning. Same like for using FBA as an example.

That's been around, the framework has been around now for gosh, like two years, three years, something. I think we're in our third year of it. Like, it's proven. There's been over a hundred people that have gone through that framework and seen it.

Like, it's proven offer. It's a proven offer. It works. It's got like a 89% retention rate on it, right? It's there. Okay.

I have automated nurture sequences, like in place, right. Like this podcast, not this episode, but the podcast continues to nurture people. My email list continues to nurture people.

I have Back Pocket Insights, which is my low ticket community, which nurtures people. Right. So like there's just, I have things in place that do the nurturing to convert. Right. To help make people.

To help, not make, to help move people through the pipeline. Okay. And, or Evergreen also really works when you just want flexibility. Right. And that ongoing enrollment. And that's honestly why I switched to it.

Because one of the things, and that was what was important to me. And again, it really depends on your strategy, your program, whatever.

But one of the things that was so important to me is like, I wanted people to be able to just. I don't, I didn't want people to have to make a decision out of fear of doors closing or something of that sort. Because I've been there.

I've been in that position where it was like, we've gotta say yes. We only have five days to make a decision or otherwise we're out another whole year.

And I've bought into programs that like, I wasn't ready to say yes to, but I did it out of that FOMO because it's like, well, I, I probably will be ready in two months, but I can't be ready in two months because the doors are closing and I'll have to wait a year. And so if I want to, if I want to do this, I gotta get in.

And like, so then you end up having to pay for Something that you're not ready to dive into. And like, I didn't want that. Right. And so that was very important to me.

And so that was a huge deciding factor for me going to Evergreen was because of that. Because I. I don't like being on the receiving end of that. And so that was a huge. But again, that's not for everybody. Okay?

Cohort and launches still work really, really well, especially if you are refining an offer, testing, positioning. I did, I think, two or three cohorts with the framework before I put it into an Evergreen offer. Because I needed that feedback. I needed the flow.

I needed people to, like, give me that honest feedback. I needed people to go through it. And I couldn't do that by just creating Evergreen. Right. I needed that live feedback in the moment.

And so I've ran multiple different cohorts with fva. I've run cohorts that were masterminds. I've run. So there's so much value in that too. And there's a lot of value in people starting at the same time.

Right. Like, there is definite value in groups of people all starting at the same time from the same place. Right.

They build the relationships, especially if it's a group format, you know, they can build together. They get to know each other versus Evergreen. People pop in different times, and so people are constantly having to get to know different people.

Again, both strategies work. There's pros and cons to both of them. All right? And cohorts also are great, or launches are great for cash injections.

I call them pop up offers, cash injection offers, back pocket offers. Right. Like, so I will oftentimes if I see a need, I will throw up. Like a cash injection type cohort offer.

It's like, hey, I'm getting ready to do this. I did one last summer that was like a six week program. Again, they're usually for me shorter, but they still really work.

Especially if you're like needing a cash injection or something of that sort. Or again, you want like those smaller audiences and you want that focused delivery and you want everybody starting and stopping at the same point.

So if, like you have a framework where everybody needs to be on week one and then and everybody needs to be on week two and everybody needs to be on week three. Like, Evergreen's not going to work for you. Right?

With the framework, with the Focus Visionary framework, it doesn't matter what step everybody is on because it's just designing. It's designed to help create a system for people. So it doesn't matter. If somebody's on step six and somebody else is coming in at step one, it.

It still works because the conversation is still the same, right? So that works, but it doesn't work if your curriculum and your framework or whatever has to go in an set order.

And you need everybody on the same page because you're teaching it in this order. So that's where I'm saying, like, Evergreen is not a fit for everybody in every offer or every framework. Okay. So you can kind of hybrid this too.

Of like it's Evergreen enrollment, but meaning Evergreen, meaning it's open all year long. It's not just like a once a year thing, but you have start dates or it's like it only opens at the first of the month.

So I've seen that done a lot too. So people aren't jumping in all month long. Everybody's starting on like the first of the month. So you can do it that way too.

That's kind of like a hybrid where it's like, okay, if somebody comes to you on the 17th, it's like, you know, hey, our next open date is the first I'm gonna get you in. You can put your deposit, whatever that is, maybe get them started, put them on a wait list, something like that. And so every month the doors open.

And so it is still Evergreen, but you're getting people starting all at the same time, so they're not just popping in at these random times. Again, depending how you've got it set up, that can work really, really well.

So you can hybrid the approach there, but also too, like, you need to keep it reality with your pipeline, your conversion rate, your leads, right? Like with Evergreen, you need to constantly have new leads coming in because you're feeding your funnel, right?

Like to get the conversions, you need new people in your funnel all the time because it's Evergreen. It's not like you just need people in your funnel for this open enrollment period. Ok, okay. So you really do need to understand your conversion rate.

You need to understand your leads, your flow, right? Like, you need to know what's working. And so like, you look at it and go, like, if you are converting at 20 to 30%, right?

You get 10 qualified leads a month. Whether that's through networking, through referrals, through whatever, through Google search, it doesn't matter.

Let's just say you're getting 10 leads a month, right? Then Evergreen, you know, and you know you've got a 20% conversion rate. Well, then you're getting two new clients a month.

Evergreen might work really well, for you, right?

Depending if you're not converting at 20% or you don't have a consistent flow of leads, Evergreen might actually, you know, it could, like, reduce your income because you don't have the Runway to build up your leads. Okay, so again, so this. The strategy works either way. That's what I always say. But you've got to do what works for you.

And you might not know that, right? You don't, Might not. You may want to try it and see there's no harm in trying it. You can always go back to launching it.

You can always go back to cohort base. It's not that you can book a strategy call again. It's something that we can talk about.

Because I can ask some deeper questions personally of, like, what's actually happening in your business. Right. But it's not really about, like, what's easier or what somebody else is doing. Right? Because it depends on your pipeline.

It depends on your conversion rate. It depends on your capacity. Again, some people, I had a client a long time ago who could not stand Evergreen.

She loved being in launch mode, like, project selling, get in start date, end date. Like, she just loved that energy, and that's what really worked for her. So again, and it. It hit her revenue goals.

So it really, truly is, like, such a personal decision. I can't honestly sit here and say that it's a.

That it works better or worse for some people or in some different, you know, capacities, depending on, you know, industry or anything like that. Like, it truly doesn't. Like, they both work really, really well. It just.

You have to decide, like, do you like having that open enrollment where people can sign up whenever? Do you know how to create urgency? Do you have a good sales process? Do you only do well selling when there is some type of deadline? Right.

Like, some people thrive in their selling when there is a deadline. Other people shut down during launch energy. Again, you've got to know, like, where your energy is.

I tend to shut down during launch energy because there's just so much pressure around it to me. And so I tend to, like, get super anxious about it, like, thinking like, oh, this launch isn't going the way I wanted.

Nobody's buying, yada, yada, right? Like, my head starts spinning, and then when I don't see evidence of something working, then I tend to, like, give up too soon.

And so launching just doesn't work for me. Where, like I've mentioned, I. I think I mention FBA on almost every podcast because to me, it's like, it's there when you're ready.

It's there when you're ready. And it's no sweat off my back. I'm mentioning it. I'm presenting it to you. I'm not trying to convince you it's the right fit.

I'm saying if you're struggling with this, this and this, go check it out. Right? Like, it's there. That works for me, Right. I know how to sell it in that way. I know how to sell it from a conversion event.

I do a lot of conversion events, and I. That works really well for me. Right? So, again, it is very personal. It's not really. That's how I feel about all strategies.

You know that if you've listened to my podcast for any length of time, it's all about data, is all about what you want. It's all about your goals, right. And what is going to work for your business. And then we create the business model around that. Okay?

So if you're kind of stuck between, like, do I go Evergreen, do I launch, do I close the doors, do I keep them open? Or maybe you've tried one and you're like, I don't know if this works. I don't know, right? Like, just book the CEO strategy call.

Let's map it out and really look and see, like, what makes sense for your business. Because again, I can't get on this podcast and even say, like, this is the best fit if. Blah, blah, blah, this is for you if.

Because there's so many variables, right?

There's so many variables, and a lot of it comes down to your personality and what is going to work for you personally from an energetic standpoint, right? That honestly is like the number one thing.

So even just starting there, if you're a little bit on the fence, I would ask yourself, like, do you do better selling when there's a deadline and you can create urgency, or do you like being able to just have these conversations where you can just tell people, like, here's what I have. Here's what it looks like. You come in when you're ready, and then you know how to work the sales process from.

With your pipeline and with your leads to know, like, how to get them to make a decision. Right? Because at the end of the day, you still need to move people making a decision, whether it's launch or Evergreen or not.

So that's the question that you really need to ask yourself. And the only person that can answer that is you. Right? Obviously, I can help you to come up with that answer by asking you some further questions.

But honestly, like, I would start there before you look at anything else. It really comes down to, like, how do you prefer to sell? Okay. Because that's what's going to make it successful or not. All right. So think about it.

You know, if you've been thinking about going to Evergreen, like, start with your. Start with self. As I always say, start with self, because that's where the answer is. Okay.

And if you need further help, book this strategy call, and I'm happy to talk about it with you. I'm happy to go through it. We can decide, like, we can really then dive a little bit deeper and look at the facts. But start with self. Okay? All right.

I love you. I believe in you, and I'll talk to you soon.