Today’s guest is Lauren Golden, founder of The Free Mama.

Lauren teaches moms how to start and run a successful freelancing business from home, and her mission is to make sure that mothers don’t have to choose between family and financial stability.

We talk about her background and journey, the importance of coaching, creating an online course, building a 7-figure business, and how Deadline Funnel helped her reduce her customer acquisition cost (CAC) from $600 to $252.

Watch the video of my interview with Lauren or read the transcript below!

Links

The Free Mama The Free Mama Movement Facebook group The Free Mama Movement webinar funnel Free Mama TV YouTube channel Deadline Funnel

Transcript

Jack: Hey, everyone, this is Jack Born. I’m the founder of Deadline Funnel, and I’m here with Lauren Golden. So great to have you here, Lauren. Thanks so much for joining the call.

Lauren: Awesome. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to tell everybody about how awesome I am. No, I’m just kidding. About how awesome you are.

Jack: Well, so I want to start with your backstory. So we first communicated through the help desk and you were talking to some of my team members. And I don’t want to make this about Deadline Funnel. I really want to focus on your business because you’re doing some great things with your online course. So let’s talk about… Talking about your background, talk about who you serve, and how you help.

Lauren: Definitely. So I teach moms, I’m an online course creator and coach, which are two things I never thought I would be, but here we are. But basically, I teach moms how to start and run a successful freelancing business from home. I’m the founder of the Free Mama and basically how I got into this whole world of virtual anything is that I’m kind of on a mission to make sure that mothers don’t have to choose between family and financial stability. And so what that looked liked for me was that I was trapped in a nine to five, we got pregnant with our first child, I always wanted to be a mother. That was a huge important thing to me, kind of going into adulthood and marriage. And we finally got pregnant and this really weird thing happened where I grew up with a stay at home mom. But all of a sudden, I was living this life as a working mom. I hadn’t really seen that exemplified in my upbringing. And so I had a lot of guilt and a lot of overwhelm. I felt like I was doing it wrong. I felt like I was supposed to be there for my kid.

Lauren: But somewhere, when I got back from maternity leave, I kind of reconciled like I’m actually a pretty ambitious and driven person and I love working, but the confines of a nine to five weren’t really working out very well for me. I hated that I had to be basically a butt warmer from nine to five, even if I was done with my work. I hated that I was making somebody else wealthier but had very little control over how much income I got and my salary every year. And so by the time my son was born two years later, who actually, the day we’re recording this is his birthday, so we’ll give my son a little shout out. But by the time Henry came along…

Jack: Happy birthday.

Lauren: … yeah, by the time he came along, my whole world kind of rocked, all of a sudden I had two tiny humans who needed me, plus a spouse who is also entrepreneurial. So he was working seven days a week, all the time trying to get his first business up off the ground. And I felt like I was failing everywhere. And so I tried a lot of different things. I tried network marketing, I tried blogging, not realizing you had to have like a business and a blog to actually make money. Basically, I went on a quest on the internet, where I googled how to make money from home. And I always joke if you’ve ever googled that, which if you’re watching this, there’s a chance you’ve actually Google that at some point. I’ve tried all of those things.

Lauren: So I tried them all. And it wasn’t until I realized that I could make money doing the same thing I was doing at my nine to five, but at home as an independent contractor or freelancer, that things started to click. And I got pretty good at it pretty fast. And so flash forward a couple of years, I had a lot of people asking me, “How did you do this?” And then I realized I could make even more money and actually leverage my time by creating something that had a bigger impact. It could help other women you know do this exact same thing that I had done and so the whole thing would amplify, my income would grow, my impact would grow, my mission would grow, my community would grow, and honestly it’s changed my entire life the last few years.

Jack: It’s fascinating listening to you because I’m listening to your story and I’m listening to it on one level, but then there’s another part of me the marketer side that’s realizing you are an amazing communicator.

Lauren: Oh, thank you.

Jack: You really know how to speak the language of your audience. And I want to talk about that. So I was on your website, I was really going through a lot of the different pages and your backstory, and I love the social proof that’s on your website. So one of the things that I pride myself on is collecting social proof and I think that yours might be the first site that even outdoes ours in terms of the quantity and the quality of the social proof. It’s just really, really impressive. But I want to touch on the terminology, The Free Mama. So you’re The Free Mama Movement. So it’s like, where did that come from? And how important has that been for your business? That terminology.

Lauren: Huge. It’s been huge for a couple of reasons. And I can talk the marketer side, but then I can also speak just honestly. So I think some of this, I don’t know how I didn’t study business, I didn’t study marketing, I was a political science major, and a theology minor. So somewhere along the way, I think I just must have been blessed with good intuition. I’m not sure, but when I first started The Free Mama, remember how I told you I had all these side gigs that we’re not making any money, The Free Mama was actually the name of the blog that I had started when I first left my job to start freelancing.

Jack: Oh, wow.

Lauren: And I thought, “Oh my gosh, this blog is going to be everything.” So there’s definitely a little bit of foreshadowing in my story. But flash forward a couple years when I realized I was going to create this course and start coaching women. My very first business coach was Liz Benny, I don’t know if you know Liz or not, but Liz Benny was my very first coach. She was going to teach me how to use the perfect webinar script and make this course and make a million dollars, that’s why I hired her. On my very first call, we sat down with her and she’s like, “Okay, so kind of tell me, who are you?” I’d never met her, “Who are you? What are you doing?” And I kind of said this free mama thing and she was like, “You are a genius.” And I’m like…

Lauren: What’s interesting is that I always say, my business started… I’m a very heart centered business owner I didn’t just get into make money I first got in to kind of save myself and my sanity and kind of living a very mediocre but unhappy unfulfilling life. And it was when I made that shift from, “Okay, this free mama thing isn’t really about me. What if this could be a thing? What if this is giving other moms hope and a roadmap from exactly what I needed?” And I think a lot of us entrepreneurs serve a former version of ourselves, right? We create the thing we wish we would have had when we got started.

Jack: Absolutely.

Lauren: But from a marketing standpoint, what I love about The Free Mama is it’s an identity that people can take on. And actually, I’ve got my shirt on. This is the shirt that all my course students get when they graduate. So this is very symbolic, they have to finish the program to get the shirt. So it’s been a really great brand, but it actually came about, if I’m being really honest, you want to hear the real truth?

Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lauren: That was like some fluff. You want the real truth? So when I first started my business, remember my whole motivation to freelance was motherhood basically, I wanted to show up differently while still making money and being driven. And I got on godaddy.com and I searched freelancing mom or something like that and it was like five grands. Like I searched all these things, and they were either taken, or they were like, 10s of thousands of dollars. And I’m like, “What is this?” And so finally I’m like, “Okay, what about mama instead of mom?” And then I’m like, “Well, it’s really about more than just freelancing, it’s a lifestyle.” So we shortened freelancing to… This was like a five minute conversation in my head. But we landed on free mama and then it became The Free Mama, because free mama was $5,000 in 2014. It was $5,000 that I did not have so we became The Free Mama for 1,199 on GoDaddy. Since then, I have trademarked and bought out my own domain.

Lauren: But that’s kind of where it started. And so it was really just this gut instinct. And I think you mentioned social proof is how you kind of started this question. And what’s interesting is when I first did my very first webinar, I had none. I didn’t have anybody, I had nothing but what I think has been my biggest asset in business, externally, is how well I know my audience. I know them because I was them, I understand them. And so this idea of becoming a free mama, that’s where it started with me, but it’s something that every person who comes into my community, it’s something that they can grab on to, and it’s something that they can aspire to be. And I think that’s part of why it’s, yeah, so [crosstalk 00:10:47].

Jack: Yeah, I think that was brilliant. And thank you so much for sharing that origin story. One of the things that I tell my team all the time is that nobody woke up this morning saying, “I hope someone has some software that’s monthly or annual.” But what they want is the freedom that comes with the automation and the ability to have higher conversions to finally have their Facebook ads be able to convert. So I’m not there to tell my story, but to point out that The Free Mama is your pain is picture of where someone wants to be. And so the course that you’re selling is the vehicle that gets them there, but you’re giving them this identity that they want to grow into.

Jack: And what I found interesting was that I was listening to some of the testimonials on your website, and there’s a lot of them. So I was listening to a few of those. And it was interesting, at least one in particular was talking about how there’s this emotional cliff when they first quit their job. And they have to go through that change process of… Financially, they’ve already made it, but emotionally that shift of, “Oh, wait a second, I just burned the boats on the shore.”

Lauren: Yeah.

Jack: Do you want to talk about that at all?

Lauren: I mean, it’s interesting. It’s was one of the hardest things for me, actually I won’t go into the entire story. But I am not a natural risk taker. I don’t think I was born entrepreneurial. I think I had a life experience that made me this way. And for me in my life, it was actually a miscarriage that I had after my second child. So we got pregnant again, I had started freelancing. So I tried the blogging and all the other ways that weren’t going to work for me and I landed on freelancing, and I started and I made a one year plan, and I actually talk about this in my book, I made a one year plan because what I’ve determined about a one year plan is that it’s close enough that you believe it might happen. Like it feels real, but it’s far enough that you’re not pooping your pants. You know what I mean? It’s kind of realistic, but you’re like, “I got some time, I got a year.” So I set a one year plan because again, not a natural risk taker.

Lauren: And during this time is when we found out we were pregnant. It’s also when we found out that we have lost the baby and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through in my life. And one week after that experience, I walked in and quit my job. And what I learned in kind of that loss and tragedy, and I think it’s something we’re kind of going through in the economy right now, where people are having to kind of take a look at what’s going on, what’s going on in our lives, what’s going on in the world, and we all have these experiences, big and small, that allow us to ask these questions. But for me what happened when I had my miscarriage is I kind of heard this voice of like, what’s your plan now? And that that question kind of evolved into what are you waiting for?

Lauren: And I really realized I was waiting for the right time. But in that moment, I realized that I create that time, I decide when the time’s right. There’s not going to be a big billboard like, “Lauren, today’s the day you should quit your job,” when I’m driving in. And so I walked in and it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. But literally, that is my origin story. That’s the story I tell on my perfect webinar. That for me, was the game changer for everything where I finally went, “I can continue to go through the motions or I can take control over my life and determine what it’s going to look like.” And it really lit a fire for me. It’s something that I have to coach women about in my community all the time. And I have to remind them, this is what you wanted. This is what you wanted. And it’s scary because it’s uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable, because it’s outside the realm of what you already know.

Jack: Yeah, believe in what you know.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah.

Jack: So let’s talk about your online course business. So a lot of our clients are online course creators, or they’re growing into being an online course creator. And so what sort of advice would you give someone who’s just starting out? So for example, you were talking about there was a day where you were first starting just like everyone does, where you don’t have any clients. And so there is no social proof. So what advice would you give someone who says I don’t have proof, I don’t have a whole bunch of people who are shouting my praises and saying what a great job I did, what would you say to them?

Lauren: Yeah, I mean, I would say a couple different… There’s the textbook answer, and then there’s what I actually did. So the textbook answer, I think is go help someone for free, is something you can do for sure. I dropped a whole lot of money I didn’t have through payment plans on a credit card to hire a coach. So cash flow for me was critical. So what I actually did, even though my goal was to create a course, what I did instead was I sold coaching. And I really resisted this, I did not hire this person to make me a coach. I didn’t want to be a business coach, my audience needed me to become a coach. So they picked me not the other. That was not a goal of mine. But my coach was basically like, “You need an influx of cash to keep paying for your software and get ads going and whatever and for your family. So you’ve got to do this. And so get on a Facebook Live, you don’t have to go create all these crazy things. We all have resources to publish and communicate and broadcast at our fingertips that are free.”

Lauren: So basically, I went live on my page for a week and I got two people to give me enough money that number one, what it did was build my confidence because I sold something on the internet. And before that moment, I didn’t know that I could do that. So there was a lot of stuff in the background, but it gave me cash flow, it gave me the ability to work with somebody in real time, rather than just going off and building something and assuming I knew all their questions, and I had all the answers, which was also really important. And then it also gave me a little bit of that social proof. Now, I wasn’t necessarily coaching exactly through the 12 week program, but that would be really smart. So that goes back to the textbook answer, sell it before you create it.

Lauren: So what I teach my students now, who are kind of in my upper tier programs, who are looking to productize whatever their service is, is I teach them to sell it as a beta first and then build it out with that first beta round of people. And what that does is again, you’re going through that same first block that I did with the coaching where, yeah, you got to get out there and you got to get loud and you got to sell it and it’s scary because maybe you’ve never done this before. But if you can even just get one person, it’s still worth your time. It’s the same as what I teach my audience in the world of freelancing is, they think they have to know everything. They have to learn every software program before they could possibly go talk to somebody about managing whatever it is the thing they want to specialize in. And I’m like, that’s ridiculous. Nobody knows everything. Google and YouTube can answer pretty much all of your questions, right? So don’t worry about knowing it all. Just have that willingness to figure it out and get started. That’s all it really takes. And then you can go figure out the answer.

Lauren: So have that willingness to show up, you’re going to suck, you have permission to go back and look at my Facebook Lives from fall of 2017. They are not good. I’m like peeing my pants. I’m so nervous. I had never done a Facebook Live in my life. But because I did that, because I went through those steps and I just did what I was being told to do from my coach, but what I’m telling you to do now, it all started to piece together. And then in December of 2017, when I made that first core sale, I had no social proof built into my webinar, all of a sudden I did. And I took a really strong vested interest, especially in those first few clients that I had those customers that had invested in my program without any social proof, because their success became my success. And so I poured into them, I showed up for them way above and beyond the capacity I could even have today because it was that important. And then I went live again with the webinar so that I can build it back in.

Jack: That’s amazing. Fantastic. So it sounds like you dealt with what a lot of people deal with even I deal with where you have imposter syndrome. There’s that fear. So did you have any tips that worked for you that got you across the last few inches to actually pull the trigger or to push the button to go live?

Lauren: Probably. Well, I always say you only have to be brave for just a second. You just have to be brave long enough to hit go, and then you’re just like, “Okay, well now I’m here.” I remember those first few Facebook Lives, they were maybe three minutes long and it felt like an hour. Now in my group, I have a private group of… well, it’s an open group, but it’s a private group of free mamas, I do a Facebook Live for an hour every single Thursday and they’re still watching. I’m like, “Do none of you have something to do right now? I don’t understand.” But those early days, three minutes felt like forever, because it’s, “What am I going to talk about? Is it going to be any good?” No, it’s not going to be good. And you’re not going to know what you’re talking about. But the good news is, if you haven’t been doing this, nobody’s paying attention to you anyway.

Lauren: So you get to suck with nobody watching and then by the time you keep going and you build off of it, you’re going to be better. So you only need to be brave for a minute is what I would say. Don’t script it out. Don’t script it out. If you need bullet points, if you need talking points and you want to kind of stay on track, just get a sticky note and bullet it out. And something that I do and it kind of works for my brand. It kind of depends on what you do. If you’re like a brain surgeon it might be different. But for me, people like that I’m real and relatable and I would say for most of you, that’s probably also true. So one tip that I do for being new on video is… I’m trying to look for a piece of paper, but I’ll use my phone.

Lauren: So something I would do is I always call out the elephant in the room. The thing that you’re nervous about right now, let’s say when you public speak, your face gets bright red, or you say, “Um” all the time or you have a giant zit on your face, but today is the day, like whatever the thing is. Or let’s say, you’re going to be reading notes and you’re paranoid like, “Well, I’m going to be reading…” I always say it first, I’m like, “Okay, today what I’m going to talk to you about is so important that I actually wrote my notes down. So if you see me looking at my phone, it’s because this is so good I don’t want to miss anything.” I always say it in the first… “Hey, guys, I didn’t brush my hair today. But here’s why, Audrey was up all night.” And then we can all move on.

Lauren: And so that to me is the biggest strategy that’s worked for me, that’s kind of my own. Nobody told me to do that. But I figured out that whatever the thing I was kind of nervous about or whatever, as long as I just said it, then we could all kind of move on to the actual point. So I don’t know. I hope that that serves somebody.

Jack: Yeah. No, that’s great advice.

Lauren: For sure. But the last thing I will say is just get out of your own way. Get out of your way. Get out of your way. Nobody expects you to be perfect. You are always going to be your own harshest critic. Don’t go back and watch your lives not right away anyway, if this is new for you, or your webinars or whatever, until you’ve kind of calmed down a little bit, and then watch it but don’t watch it to be like, “Oh, my hair looks weird,” or like, “I hate the sound of my voice.” These are things people actually tell me and I’m like, “Does you hating the sound of your voice have anything to do with you going out and impacting people or making money? No, it does not. So please stop.”

Lauren: Go watch it and watch it with an observant hat on to go, “You know what, I could do this part better next time,” make the mental note and then move on. It doesn’t serve you to beat yourself up and again, everybody sucks when they start. The last thing I’ll say just really quickly is I gave my perfect webinar live to no one seven times in a row before anyone even showed up and that was with paid traffic, seven times. But guess what, because I was paying for traffic, people were registering, which meant that I had to send them a replay afterwards, which meant that for 90 minutes, I had to sit and pretend like there was somebody watching me who needed to hear my message and keep my energy up and keep my focus.

Lauren: But again, the early ones, they sucked, even if people were on, they probably wouldn’t have converted. A lot of people would have given up. After two months of giving webinars to no one, most people I know even in my coaching communities now would have quit. I looked at it as an opportunity to work through the kinks. I would box my coach after every week that I went live and I would say, “Hey, this part felt really weird.” She’d be like, “Cool, edit it, send me that part of the video or do it again to me [inaudible 00:22:41] right now.” And I used it as an opportunity to grow and get better rather than beating myself up every week. So I think that’s another…

Jack: That’s great and kudos to you for not giving up, for being persistent. I want to mention real quick. I want to throw a tip in here. So for me, I remember gave a talk years ago, out in Nevada, and I was so nervous. I was introduced. And again, you only have to be brave for a few minutes. So stepping up on stage and then you’re in the middle of it.

Lauren: Yeah

Jack: But with the spotlights on me, I couldn’t even see anyone in the audience. I couldn’t even see how the reactions were. Well, I was given some kudos afterwards. But the real kudos came about six months later, someone came up to me at another event, and they said, “I was in the audience and I have been wanting to start a business. I hadn’t started a business until I saw your talk,” and that was a kick in the butt that I needed to start a business and look what I’m doing now. And so I always use that as motivation because I think… I don’t know how this is going to be received by this huge audience, but I know if I can just reach that one person and change their life in any sort of positive way, then that’s really what I’m here for. And for me that really helps calm my nerves.

Lauren: Yeah, it’s shifting the attention to who you’re serving rather than focusing on yourself or your flaws or what you do or don’t know.

Jack: So you mentioned a few times, your coach. So let’s talk real quick about the importance of coaching.

Lauren: Yeah, I mean mentorship for me in my business, at least this iteration of it coming into kind of this online world and be on just one-off independent contractor type stuff, it’s been absolutely critical. And it’s also been some of the scariest stuff that I’ve had to do. I am not quick with math, but I know I have spent over $100,000 on coaching in the last three years, so I invest a lot. I work with a mindset coach, I work with a business coach. I had my first live three day event last year. Actually, my very first side hustle, like pre-kids was actually wedding planning. So the event was something I was super confident about planning and putting on which I think would be overwhelming to a lot of people who haven’t because it’s a lot of small details. But I had never sold anything from stage. And the idea of doing seven webinars, hitting and winning one and then turning that evergreen, that I could do. But the idea of standing in front of a room of people staring at me, and pitching something to them really had to be paralyzed. And so I hired a mentor specifically for that.

Lauren: And so I always say, the way I look at coaches and mentors… Well, a couple of things. One is the circle of peers you get by being in those types of programs. If there is a group component to it, those relationships are so valuable, and they can be lucrative, by the way. But just knowing there are other people out there who are kind of where you’re at in business and each tier you get to you need new ones who are at that same level. There’s just a lot of camaraderie and support. But from the coaching standpoint, it’s kind of the same with… You said there’s a lot of course creators who will be watching this. So if you’re a course creator, you understand the reason we make courses that’s kind of the do it yourself, and then there’s always like done with you kind of stuff. And then there’s done for you.

Lauren: Hiring a coach to help you achieve whatever goal you have is knowing that you have someone there with you as stuff comes up. Can you go figure it out on your own? You totally can. You totally can. But to have somebody who’s going to be your cheerleader, who’s going to be able to help you when stuff comes up to help you with the mental roadblocks, to help you with the tech blocks, whatever those things are, and to be able to tap into that person’s network. I mean, it is so important. I’m probably addicted. But at this point, I cannot imagine not having a coach in my life. But I’m also to the point where I hire coaches, very specifically based on the next goal that I want to achieve. So like the event for example, like this is my goal. I want to make money selling from stage so I hired the person who I thought was the best coach at teaching people how to sell from stage. And that’s one of the things I look for, has this person done the thing I want to do?

Lauren: The other thing I look for is that personal connection. I’m probably going to be talking to this person somewhat often and I want them to be somebody I would be friends with because a lot of my coaching relationships have turned into friendships over time.

Jack: Let’s talk real quick about your funnel. And let’s think about it in terms of someone has never heard of you, but today they’ve heard of you. So how do you bring them from having never heard of you to, “Wow, this person might be someone who can actually take me from where I am to where I want to be?

Lauren: Yeah, so when I first started, I was super textbook. Russell Bronson’s perfect webinar. So I said paid traffic primarily from Facebook to a webinar opt-in funnel, where they would… In the early days, it was live, but then we turned to Evergreen and so… Well, I can give you the whole iteration. We sort of talked about this before we recorded. I used to have a countdown, a landing page that would then take to the broadcast room. And then of course, there’s a replay room that people would go to through an email sequence. But just insider tip, something we found is that everybody knows that Evergreen webinars are not live. So we actually eliminated that landing page in between. And on our opt-in page, we actually just say, “Hey, this is a free training. You’re going to get it in your email, you’re going to get it on the next page. This is how long it’s going to take.”

Lauren: We just tell them everything and then just give them the access and our conversion rate actually went from usually hovering somewhere between like 30 and 40% to almost 50% overnight and never drop back down since we did that. So that’s been awesome. So then that’s kind of the main thing is I have a 90 minute webinar that introduces people to my 12 week program. And of course, there’s a follow up email sequence and retargeting ads that go in that. That’s where we started back in 2017. Now I have a team of eight, so I have a lot of people who help me. I have a lot bigger reach than I could have on my own. And so we have a blog. Last year we started a YouTube channel, Free Mama TV and we’re on Instagram and other places. And so because of that we needed to create more ways that we could get people into our worlds by providing value upfront besides just the 90 minute training.

Lauren: And so I have a free plus shipping ebook funnel because I have a book, I have kind of a glorified ebook funnel so that I can stay a digital product. And all of those take people on this different journeys depending on where they kind of find me and they’re all appropriate to where they came from. So if somebody watches a YouTube video, I’m going to send them to a freebie opt-in funnel that’s going to be applicable to whatever that video was about. It’s going to be kind of the next step from that video. So they’ll go through my world but everything gets pushed up to my 12 week course. So eventually everything no matter where they come in, on a blog, on a podcast, reading my book, maybe they find my book on Amazon, the goal is always to ascend them to that same place in my value ladder, which is going to be my signature 12 week program. And now my value ladder is extended up, but we pull those clients from people who have gone through my 12 week program.

Jack: Sorry, my daughter’s decided that this would be a good time to send a print job to the printer.

Lauren: Is it coloring page?

Jack: Yeah. They’re at home doing their schoolwork.

Lauren: That’s awesome.

Jack: So let me ask you this. So let’s talk about your journey that brought you into my world. So what was going on in your business that led you to our doorstep? And kind of walk us through some of the challenges that maybe you were trying to overcome.

Lauren: Absolutely. So the challenge that I was trying to overcome on a broad sense is improving my marketing stamina. So about a year into my business, 18 months, I was right under that million dollar mark in core sales in my business. Been doing the same thing for a while, having the same coaching calls with new people as they’re always coming in. It started to get a little bored if I’m being honest. Being bored as an entrepreneur is horrible because you tend to create a mess for yourself. And that’s exactly what I did. I started creating products because I was bored, not necessarily because people in my community were asking for them.

Lauren: Now, some of them have been eliminated since then. But basically, what I realized is kind of this idea of as entrepreneurs, we have to number one have stamina, meaning we have to get creative, we can’t do something and it works and think it’s going to work until the end of time, whether that’s a Facebook ad, or a message or a landing page, or even a webinar, honestly. I mean, mine is two and a half years old, but I think we have to be willing to adapt and change as certain things change around us. And so that was one thing I was finding. On the other side of that is fatigue. SS we’ve got stamina that we have to have as an entrepreneur, but fatigue is something that our audiences can experience. Well, we can experience too, but our audiences can experience and so for me, that’s what was happening. I was not hitting Facebook ads and new traffic, paid traffic sources from different angles. I was kind of just beating a dead horse doing the same thing over and over again.

Lauren: So what originally brought me into your world was that my cost per purchase had gotten so high that on my main offer, I was almost to a point where I was breaking even. Now I have other things, I have continuity built in behind that. I mean, my business was still profitable, but not as profitable as it had once been. And so we had done a lot of different things on… I kind of think about online courses and funnels and all that as different levers. I felt like I had pulled all the different levers that I could pull. Like we had optimized the landing page, as high as it had ever been, sales page, ads were new, everything. We had tried to redo my webinar, but no webinar I could do was converting higher than the original one. And the last thing that I knew was lacking was this idea behind real scarcity and urgency. And because of my audience, it’s something that I’ve always really struggled with.

Lauren: I’m working with moms, I’m working with women, some of them are staying at home, some of them are at jobs, but they’re all to a level emotionally desperate, they are desperate to be there with their kids. And so I always had this big issue of like, I can’t say something that’s not really true just because it’s a good marketing tactic. That doesn’t feel good to me. But I finally got to the point where I realized the one lever I hadn’t messed with in my business was tightening that purchase window. It was so big that sometimes Facebook couldn’t even track how long I bought somebody until the time they bought because it was just kind of this open ended evergreen thing.

Lauren: And so I’d heard of you guys from here. So again, if there’s anything you learned from those don’t wait years… But it wasn’t until I was in enough pain, which you want to talk about a consumer, right? Like, the hottest lead is the one that’s in pain. And so I came to you guys and I was basically like, “It is time,” but it has to feel good. It can’t just be BS. And so how can we do this? And what’s interesting is that following the perfect webinar and my coach Liz Benny, my webinar already said that it was a $1997 offer, but the webinar special was like $997. But our order page had always only said $997 because we didn’t have a way to actually make what I had said a reality through automation. And that’s what I’ve been able to accomplish through you guys. And I can’t even say that I did it because I straight up went for the upsell and I’m like, “You guys just do it. Just do everything. I don’t need to learn anything new. I understand what I understand about my business.”

Lauren: But this is my intention, this is what needs to happen and it has to be authentic. And what’s really cool is that… Well, what’s cool is the results and I’m sure you’ll ask me about that. But what’s cool is that it had the intention that I wanted. It added that scarcity and that urgency of no this offer actually will go away and now traffic does get rerouted to a new order page we created and it happens seamlessly through my email campaigns, through my funnels. But also, because of other technology and coding and things, we have the ability on that second order page to go in and add a coupon code. So if there is somebody who’s contacting us and reaching out and they missed it by like, an hour, and they’re in tears because they sold something to buy my course… And these are real stories. This happens in my world, and probably yours, too.

Lauren: We just give them a coupon code, and then they still get that original rate from that new order page. We don’t have to do anything it’s so easy, but it all… It was done in a way where I was using smart marketing strategies, but I was implementing them in a way that felt really authentic. And that’s why I came to you and that’s what we’ve been able to achieve.

Jack: Oh, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that story.

Lauren: Yeah.

Jack: So just real quick, how did you find the experience of working with the team? Were they able to rollout the red carpet for you?

Lauren: Definitely. So all of our conversations were primarily through email, but what I really appreciated was that a lot of the emails from your team would include videos. So I would get a brief walkthrough of like, this is what we’ve done. This is what it looks like this is how you can access stuff. Because I’m tech savvy, I mean when I launched my course… Now I have a team, but when I built it, I mean I ran my traffic, I built my funnels, I did everything all by myself and so I can understand that I’m just at a place right now where I don’t want to. But it was nice to have the videos so I could share them with my funnel designer, whoever I needed to I can refer back to them and also just to really know that you guys had thought about it and done it and it was done right and it was done well.

Lauren: And I think the above and beyond for me was making sure it matched my branding. That wasn’t really something I even had thought of or considered as being important although it might have been if it wasn’t done, but because you just went ahead and did it and everything matched and looked good in the emails and on the funnels, for me it was something that I definitely noticed. I was like, “Wow, okay, they didn’t just come in and do like the tech stuff, but they actually paid attention to what the user experience is going to feel like as well.”

Jack: Awesome. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to share that feedback with my team. So you mentioned the results, what are you able to share about how-

Lauren: Yeah. So I didn’t know how savvy I had to sound on this interview so I’m like, “I better get a stat or two.” So this is not pulling from Google Analytics or anything like that. This is like the quickest snapshot that I could pull up in my world where I function with the data. So the month before we started using Deadline Funnel, my cost per purchase on a $997 course was $612 on Facebook. So we kind of got it set up in the middle of the month. So I took it the month after so I could get a full 30 days and compare, my cost per purchase drop down to $252.

Jack: Wow.

Lauren: Yeah, that is like huge.

Jack: That’s a big difference.

Lauren: And that’s on the same… that’s without any other time. So that’s like comparing the exact same Facebook ad campaign, nothing else in the funnel change, no other split test nothing that is just like a side by side of using Deadline Funnel. And I think that’s why you asked me to do this interview. I think I emailed you guys and I’m like, “This is awesome. It works.” It’s really, really cool. It’s super cool.

Jack: Well, it’s so fantastic to see… This is what I live for, is to see happy entrepreneurs. Because yeah, this is just like you were talking about earlier, you and I, and I think all heart centered entrepreneurs really try to think about where we were years ago. We’re all almost kind of a coach to that person. So yeah, it’s fantastic to hear that result and to hear that you’re now able to reach more people or it’s additional profit for you to reinvest in hiring additional folks to help you spread the word maybe it’s another social media marketer who’s going to be on your team or whoever that extra team member is, your team is growing, your business is growing. And that’s fantastic. So it’s so great to hear. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Lauren: Yeah, thank you.

Jack: So I think we’re at the end. I know you have to go you’ve got a birthday party to get to. So any final thoughts? Maybe a bit of inspiration for anyone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

Lauren: Oh my goodness, just don’t be afraid to invest in your business and in yourself, I think is kind of something that would tie all this together. I started on my own I started with a credit card that was massively in debt from hiring my coach and all of that. I think if you believe in yourself, and you believe in your product, and again, I kind of said this earlier. I think a lot of my success came from knowing my audience so well and knowing there was an audience for what I had, and then everything else in between was just connecting the dots. So don’t be afraid to invest in yourself to take it to the next level, whether it’s a coach or a software or a team member.

Lauren: The first sale that I made, I actually hired a copywriter because I knew that if someone who was good at writing, could redo all of my stuff that I would get an immediate return on investment. And so just go for it. Again, it’s kind of like that first Facebook Live, just have a moment of brave and go for it and invest in yourself. And I wish you luck. I think you’re going to do awesome.

Jack: Thank you so much. So this has been just a great call. Great way to start my day. I’m in Australia. So I know this is the end of your day. But anyways, I just want to thank you so much for the time. And thanks so much for being such a great client and for sharing your wisdom and your inspiration with my audience. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren: Absolutely. Thank you for [crosstalk 00:40:44].

Jack: Oh, wait, wait. Before we go, I want to make sure that anyone who… I think someone would be able to figure this out, but let’s just make it super clear. Where can someone go and find out about you?

Lauren: Yeah, the best place to hang out with me is inside my Facebook group. So if you go over to Facebook and search The Free Mama Movement, you can come hang out with us. Even if you’re a dude just make sure you say you know me or you’re probably not going to get let in. Be like, “I know Lauren,” and we’ll let you come hang out with us. If you want to hack my funnel you can check out thefreemamamovement.com. And if you want to learn about freelancing or business or how I do things, Free Mama TV on YouTube is where I do all my good stuff.

Jack: Fantastic. Well, this has been an inspiration. So it’s great to get this jolt of energy and I can’t wait to share this with my audience. So thank you very much for your time.

Lauren: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Jack: Okay, take care.

Lauren: Awesome. Bye.