You're listening to Kiva Colda, CEO, episode 224 while we fully believe in the wisdom of ideas are cheap, execution is everything. Today's entrepreneur nails both and is sharing an innovative launch strategy that doesn't require complex webinar funnels, ads, or incentivizing affiliates with commission. Brennan McGowan is a copywriter and prelaunch strategist who generated $66,000 in core sales without a webinar or sales calls, and as the cherry on top, raised $13,000 for charity all through a Voxer summit. Yes, Voxer, our favorite communication app that functions like a modern day walkie talkie. In this episode, she discusses the structure of her audio only summit, how she monetizes this free summit to fundraise for one of her favorite organizations and grow her list fast, plus a top to bottom look at the funnel that converts people from free attendees to paying students for a four figure program. Keep listening for a unique perspective on list growth and launch success. Welcome to cubicle the CEO, the podcast. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. I quit my job without a backup plan and bootstrapped my first $300 freelance project into $2 million in revenue by age 28. On this show, you'll hear weekly case study interviews with leading entrepreneurs and ceos who share one specific strategy that successfully grew their business revenue.

Skip the expensive and time consuming learning curve of testing everything yourself by borrowing what actually works from the best and brightest mentors. You'll also get a front row seat to my founder's journey through transparent income reports and behind the business solo episodes. Subscribe now so we can grow together every Monday. Hello friends. Welcome back to the show. Today we have Brenna McGowan here with us, and Brenna actually just revealed this to me before our interview. I didn't know this, even though I've known Brenna for a couple years, that she was a bookkeeper in a past life before the business that she runs now. So I am so grateful because she was so detail oriented in running the numbers for this case study. So if you are someone like me who really likes those case studies with a lot of granular data, you're going to absolutely love today's conversation. Brenna, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Me too. I think this is a long time coming. We connected, I think back in 2021, which is actually when I first heard about your Voxer summits, and that idea has really stayed with me ever since because I think it's such a unique concept and for those who are not familiar with Voxer, Voxer is a free app. I call it like a walkie talkie for adults because basically you can have it on walkie talkie mode, where if someone's voxing you is how we say it, you can hear them through your phone as if we're a walkie talkie, but you can also turn off that mode and then just voice note back and forth like you would in Instagram, DMs or through imessage voice memos. So it's really awesome. I love using Voxer as a way to communicate since I'm a verbal processor and you can speed up people's voice memos up to four x, which I super appreciate because I listen to everybody on three x pretty much. Anyways, I thought the concept was really unique before we get into the actual case study today, though, which is how Brenna used this Voxer summit to add about $36,000 in extra sales to her most recent launch and to raise $13,000 gross for charity.

The actual contribution donated may have been a slight bit less just due to removing credit card processing fees from stripe and PayPal, but pretty darn close to 13,000. Before we get into that case study, Brennan, I would love for you to share your cubicle to CEO story. What was that final catalyst that made you take that leap from employee to entrepreneur?

Well, I say vanity is my joke, but really what happened was I was a stay at home mom, and I'm in my have a couple of past life. In my very, very past life, I was an assistant manager for a bank. I became a stay at home mom. I then went on to do some OD jobs. And what ended up happening was around that time, I had a friend who was actually starting an esthetician business and she was doing eyelashes, and I wanted fake eyelashes, but I didn't have money to pay for it. So I was like, why don't I trade you and you could do my eyelashes and I'll do your social media? And so through that, I ended up starting my own business in 2018 as a social media manager and then have made some pivots along the way.

That is so resourceful. Okay, first of all, it makes me laugh because I have had lash extensions since like, I think, 2016, and they are a must have for me. If I can't have my lash extensions, I will find some way to do it. So the fact that you got so creative to have yours is hilarious to me, and I love it. And I think this just shows how entrepreneurs are so resourceful and creative and see problems as challenges to be solved. Right. Not necessarily like a hurdle or a barrier. So love that story. I have to ask, I think before we even get into the details of the Voxer summit in this whole case study, you're a copywriter and you are amazing at what you do. Your superpower is the written word. So I want to know, why did you choose to host an audio summit versus something in a written format? More specifically, why choose Voxer as the medium?

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I'm a copywriter. I love to write. Also a launch strategist. So I think it was the strategy part of me who started to really think through, okay, how can I really get information to people in easy, bite sized little snippets, if you will? So before I get to that point is that I had the pleasure of working with our mutual friend. Marisa Corcoran was an editor in her program a couple years ago, and she just does wonderful summits. So I was able to learn the summit and the audio part of the summit from Marisa, and I knew I wanted to do something because I saw what an incredible impact doing a summit was and doing it by audio was, but I just needed to figure out how to do it in a way that didn't feel overwhelming to me. And so there's a lot of different summits out there. And what I love about the way Marisa does them is first, they're all audio. Second is that all of the money raised for the purchase of the upgraded ticket goes directly to charity. So that was really important to me to go ahead and make sure that I was doing something along those lines.

And when it came to Voxer, I've never heard of anyone doing a voxer summit before. And I was like, is this a great idea or is this crazy? Like, I really questioned myself and it wouldn't leave me because I was looking for a way, like, how can I build my email list? And if I want to do a summit but I can't do hours and hours of video interviews? It would drain the life out of me. And so what I started to think was really cool about Voxer is that it's audio. I can download these audio files. There's no editing involved because if you mess up on Voxer, you either recall that audio or you just say, no, don't use that one if you don't have the upgraded voxer. So to me, I was like, okay, this is different. Which once again scared me. It was easier for me to imagine. And it was easy for my guests, right? So when I went out to make that big ask to people, my peers and my colleagues, to be able to go and say to them, hey, you don't have to get on video. You can literally do this from anywhere.

All we're going to do is talk on boxer for ten minutes, and I'm going to use that as the quote, unquote, interview. And I don't call them interviews. I call them conversations because I want it to feel very behind the scenes. And it is super fun, too, because some of these, there's like a cat meowing in the background. Sometimes you can hear kids, and I always want the audio quality to be good, but there's something real that I don't typically have someone rerecord unless I can't hear them.

Absolutely. And I love that concept of, it's almost like you get to eavesdrop in a non creepy way.

Right?

You get to eavesdrop on conversation between friends. And I think that's really where the gold is. I think often so many of the best conversations happen behind closed doors in spaces where no one really would have privy to that information or to that conversation. But you getting to pull out those conversations that you're having with your peers, with your close friends and business, and bring them to the public's attention, I think is just such a value give. And I personally, there are so many people whose conversations I would love to be a fly on the wall for. Right. I would love to be able to tap into their brains and their conversations and get to hear what they're talking about behind the scenes. So I think that's brilliant. Before we get into the details and really zoom in on that, I kind of want to take a zoom out approach and look at the overall summit in terms of how this played into your launch. So walk us through the intention. Outside of raising funds for an organization, a nonprofit that was important to you, which I would love for you to share, by the way, and shout out what nonprofit you chose to donate the money from the vip ticket sales to.

But outside of the charitable aspect, how did you see this voxer summit playing into your launch? Did you see it as a lead in for driving sales to the launch? Like, what action were attendees supposed to take from listening in or participating in this summit?

Yeah, great question. So I'll answer the first question first, which was, I chose learning ally as the nonprofit, and it's the one that I've done every time. And learning Ally was very personal to me and my son who has learning difficulties really struggled to read. Thankfully, he's 20 now. He's doing great. But at the time, it was very hard every night for homework. He wasn't able to keep up with his class. And so I went in search for someone to help us, if you will. And what I did is I found learning ally. And so many, even special ed departments don't even know about this resource where audiobooks are read to children. Now, in the age of AI, this will probably even improve. But back when my son was struggling ten years ago, there was only something called bookshare, which was these computer generated voices that are very boring for a child to listen to. So with learning ally, what ends up happening is volunteers read books, and then children are able to get access to audiobooks, the ones that they love to read, with an actual human reading them. And it also highlights, it does so many cool things.

And what a lot of people don't realize, hopefully I remembered the stat correctly, is that one in four children are behind in reading by the time they get to fourth grade. I mean, it's a staggering number that 25% of children are not reading. And most people, like I said, aren't familiar with learning ally and having access. Because what ends up for parents like me is that they end up reading hours and hours and hours every week to their children, which is fine, but as your kids get older, they don't want you reading to them. And it takes away some of their independence when they cannot read. So, a big shout out to learning ally. I'm a huge proponent of what they do and how they help children. As for the launch, I thought of this in a few different ways. So my purpose of doing a summit, there was a few different directions, which was, first, it was going to be a list build, where I was going to be able to grow my list organically. Second, it was going to position me as an expert in the launch industry because my boxer summit is called behind the launch.

So I was very intentional, actually. Took me a while. It seems simple now, but I agonized over this because I was thinking, okay, my end goal is to get people to sign up for the prelaunch plan program. So how can I get someone to come into my world that is wanting to launch? Right? And so the simple question that I asked during the Fox or summit is like, what's one thing that happened in your last launch that boosted your results? And so every expert that I talked to, I asked them that one question. And so that was the other thing. So it was definitely a list build. It was definitely, I wanted to make a name for myself in the launch world. And I also had to think about it because my expertise is prelaunch, which is the things that happen directly before you launch. But most people aren't familiar enough, aren't even aware enough that they need a pre launch. So I had to kind of think around that point as well. But that was my process, too, was like, okay, how can I bring in industry experts, pose myself as an expert talking to these people?

How can I grow my list, grow my community? We didn't even talk like, grow my Facebook because I pushed people to my Facebook group once they join and grab their free ticket for the summit. So I was multifaceted.

Wow, I really love all of the intention that you brought into this summit. Like, every single detail, I feel like was so thoughtful. And I want to talk to you now about the actual structure of the event. And then we'll dig into the monetization strategy because you kind of already brought up all these different elements that are at play. So think of these next series of questions as kind of like a rapid fire. We're just going to run down the list of all the logistics involved in the event. So, first off, as a speaker who is asked often to be part of summits, I really like that the structure of your sessions were so short and easy for a speaker to say yes to, right? A ten minute conversation that doesn't feel like a whole lot to give. So for that, how many total speakers were involved in your voxer summit?

So the first one, not including myself, I believe there was 17 speakers on the first one. And then the second one, if my memory, I pulled all the real number numbers. I believe it was 22 people that were a part of the second one.

Amazing. And then what was the duration of the summit? So how did you partition out? How many speaker conversations were played each day during the summit?

So the second one, I had so many people that were interested in being a part of the summit, so I had more this time. By the way, I'm doing a third one. I'm going back to a little bit less because I feel like the sweet spot is like three to four a day. So I basically divided up people like how many speakers I had divided by the days. And then I also kind of grouped them together in themes. So one day the theme might have been pre launch, one day it would have been emails. And these are themes that came out naturally because I'm not asking someone to speak about a specific topic. They can talk about anything that they want, which I think is kind of the beauty is that you truly get what was the thing that really worked for them in their last launch. So that's how I figured it out.

Amazing. So three to four speakers each day, and then the total number of days is dictated by the total number of speakers and how you can fit that in, right?

Yes. So the summit goes for five days. So there was this last time, I believe there was a day or two that we had five speakers, but on average, I would say there's three to four speakers a day.

Okay, awesome. And then you mentioned earlier that these conversations were, in a sense, pre recorded. That's not exactly the right term to use for an app like Voxer, because it's not like Zoom or a podcast where you're recording per se. Right. It's a back and forth voice memo conversation. But when you asked someone, okay, tell us what was the best thing you did during your last launch that really improved the results? If they're voxing you back, did you try to give them any parameters in terms of like, hey, if you're going to answer, it needs to be under ten minutes, or if it was going to be a lengthier answer, let's say it was like a nine minute voxer. Did you ask them to break it up into chunks? So that was multiple voice memos instead of one big long one? And then whatever they actually sent you, did you ask follow up questions, or was it kind of like you prompted them with that one big question and then whatever came out of their mouth is what came out of their mouth. Let's talk about that first. And then I kind of want to talk about how you actually took that audio clip and shared it with the live attendees.

Like, the tech aspect of it. But let's start with the actual conversation structure.

Yeah, I love this question. I don't know if anyone's asked me this before. So the way it works is that we set up a time that we're going to chat. So it's a conversation in real time that you're hearing the parameters. Yes. I go and say, I'd like to keep these to ten minutes or so, not longer than 15 minutes. Once in a while, it does go over. I'm an email copywriter, and everyone talks about, like, how long should an email be? And it's like, well, it depends on what you're saying. Right. I didn't want to cut people off if it was something that was important, but we also want to keep this. I really definitely talked about keeping things concise. So that was something that I really tried to tell them ahead of time. So the way that it works most of the time is that I ask the question, then they give an answer. And then I always go back with one to two follow up questions because through what they're saying, just like our conversation here is like, oh, okay, this made me think about this. How did you handle this? So I try and really get very intentional into what the audience might be wondering about what happened.

And then I would ask them a follow up question or two. They would answer, and then we kind of wrap it up. Once in a while I might have like a quick additional question, but that's the structure of most of them. So most of them are me asking the quick question, them answering me asking a follow up question or two, then they answer, and then we wrap it up and they get to tell people where to find them. So they have an opportunity to shout out whether they want someone to follow them, grab their freebie, that sort of thing.

Got it. Okay, that is super helpful. Thank you for breaking that down. So again, for those who are not familiar with Voxer, when you're having a conversation with someone one on one in voxer, it looks, I mean, just like a DM chat really would on any other sort of social platform or if you're texting someone. So if Brennan and I were voxing, it's like, I see Brenna and then I see her voice note, I see mine, I see hers, I see mine. So if those conversations are happening in a private chat, brenna, how do you then release it, I guess to the public? Were you forwarding? Because I know Voxer has a forwarding mechanism where you can take a voice note that's in a private chat and forward it into a different group chat or a public. Like, where were the attendees actually listening? Did you create a private broadcast channel in Foxer or did you add everybody to a group foxer chat?

So what I do is I take the audios and I forward them to my wonderful assistant Rebecca. Rebecca downloads them all and then she puts them together into one single audio file. And then we take that audio file, and in the past couple of times we have put it onto a web browser where people can listen for behind a launch 3.0 that's happening in February. We're switching to a private podcast just for ease of listening. So the conversations that people are hearing, they're not actually listening to over Voxer, they're listening through in the past the web page or in the future. A private podcast.

Oh, I see. Okay. Thank you for making that distinction because this entire time I definitely thought that the attendees were actually listening in the Voxer app. So that makes complete sense, especially from a user standpoint. If not everyone is already a native user of Voxer, it's probably easier to access via landing page or like you said, a private podcast feed. So very helpful distinction. Thank you so much. How long did listeners have access to each day's speaker audios? Did it expire at the end of the day? How did that whole piece work?

So they have 48 hours to listen. So every 48 hours the previous days would expire. And then if they bought a vip ticket, they have lifetime access. And this I took from Marisa, which is during the weekend, there's an encore where we release everything over the weekend where people can listen to, but for most of these interviews are going out for 48 hours.

Okay, awesome. And then did you utilize any other engagement strategies for the summit participants? Meaning did you create any sort of private group for attendees to have discussions each day with one another as they were listening to these sessions? Or did you utilize any other sort of engagement channel, like a live Q A with the speakers and attendees? I'm just curious what else was involved there.

Everyone is getting emails every day about the summit, so they're getting something in their inbox. Also, I have a Facebook group that is a public Facebook group that I push everyone to, and I do that intentionally as well, because to me, I want to grow my community long term. So I didn't want to do a pop up. I wanted to bring people into my community so past that week, we would still be able to chat with each other. I do during my promo period. So I have two weeks of promotion and then one week of the event. So between the promotion and the week of the event, I also ask speakers if they would like to come on live with me and we go live in my Facebook group. The fun part about that is that we talk about during behind the launch, what is something that worked well in your last launch, and then in these live interviews, we talk about what didn't work, what's something that hasn't worked in one of your launches? And so I like the juxtaposition where they're getting great information that they can take in tactics, but also they're getting a little bit of warnings of like, okay, this is the stuff that I've tried that hasn't worked so well.

And I really love the transparency because I don't care what you've launched or what you've tried to sell, there's always something that has not gone well. So that's also a really fun time. The other thing that I do inside the Facebook group, and this I learned from Marisa as well, was I do daily contests. So that's another way that I'm trying to get people to engage, to listen. Right? So many people were just so busy. So using a little incentive to say, hey, if you listen to these and answer a question or two, and then I raffle off prizes every day.

Okay. Yes, I love any form of gamification. We do a very similar thing within our live challenges, which are not exactly summits per se, but similar concept of how do you get people to come back day after day and really participate and show up. So super cool. By the way, if you haven't yet listened to our interview with Marisa, I know Brenna has been giving lots of kudos to our mutual friend there. I will drop Marisa's episode link in the show notes for you as well. Her specific case study was all about how you can generate between 500 to 2000 new leads for your email list in a single week using a summit. So if summits are top of mind for you, after listening to Brenna's case study, I highly recommend you follow it up with Marisa's case study. So anyways, that will be below in the show notes for you. In case you haven't listened in yet, Brenna, you've already kind of alluded to some of the ways that you've monetized this summit. Let's kind of get into the details of that now. The VIP ticket we've already mentioned is a ticket that someone can optionally choose to upgrade to from their free ticket attendance to the summit.

And all of that money raised less. Any cost of credit card processing fees are donated to your charity that you told us about earlier. So what is the price, first of all, of the VIP ticket? What is included? And does a VIP ticket price change at all throughout the duration of the summit?

So I've done this twice. The first time I did $27. The price never went up. The second time I did this, it went up on the first day to $57. And for this next round, I'm going to keep it at 27. Again, I definitely noticed that not as many people bought at $57, and especially because it's going to charity. And not to mention the back end tech of having to raise the price. And all of a sudden, copy needs to be changed, buttons need to be changed. Checkout pages need to be changed. So many changes that I was just, like, going through and raising that dollar amount, it was like, no, that's not what I'm going to do next time. So next time I will just keep it at $27. I think there's something about in terms of volume, it's just an easier sale. It's a no brainer in my mind at $27, that's the way it worked.

Yeah. I can totally see, too, from, like, an administrative standpoint, especially if you're using this to raise funds for a charity, it's like, let's just keep it simple. Right. The more people that can get involved and contribute in some small way to this overall goal, I think the better. And I am curious to know, from your perspective, being a marketer, too, did you feel that people felt pulled to want to upgrade to vip because of the charitable aspect? Like, they wanted to be part of something bigger than themselves and donate to a good cause? Or did you feel like that aspect didn't really play as much of a role in why people chose to upgrade to vip versus, you know, some of.

This is subjective, but I definitely think people loved the idea behind the charity. Coincidentally, someone who actually joined the Facebook group and got this was the first round of behind the launch. She was one of the volunteers who read for learning ally, and so it was really a cool thing to rally around. Right? So many parents have children with learning difficulties, dyslexia, the knowledge around people so happy that they've heard of a resource that's never been brought up to them, unfortunately for special education. And I had an overall really good experience with my son, which is not always the case that unless you know of resources that are out there for your children, if you don't advocate for them, they're not getting them a lot of the times. So I think just having this advocacy and as a marketer and as a seller, right. More as a seller for me, because this money is going to a cause that I believe so deeply in. I had no problem selling, like, okay, ten more tickets and we're going to be at $6,000. I was able to really go all in because I didn't have that, like, oh, I have no problem selling in general, but I just felt like I could just turn up the heat and really pump up this ticket.

So I definitely think that the charity component of it made a huge difference in terms of people feeling excited about it. And if I look at it like the first time that I did, behind the launch, we almost had, like, most summits convert at like 10% in terms of sales. It was over 18% the first time, so I really saw that people were really wanting to be a part of it, and it became such a no brainer at that $27.

Yeah, I can see how people could get invested, too, because it feels like you're collectively as a group working towards a goal rather than it being an individual thing. Especially like what you said, that example of, oh, we're only ten ticket sales away from hitting this big fundraising goal. I can see how the entire group could get behind that. Be like, okay, let me text my friend who maybe didn't upgrade yet and get them to do it. And I love, too, what you said about, from the host perspective, it kind of removes all apprehension of going all out and reminding people over and over and over again to upgrade because it's for a good cause. So it just becomes, again, something outside of yourself. So I love that reminder. And really, for our listeners, I hope that you guys are feeling inspired, especially if you've wanted to use your business in some way to give back to the causes that you care about and you haven't really found the right way to do so yet. Maybe something Brennan is sharing today could spark an idea for you about how you could implement a charitable aspect into your next launch, if it makes sense for you to do so, if you feel called to do so.

I think the other thing that was really cool about the charity component of all of this, too, is, once again, if you're doing a ton of affiliate stuff. Right? Like the back end of that as well. And it also, in my opinion, helped me reach out to big names that were otherwise very scary because it wasn't like, oh, you're like putting money in my pockets? Like, okay, let's do this thing that's going to bring you a lot of attention and bring the charity a lot of attention. Yes. I mean, obviously I'm doing it for my own attention as well, but it made it even a little easier for me, I think, especially that first round before this event had any reputation to reach out to people and ask them to be a part of it.

Absolutely. I'm really glad you brought that piece up. I'm assuming when you say if you do a lot of affiliate stuff, you're saying that if you choose to go this route where you host an event like this summit to raise funds, that you can kind of remove the additional burden of having to track individual affiliate sales. Because at that point, it doesn't matter. Like, it's all going to the same pot, essentially to the charity of choice, is my understanding of what you just said correct?

Exactly.

Okay, awesome. Now, circling back real quick, brenna, to the second half of my VIP ticket question, what does the VIP ticket actually include? Like, what are the perks of upgrading to vip?

Yes, thank you for reminding me of that. So you get lifetime access if you upgrade to vip. And I kept this very simple, which was if you upgraded to vip, you also got a bonus Q a call where you could come on Zoom. And I do this the following week after the event, and be able to ask me any questions that you want. So sometimes people do where you have a lot of different bonuses, just in general. And because I help people with launching, it's just like sometimes having so many bonuses and so many perks can sometimes, in my opinion, kind of weighs things down where I wanted just to keep this very simple, very fluid, and very easy for me to be able to give to people. So that was it. They got lifetime access, and then they get a call with me the following week that they also, if they can't make it live, it's recorded and they're able to submit questions.

I actually want to piggyback off of what you just shared, Brenna, because similar to. I totally agree, by the way. I think similar to how people can experience decision fatigue if they're presented with too many offers when they're trying to buy something. I think a similar thing happens sometimes when people, to your point, are presented with way too many bonuses included, or especially if the bonuses don't really help them, necessarily accelerate the result of why they chose to attend a certain thing, or to, I guess, make it more convenient for them to achieve said transformation or said outcome. Like if it's not directly correlated to that, then a bunch of random bonuses all tied together in some ways, and I'm saying this from a consumer perspective too, can feel almost that similar fatigue where you're like, oh, I don't know if I'll have the time to go through all these, really make use of them and implement them. So therefore, is it even worth it for me to actually upgrade so I can totally see something like that coming into play? So I'm really glad you added that extra insight and encouragement to our listeners that sometimes simple is best, and simple can convert really well, as you said, yours converted at an 18% conversion from that first summit.

And I would love to know, too, as we're getting into the numbers, what was the total attendance across both of those summits? And a rough estimation is fine. Or if you want to share the average per summit, that's totally fine, too.

Yes. So the first summit, we had close to 1500 people join, and then for the second summit, it was just a hair over 1300.

Dang, that's really impressive. Okay, that is excellent registrations for an audio summit. I'm curious, you've obviously participated in other virtual summits yourself, whether as a speaker, as an attendee, or even as a host of your own. Did you notice anything from your own viewpoint in terms of the consumption rate, I guess, of this type of summit, this voxer summit versus other types of virtual summits, in terms of what you observe as the average show up rate for other types of virtual summits, did you feel like the show up rate or the consumption rate of the content for yours was higher, lower, or right, about the same as other virtual events? Right?

It's a good question. I don't have direct stats, which will be good, because next time when I'm doing the private podcast summit, I will have much more information in terms of like, okay, how many people are listening. I can tell you, though, doing it like this, the buzz was there. People were talking about it. I had people reaching out to me. I was like, shocked, like, oh, my gosh, this person even knows who I am, and they're reaching out to me. There's a lot of talk in the industry, and I think what really worked so well in the summit was a mix of a lot of specificity, a lot of momentum and buzz around this, it being short. People told me again and again that they just loved the fact that it was over voxer. So it was different, that these were very short interviews and that they knew exactly what they were coming in to get, which was okay, they're going to hear these different launch tactics, and it wasn't so overwhelming, because what they could do is they could listen to several of these because they're so short and be like, oh, okay, I'm going to actually choose this tactic, right?

Or I'm going to do this tactic. And coincidentally, as we're talking and I'm thinking about it, I have a student, a private client student who went through my program. She just wrapped up her launch. She just had a six figure launch. And one of the things that she did during her pre sale was one of the tips that she heard from someone named Belinda Weaver. Emily Reagan is the person who I'm speaking of who had a six figure launch. So these are tactics that people are putting to use. So I don't have exact numbers but my senses, with the popularity, with people coming to me and asking me to be speakers, with the ease I've been able to get speakers, that it's really worked very well.

I can totally see how it could kick start the momentum flywheel. Right? It's like one thing leads to the other leads to the other. That's really awesome. I actually had this thought pop up in real time as I was hearing you speak, so feel free to take it or leave it, but I almost feel like that could be a really cool future. Vip bonus. Brenna is bringing back some of the alumni who have attended your past boxer summits and asking them to be on a panel and share which tidbits they actually implemented in their own launches based on what they heard in the previous behind the launch summit, and then what the results of that were. So you can actually see the full circle momentum of what is being implemented and created as far as impact from these summits. So anyways, just a random thought that popped into mind.

I love that idea.

Yes, and I also wanted to ask you too, besides the revenue that was generated from the ticket sales, we mentioned at the beginning that this launch also served a greater purpose post event for your own launch, right? For your own launch of your program. And some interesting numbers that you shared with me prior to the interview is that 17 people total enrolled in your program that you launched recently. And of those 17 people, ten of those people had actually participated in the Voxer summit. So whether it was their first exposure to you or whether they had already been part of your community, but decided to go through the summit, and that was like the last step that they, I guess, engaged with before they ended up joining your program. That's a really impressive conversion, right? Like ten out of those 17 people, that's almost 60% of the people who purchased in your last launch had some sort of association with this summit. So I was curious, what was this actual offer that you were selling? Can you give us a little bit more context so our listeners can better grasp, I guess, the relation between the attendance at the summit and then the program that you were selling?

Yeah, this is great. So I sell something called the Prelaunch Plan program. So this is a program where I bring people through and show them my proprietary prelaunch process that helps them increase revenue on their launches while decreasing stress. And so my purpose here, with each behind the launch that I have done, which is the summit, my purpose is to put people into my world, to eventually show them if they would like to become a part of the prelaunch plan program. So in a perfect world, I would do summit, then I would go to prelaunch, and then I would go to launch this last summit. For example, I did it at the end of June when I didn't launch till the end of September. I am very much about playing the long game and warming people up. So I was nervous about that because I felt like, oh, that's a little bit long of a time where I would have probably like it a little bit tighter. But I actually had my largest launch ever. This launch, in terms of revenue, probably grew somewhere between 25 and 30%. So it didn't hurt me to have that little bit of a lag, if you will.

The other really cool thing about the launch that I just did was just, I was busy. It was summertime. I did behind the launch. I was tired, all of the things. And so I decided to do a couple of things that really helped my launch as well. First, I decided to put out an alumni offer. So I had gotten 17 new people, but I actually had an alumni join at one point. I had more, but it didn't work out. So that point is like, okay, thinking through, okay, can I also have an alumni offer that sells into this program for the next round that increases revenue as well? The second thing that was really great is that I did something scary, which was I didn't do a master class for my last launch. I didn't do a conversion event. And based on the research and based on my data, which is why I don't do probably as much data as you, because you're like the data queen here. But I'm really looking at my numbers and saying, okay, what's working and what's not working? How are people coming into my world? Are they buying off of a master class?

My program is between 3000 $505,000. And the data that I had collected was. No, that they are not buying directly off of a master class. But if I go back and look at behind the launch 1.0, I could see a direct correlation between the people that came through behind the launch the first time, ended up buying the first time. So this last launch of the prelaunch plan program, I did not do a master class or a conversion event. So I went from the end of June doing behind the launch, having some nurture time, going into an extended prelaunch, and then putting the offer in front of someone and was able to sell extremely well off of it. So I think that was the really cool part for me. I think sometimes as we're thinking through all of these shoulds that people talk about with launching, and that's really my whole purpose with helping with people at prelaunch, is like, how can we think of a strategy that's going to work for us, that actually is great for the people that are coming through our world? And I was so excited when I really look at the numbers and think, because no matter what, I did a voxer summit, which is easier, but summits are a ton of work, no matter what.

There is a ton of copy, there's a ton of coordination, there's a ton of tech, it's a ton of everything. And so when you can really look at the numbers and say, hey, is this working for me? By looking at these numbers and looking at them even further with you, I was like, yes, this event is very important. And it's growing my reputation in terms of how I help people. It's growing awareness of how I help people. It's giving people actual tactics that they can use, whether or not they join me later in the prelaunch plan program. And yeah, I got so excited. So did I answer your question?

Yes, absolutely. And I was going to say, I can totally see now the connection of how you're using the Voxer summit, the behind the launch summit series, right. As a way, like you said, to position yourself as the expert in the launch space so that by the time you offer them that program for them to learn your pre launch process, it's like a no brainer in terms of the connection. Like, they've already formed a really solid association between you and launches. And if they feel like they got value out of that summit, I can only imagine they would think that the value in a paid program is ten x 100 x what you provided for free in that summit. So that is so brilliant. So smart of you to do it that way, outside of promoting through the speakers. And if I can remember correctly from way back when we had our conversation, in 2021, all the speakers had to promote this event to their list or their platforms. Right? And if that is true, outside of that strategy, did you utilize any other marketing channels to bring in those 1500 or most recently 1300 registrants for this Fox or summit?

No, I don't believe so. So I used my own Instagram and Facebook group and my own list to be part of, so. But there was no other promotion outside of what me and the speakers did. And for the speakers, I didn't require them to do social media. I only required them. I required, sounds so formal. But I only asked them to send it to their list?

Yes. No, honestly, though, I think it is helpful sometimes to have clear expectations and requirements up front so that everybody is really contributing to the overall success of the event. So I can respect that. And again, just to really solidify the numbers for our listeners. So the 17 new people who joined Brenna's prelaunch program, and again, this is a high ticket program, $3500 to $5,000. That generated $66,000 gross sales for this launch, and $36,000 of that. An approximate 36,000 based on the 60% who had attended the summit prior to joining the program. That's $36,000 in added revenue from this summit, on top of all the money that was raised for charity. So this is why I wanted to bring Brenna on for this case study, because I just think it's so unique, it's so interesting, and I think it's such a great way for, again, you to think outside of the box about your next launch, like Brenna said, and if you don't want to go the traditional model of sending free leads to a webinar or masterclass and skip over that entirely like Brenna did, maybe you're using something like this as a hyper nurture event for those participants and really establishing yourself as a thought leader, the expert in a specific space, like launching for Brenna.

So loved this case study. Is there any other insight, Brenna, that we didn't cover today that you would share with someone who is thinking of using a similar structure for their next launch? Anything that you wish you had known before you had done your first one?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I'm sitting here going, there's one thing I think the other interesting thing that has happened by doing this summit, I've really grown as a person and a business person, because, like you said, even me saying like, oh, I required, I kind of shied away from it. I've definitely had to step into a new level of authority, if you will. I've had to deal with some interpersonal things that have tested me throughout this process, and I think have helped me grow as a business owner. And so I think that's been like, the little bit of the side thing that's happened is that it has really helped me step into a new version of myself and really putting myself out there, because it is a lot of visibility at once. Sometimes I have a bit of a visibility hangover after I do behind the launch, because you have to really put yourself out there. But I think the really cool thing is, and this is a lot of what I talk about, even in the prelaunch plan program, is like when you can get really specific. If you really understand your messaging, if you can really understand how you're going to help people, then it allows you the freedom to be able to step into that person.

And because I spent time really thinking through, I did not rush into this because I was very intentional about what I was about to. I consulted with people. It allowed me to create an event that is now being talked about. And it's just turned into this wonderful thing. And as much work as it is, I believe so firmly in it. So I think that's really what I want to leave people is like, this isn't just if you're going to do something like this, it's a lot of work. So get so much clarity. Really think through. Think through the entire funnel. What do I need to do to make this most impactful for my audience? And you don't want to burn everything to the ground after.

Yes. What is sustainable for you, right. To show up as your best self. And I really like that you added that interpersonal development aspect to the, I guess, unintentional benefits of having gone through this process multiple times now. I'm very excited about your February summit. I'm sure some of our listeners will be tuning in and participating when that goes live. Speaking of, to wrap up our time together today, where can our listeners connect with you next?

Yes. So you can come and find me on Instagram at Brenna McGowan Co. And definitely if you have enjoyed this, you would love to be part of a community discussion around copywriting, marketing launching come find me at the behind the launch Facebook group and it's super fun in there, so thank you.

Amazing. Behind the launch Facebook group all of those links that Brennan just mentioned will be below in the show notes, so you don't even have to remember. Just scroll below, click, add yourself to the group. Make sure you follow along with everything else that Brenna has going on. Brenna, thank you so much for sharing with such transparency, for taking the time to really do the research and pull the numbers for us because you know this, it's like my love language when people show up with the data ready to go. So I so appreciate you. Thank you for being on our show today.

Thank you so much.

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