Tina Tower [00:00:00]:
It is Black Friday at the end of next month, and you may be wondering, should I run a Black Friday sale? And so I thought this would be a really helpful episode for you. Welcome to her Empire Builder show. I am Tina Tower. I am so stoked to be here with you today. Now, there's a lot of hype around Black Friday, and it can be really tempting to jump on the bandwagon. But before you go into the effort of creating a whole campaign and all of the marketing that goes there, I want to run you through some things today so that you can see whether or not it is the best use of your time, energy, money, and the right move for your business. So it's that time of year again. Black Friday.

Tina Tower [00:00:42]:
It's on the horizon everywhere you turn. Businesses are gearing up for big sales. But is running a Black Friday sale right for you? We are going to break it down. By the end of this episode, you will know whether or not you want to do a Black Friday sale, whether it aligns with your goals, and you'll have a roadmap for doing it successfully if you decide to move forward. So if you would like a copy of our Black Friday campaign cheat sheet, I want you to jump into the show notes and grab that. Or you can go to herempirebuilder.com Black Friday. All right, let's get to it. Hello and welcome to her Empire Builder show.

Tina Tower [00:01:30]:
I'm your business strategist and host, Tina Tower, and I am so happy you are here. My goal with this show is to bring you the inspirational and informative conversations with interesting humans, as well as the tools, tips, and resources to help you build your online business. Since starting my first business at 20, I have built and sold four times. And in 2018, while traveling around the world with my family for a year, I tripped and fell into this wonderful world of online courses, and I instantly, instantly fell in love. I'm a million dollar course creator, a world traveler, best selling author, a mummer of two man children, and a lucky wife. There's no playing small here. It's your time to grow to run a highly profitable business that makes you wildly wealthy while you positively impact your clients and the world around you and have the life you've always dreamed of. Let's get it.

Main Episode

Tina Tower [00:02:26]:
So every year I would see people running Black Friday sales, and I never took part. Last year was the first time I ever ran a Black Friday sale. And the reasons for that was, I'm not really into discounting. And to me, it was just too noisy and I was like, I just want to sit this one out. I don't want to be a part of all the noise and all the discounting and the sales sort of stuff in there. And so I never did it. And what we did last year was we put together, like, some evergreen products and bundled them together. So we had a product called the Ultimate Visibility bundle.

Tina Tower [00:03:03]:
And I tried a couple of different things. Like, I'm always into experimenting, so we did it so that on Black Friday, it was $97. And then every day it went up. So on Cyber Saturday, it was 197, then $2.97. And then on cyber Monday, it was $2.97. 397. 97 197 297. Then finished on 397.

Tina Tower [00:03:26]:
We sold, like, unsurprisingly, 95% of sales came in when it was at $97. And so this time, when I'm doing Black Friday, I won't miss it again, because just the revenue that we made on that one day was so incredibly worth it. And it got us so many more customers that otherwise wouldn't have actually done business with our company. And so it was a way that people could really, like, get to know us and see what we were all about and how I teach and. And decide whether they wanted to continue learning with her empire builder down the road. And so. So, for me, you know, why run a Black Friday sale? I think it is an incredible opportunity for visibility and engagement. It's a massive global event.

Tina Tower [00:04:11]:
People are actively looking for deals. So people are primed to buy. They're like, I want to buy something that is going to help me. I want to buy something that is going to be, like, well priced. I know that, you know, every year, it's when I get all of my software subscriptions as well, because if I'm on something monthly, often I will get a Black Friday deal to upgrade to the annual. So I'll look at that, too. So to me, it's really chance to attract new customers and increase that brand awareness. The other thing it does is drives quick revenue.

Tina Tower [00:04:45]:
So, you know, a well executed sale can bring a beautiful boost in revenue, which is especially valuable for us as course creators heading into the holiday season. So for a lot of people, sales can get quiet in December, January, unless you're selling a product that is, you know, designed around new year kind of thing. Otherwise it can be quiet in that time. And so this will give you a really beautiful cash injection going into that quieter holiday season in there as well. The other thing, to me, it tests new offers or bundles. So if you have new products or services this can be a really great time to test them out in the market with lower stakes. So that is what we are doing this year. We have a brand new program called AI for course creators, and that is what we will be launching with Black Friday.

Tina Tower [00:05:37]:
So it will always be an evergreen program that will stay on, but we will have a special, special super duper price for that Black Friday weekend so that we can get people in there and start using it and get their feedback before we test and change that as well. If you want to get on their list for that, too, make sure you go to the show notes and click on that. Or go to herempirebuilder.com black and you can get on the waitlist for it so that you don't miss it. So testing new offers and bundles. The other thing is to engage existing customers. So it's not just about new customers, but also when you've got your current customers that have been there but going, you know, maybe they want to try something else or maybe you've got something that you can give to them that's a massive value add. Instead of them needing to buy your courses one at a time, you can bundle them together or you might have a live thing, like whatever you've got going on in your products and services. There is an amazing offer that you could put together for Black Friday.

Tina Tower [00:06:33]:
So you can use the sale as an opportunity to reengage your current customers and increase their lifetime value with the special deals that you've got as well. So that to me, is like, why run a Black Friday sale? But I want to also talk about the downsides of a Black Friday sale because, you know, we want both sides of the coin. One, it can cheapen your brand, and this is why I avoided it for such a long time. So frequent discounts can train your audience to wait for sales, which will devalue your course and your service in the long run. So for me, the only I do two occurrences of when I discount. One is Black Friday sales, and it's only one product that we choose each year to do that with. And the second is Downsell after we close a live launch, which goes for like 48 hours. And so you can train people to wait for those discounts, but if you never know what's coming, then you kind of avoid that.

Tina Tower [00:07:31]:
But I have always been against discounting in terms of, like, your signature offer. If you've got your signature offer, like, I would never put her empire builder into a Black Friday sale because that's something that I think one, it cheapens the brand. But two, it would also massively piss off everybody that I have in my membership that is paying the normal price. So you know what that feels like. If you were paying something and say you've been a member for a year or two and you're paying $500 a month, and then a Black Friday sale comes along at two grand for the year, you'd be going, hold up, what? I'm going to leave and come back at this price? Like, you'd feel ripped off. So you don't ever want to make your customers feel that way. So either create new offers or have things that are on the periphery or bundle short courses together. I also think it's not right for every business model.

Tina Tower [00:08:21]:
So if your course is premium priced or designed for a high ticket audience, a deep discount will send the wrong message about your value. Number three, overwhelm during a busy season, so there's no getting around it. Black Friday is hectic. We're also this year, it is late November into early December, and so it is a busy time of year for people. So really you need to ask yourself, coming into that busy holiday season, do you have the capacity to run and market a sale properly without burning out? I know this was a massive consideration for me. This year. We are moving house on the 25 November, and I go to Palm Springs to run our retreat. I'm gone from the fourth to the 21 November, and so I come back on the 21st.

Tina Tower [00:09:13]:
We pack our house up. The removalists come on on the 22nd, so I fly back. I land back at the airport at 07:00 a.m. on the 21st. The removalist is coming at lunchtime on the 22nd, so I'll pack most of my office and things before I leave. My husband will pack most of my things while I'm away. And then the removalist will come. And then we've got five days.

Tina Tower [00:09:34]:
The removalist is hanging on to our things while we go into the new house, repaint it, put some carpet down, build some wardrobes, you know, like standard stuff when you move. And then four days later, all of our things will be dropped off, and then we will set up the new home. So we've got that. Then I go into my end of year planning conference at the start of December. And so I was really looking at it going, is this worth it in terms of energy? And for me, it was only worth it like, we've set it all up already, start of October. So it's nothing that I don't have the capacity to be designing things or actively running it at that time. So everything is scheduled, everything is automated so that it can run while I am, you know, cleaning bathrooms and getting things all set up in our new house. But if you're thinking, like, I'm going to start something from scratch now, there's definitely time.

Tina Tower [00:10:33]:
There's so much time there, depending on your current capacity. And so that's a really big consideration there as well. And number four is the risk of attracting price sensitive buyers. Now, black Friday sales can attract deal hunters who might not be your ideal long term customers. And so that's something, you know, we've played with this in terms of having low cost offers. And what we find is a lot of people that buy a lot of low cost offers don't progress to higher priced items. But in saying that there's a lot that also do. And so just know that sometimes you'll get bargain hunters and sometimes the bargain hunters are the most difficult customers to deal with.

Tina Tower [00:11:17]:
I have found that more premium priced products usually have better customers in there as well, in terms of people that I really love working with. And so that's a real consideration that you want to, you know, weigh up in there as well. So how to decide if a Black Friday sale is right for you? At the moment, the first thing I would look at is considering your business goals. So are you focused on increasing revenue quickly, or are you more concerned with building long term value, or is it both? I mean, I love both. I love building long term value, but also I'm not going to say no to that revenue bump that we can get there and being able to introduce a whole lot of new people into our business and coming into our products that otherwise wouldn't have given it a go. And so looking at your business goals on that and weighing up what's going to be right. So think about your audience as well. Is number two, would your ideal client respond well to a sale, or do they value premium, non discounted offers? Like, how is that going to work for you? Then assess your resources.

Tina Tower [00:12:19]:
So knowing that Black Friday is usually high volume game, it's usually a cheaper, high volume game. So getting, if you're a solopreneur, like making sure that you have the capacity to handle, you know, the influx of sales, customer service, promotion, everything that comes with a big sale, it's like a mini launch. And so if you're not a solopreneur, preparing your team for that as well, so that they're ready, especially over a weekend, of having those customer service queries coming in as well, and making sure everyone's prepared for that. Also, weigh the timing. So if you have a big launch coming soon, or if you've just closed a launch, does a Black Friday sale fit into that strategy? Or if you've got a launch coming up, will it dilute the impact of your main launch there as well? So you want to look at all of that to decide whether or not this is going to be a right thing for you. So if you decide yes, I'm going, going to go ahead and run myself a Black Friday sale. Best practices for running it. I've got six different points here for you.

Tina Tower [00:13:24]:
So one is to create a compelling offer. I mean, this is, this goes without saying, right? This is everything. Offers and messaging is two of the biggest things that I think dictate whether or not you're going to do well when you sell something. So you really want to make, like that irresistible, compelling offer. That's an easy yes for your ideal client. So it doesn't have to be an easy yes for everyone, but it has to be an easy yes for your ideal client. So you want to bundle your courses. Are you going to add bonuses? Are you going to offer a limited time service package to increase that perceived value without the deep discounts? Like what are you going to do there that's going to create a compelling offer? Number two is setting clear goals.

Tina Tower [00:14:06]:
So is your focus on gaining new leads? Is it on increasing revenue? Is it on reengaging existing clients? Like, define what success looks like for you before you start so that all of the marketing that you create can all lead to that goal. And that's something that we talk about in our Black Friday course creators campaign cheat sheet. So if you haven't got that already, the link is in the show notes or grab [email protected]. black Friday, keep it simple is, number three, don't overwhelm your audience with too many offers. I would pick one thing and one thing only or site wide, of which I would never encourage a course creator to do site wide. But, you know, some people do it. You'd have to have really, really good reasons. So what I think is to just pick one thing.

Tina Tower [00:14:57]:
Don't try and sell multiple offers or it will dilute the messaging. So the way you can keep messaging really, really clear is to focus on one, max, two irresistible deals. But I would pick one product and just stick with that one one. Number four is market early, so don't wait until Black Friday to actually get started. We have a timeline in our campaign cheat sheet that we recommend you follow. But you want to start teasing your sale well before Black Friday so that your audience isn't surprised. You want them to be ready when the cart opens. So it's the reason that I'm talking about AI for course creators today is I don't want that to come out.

Tina Tower [00:15:39]:
And everyone's overwhelmed with Black Friday sales. Everyone to know when the Black Friday sales hit. You know what? I'm going to be checking out Tina's AI for course creators training because I know it's going to be rad and I know she's going to put a great deal together and I am ready. And so you want to market early. Number five is limit your sale duration. So sometimes I will see people running Black Friday sales. Like last year, I saw some people running at all of November. Don't do that.

Tina Tower [00:16:12]:
Really, like, create the urgency by limiting your sale to a short window. So I would either do the 24 hours of Black Friday or 48 and do Black Friday and small business Saturday or like, go Friday to Monday so that you're closing on Cyber Monday. But I wouldn't do longer than that. Four days. That is plenty. And six is offer value without discounts if that is the strategy that you're going with. So if you don't want to discount your products, you can always offer value in other ways, like exclusive bonuses or extended payment plans. So say you've got a course that normally you, you just have, I don't know, maybe it's a $1000 course that you pay upfront or you've got a three pay of $400.

Tina Tower [00:16:59]:
You could offer a twelve pay or something like that. An extended payment plan that you don't normally offer. Or you could give early access to future content. So there's a lot of different things that you can consider there. All right, I want to get into alternatives to a Black Friday sale. So something that you could do is, you know, if you don't want to do a black Friday sale, you're like, you know what, I don't think I have the capacity for this. It's not for me. I don't vibe with it.

Tina Tower [00:17:23]:
There's other things that you can do. You can do a pre Black Friday offer, so, you know, if you want to beat the competition and stand out, you could do yours at the start of November instead of Black Friday itself. Me personally, I do like Black Friday weekend because that's when people are ready. Like, that's when people are primed to buy. I found that, you know, I know for me, I see sales pre Black Friday like at the start of November, and I won't buy yet because part of me thinks, I wonder if they're going to discount it even more when Black Friday hits. Or I won't spend the money because I want to see if there's a better alternative when Black Friday comes as well. So I quite like sticking to Black Friday. You can do value added promotions, so instead of slashing prices, you can offer value based promotions like vip upgrades.

Tina Tower [00:18:08]:
You could do one on one coaching calls. You could do additional resources. You could hold a free event or a webinar. You could focus on relationship building instead of selling. So you could use the season to nurture your email list and deepen connections without needing to sell if that is right for you. So my final advice is really to think about like whether a Black Friday sale is the right move and whether it fits your business model and the goals that you have at the moment. So whether you decide to run a sale or not, what matters is that it aligns with your long term goals and values. You've got to stay true to your vision no matter what anybody else is doing or saying, and serve your audience in a way that makes sense for you.

Tina Tower [00:18:51]:
So if you're ready to create your Black Friday sale or you want to explore the alternatives, it is time to start planning today. Grab our campaign cheat sheet. It will really help shortcut this process for you. So you have a nice step by step to run through to get everything ready and I can't wait to see what you sell and hopefully you can grab AI for course creators. It's going to be a very, very decent discount on our normal product and it's a brand new program that I've been working on for the last couple of months. We shared a couple of little bits of it at our hermpire builder launch training, but it's something that I know every course creator needs and wants, and so I'm really, really psyched to release it. It's been really hard to wait until Black Friday to put it out there, but it's nearly here. Have the best day.

Tina Tower [00:19:41]:
This episode was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, Her Empire Builder. The best online education for female course creators in the world. Check it out @tinatower.com. along with so many free resources to help you get building your empire and seeing those results that you deserve. If you loved this episode, please don't keep it a secret. Share it with with a friend on social media and tag me @tina_tower and give it a review. It really does help us to be able to bring you bigger and better content as we grow. Have the most beautiful day.

Tina Tower [00:20:18]:
I'm Tina Tower and I'm cheering you on all the way.