Heidi Easley finished 3rd in one of the biggest affiliate launches of the entire year. She made more than $125,000 in commissions and prizes…all with a list that was not in the niche she was promoting…how did she do it? Today she shares ALL of her secrets.
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BONUS EPISODE: Redefining the Top 1% with Trevor Blattner
How Heidi Easley Finished Top 3 in a HUGE Affiliate Promo
I had an opportunity to run one of the biggest affiliate launches of the entire year for Stu McLaren, his TRIBE launch. He teaches people how to start and grow membership sites and build that recurring revenue.
it’s literally one of the biggest affiliate launches on the calendar every year.
The most amazing thing about the launch this year was we did a multimillion-dollar launch without a single affiliate that you’ve probably ever heard of maybe one or two, but nobody at the top was somebody that you’ve probably ever heard of. None of them were in niches that were necessarily a great fit for the offer.
They were students of the course. I think of the top affiliate Sarah. Last year she made nine sales and this year she made more than 180.
Heidi, you know who we interviewed today, I believe last year has made about 50 or 60 sales this year, about 160. So of course the question is how in the heck does that happen?
Well, there are two things. Number one. What changed from year to year? Well, we started working with Stu that’s number one. I know that kind of sounds a little bit like really that’s egotistical, but no, we came in and we helped train these affiliates and show them how to do this.
We taught them what we teach inside of our membership site, for example, Affiliate Insider Monthly, but on a smaller scale, and really focused specifically on this promotion. Speaking of Affiliate Insider Monthly – AIM, what you’re going to hear today from Heidi is an interview that I did an insider profile what we call them where we interview an affiliate about their promotion. Heidi is actually our first return guest inside of AIM.
In this interview, we rarely do this, but we wanted to take one of the interviews inside of AIM. We do this every couple of years and make it public. So you guys can see what’s inside of affiliates, insider monthly. This interview was done as a video, so you could actually watch it just to be clear, but you get to hear it today.
We’re going to talk about how Heidi took the lessons she learned last year, she finished in 10th place last year, finished third this year, and then use them this year.
She’s going to share how she took a niche, a really niche audience. In her words filled the gap to make her offer attractive, how to create a long-term funnel for your audience, that is the right fit.
This is not a promotion where she just came in and started promoting right away. This was like months and months of preparation. She used a prep course to boost engagement and identify customers who want more of her content or are interested in the affiliate offer.
She also talks about how to work with other affiliates, build each other up, and increase everyone’s sales.
There’s so much good stuff in this interview. You don’t want to miss it. So make sure to listen carefully, grab a note pad and take some notes on what Heidi’s talking about, and if you like it, and I know you will, there’s so much more of this inside of Affiliate Insider Monthly.
If you want to get in on Affiliate Insider Monthly, you can do so right now for a buck. Because a single dollar, we’ll get you in for two full months, literally two months of content for 50 cents a month. So you give me a dollar I’ll let you in for two months. If you just go to Mattmcwilliams.com/aimtrial you can get in AIM for just a dollar for your first two months, which is an amazing offer. You’ll get access to Heidi’s interview plus there’s so much good stuff coming up.
We’ve got an interview with Todd and Tamara Engwall, where we talk about this couple, they have a tiny list, 700 people in the nonprofit space. They have a six-figure company right now, and they’re doing challenges to affiliate offers that are doing,$10,000 plus with a tiny tiny list.
You’ll get to hear from Michele Caruana, how a first-time affiliate is on top 25 made over $18,000 in her very first affiliate launch. You’ll get access to our backstage passes every month released a new backstage pass where we talk about how we’re doing affiliate promotions. We’re going to show you how to promote an evergreen offer in just one week.
We’re going to talk about how 10 lessons on promoting book launches and affiliates. We got so many lessons inside of Affiliate Inside Monthly, our monthly affiliate trends report the one this month, 15 ways to use affiliate marketing to monetize a podcast. I mean so much good stuff. Plus every month we do a fireside chat. So you get access to me to answer all of your affiliate marketing questions.
Just go to Mattmcwilliams.com/aimtrial checkout how to get into affiliate insider monthly for just a dollar. With that, let’s go straight to my interview with Heidi Easley.
Matt: Hey, what’s up Insiders and welcome to another insider profile. We’ve got a super special first-time-ever repeat guest here with us today, Heidi Easley. Heidi, thanks so much for being with us today.
Heidi: You’re so welcome. Thanks for having me back.
Matt: Super cool…! We had you on literally almost a year ago talking about the same promotion, but I think you finished, was it 9th place or 10th place last year?
Heidi: 10th place last year.
Matt: 10th place, which was really awesome. I was like, that’s amazing and you were like, YEAH… It was super awesome and then this year, I mean like, holy crap,
Heidi: I’m still mad about this year.
Matt: We’re going to talk about it though. We’re going to talk about it because to give you guys kind of very quick background, Heidi promoted Stu McLaren’s TRIBE course this year and finished in third place, which is amazing enough, but she was in first place for the whole thing just about up until the very end.
When I say third place, it was not a lot of times the third place is like the leader of third through 10th place. It’s so far from first and sometimes even so far from second, there’s not really like a real third place, not like the top three spots in this launch or close enough that we didn’t announce the winner for almost 24 hours after the launch ended, because it was so close.
We had to go in and do the audits and all that to see. It was so close, close enough that based on the prize money, the average sale that first place made over the third place was worth like an additional $3,000 or $4,000 a sale because the first place is a hundred thousand dollars.
Heidi: You’re rubbing salt in the wound.
Matt: What I meant was first place won by a lot and Heidi never really had a chance. So don’t feel bad. But we have to agree that it was so stinking close.
Heidi: Yeah, so close I know. I told my husband, I said, I don’t feel like it was a failure. It was more like defeat. It was that feeling of defeat.
I even told Sue, I was like, please don’t take the way I’m feeling about this as I’m grateful, because that is not what I wanted to get across, but I get so competitive and I get very excited about a leaderboard. I don’t know why, but I do.
When I was in the first place for so long, and then knowing just by, just by a few, like I was this close. I told my husband, I was like, it was for the glory. Like I wanted the glory of having a second or first place.
Matt: Yeah. It’s an intense feeling. We’ve been there before where right up to the top. I mean the first one I ever won, man, it was like five years ago, smaller launch. I think we did think it was probably like a half-million-dollar launch versus this one being north of $5 million.
But on the last day, I remember staying up until the cart closed. I was up until three in the morning Eastern trying, is there anything I can be doing to move sales right now? Because I think at that time it was like $10,000 was the first prize and 3000 was second and I’m like, well, 7,000 bucks is a lot of money to me at this time.
I did everything I could. We were tweeting people. We responding to emails, the small team at the time. It was all me. Like I did everything I could and then we won and I’m like, Yeah…it was so fun. So yeah. I mean, we did an amazing job just for the record.
We’ll make it very clear that we’re going to talk about what you did. Let’s talk a little bit just quick background. If anybody wants Heidi’s background. We do talk a little bit about this literally a year ago, guys. So we’ll link to that below. You guys can watch that previous interview below and learn how she finished in 10th place last year and learned a little bit more about her,
Let’s just dive into this promotion. So the price point was $2,000. The commission amount was basically $800, a 40% commission. When I say 2000 and $1,997. How many affiliate promotions have you done? I know you did TRIBE at least once, how many other affiliate promotions have you done over say the past five years?
Heidi: I would guess maybe 10 total maybe then and it’s usually that I have just a few people that I just frequently promote once or twice a year. I’m very, very selective of who I choose to affiliate with. I’m want to make sure whoever I bring to my audience is something that they really need. So I’m very, very selective. So I’d say maybe at the most 10 over the past five years.
Matt: Wow. So two a year, enough practice, but still you’re kind of getting your sea legs a little bit with what this is, and to do what you do was awesome. I know we talked about who your audience is, but give us just a very quick overview of both from a, what you do standpoint in terms of your audience and what they come to you for, but maybe a little bit of demographic info on them and who they are.
Heidi: I teach people how to make money teaching paint parties online in-person and with art kids. My demographic is really crafters, creators, artists. A lot of them are doing this as a side gig. They have their full-time job and then they’re doing this because they’re passionate about it, but it’s also bringing them extra money. Other people are just retired and they just want this next act and they’re doing something fun for retiring. So that’s who I serve.
It was really cool because I have this group of business-minded entrepreneurs that want to make they want to help people in the art space. They follow me and then they start learning more about what I’m doing and they’re like, wait, can you teach us some of that? Like I want to learn more. So it really just became a natural fit whenever I promoted TRIBE.
Matt: Okay. How do you take, I know you said it’s a natural fit, but I think there’s still gotta be some strategy here to take people who want to learn how to do paint parties. I’m gonna assume that’s what 99.9 9 9, 9, 9% female. You know all the men by name, there’s two of them, right?
Heidi: Yeah. We have Six men now. I think we have 2,400 members and about six of them are guys.
Matt: You take this audience that comes to you about how to do paint parties and then, TRIBE guys are, as you probably know, from past and center profiles is all about creating a membership site, creating recurring revenue. It definitely falls under the bucket of internet marketing products or online marketing products, online business. How do you take that audience to be interested in this product?
Heidi: Great question. The first time I promoted TRIBE was really out of just people asking and I said, oh, that’s a great commission. I’ll send my link. I remember selling 19 of them and thinking, oh crap, like that’s a lot of money. Like that’s really great.
Matt: Yeah. ten thousand bucks.
Heidi: Yeah.. and I bought this huge computer that I’m looking at you right now though. I spent all this money on this really nice computer and just really cool.
But what happened was I saw these 19 creatives and that were paint party people that were just floundering. So I had already had a background in email marketing. I spent my entire first year learning online business on how to build email lists. I love that kind of stuff. So I saw these 19 people join TRIBE and they didn’t even understand what a funnel meant, what email market.
They didn’t even know the base glossary terms of online marketing. And so it broke my heart because I sent people who I trust with everything I sent them to Stu, but then I felt like I let him down because I felt like there was this kind of gap. So the next year I was terrified, but I knew I had to do it. I was so scared.
Do you know how sometimes, like when you’re scared of doing something or you’re scared of launching something because you think it’s going to fail that you like to start doing random crap around the house?
Matt: You can tell when I’m procrastinating, my office will be spotless. Oh, man. If you ever watch, so this is how the studio is set up. Now, if this thing here is over here in three weeks and there’s new decorations and new books and new artwork up there and this and everything, you will know that at some point in the previous few days, I had a big project due that I didn’t want to do, just remodeling the studio.
Heidi: Yes. So I was taking curtains down off of my windows and washing curtains. Who washes curtains? I am not like a homemaker-type personality and I’m washing, I’m doing everything. And so I was like, you know what? And I was sick to my stomach because I knew I had to launch this course.
My course is called Paint Party Outer limits. Basically what I did was I said, you know what? I am terrified to do this, but I know there is a gap. I know that these paint party people need to know the basics of this stuff. So when I promote TRIBE again, which I will do, they will be ready for it.
So I talked to Sue about it. I even had Stue as a guest in my course, I wanted to make sure everything was okay. Because I was teaching them how to start building your audience, all of these things that I knew they needed to prep for, that I had spent tens of thousands of dollars and multiple years learning.
When I launched it, I kind of gave myself an out. I said, do you know what if just 10 people will sign up for this, I’ll feel like that’s a success. I launched it in a hundred people signed up for it and I was like, okay. Note to self, like they really want this. Then we launched TRIBE again and I ended up top 10, which blew me away.
Matt: Top 10 had to have been 60 sales, 50 to 60 sales at least?
Heidi: 75.
Matt: 75 well.
Heidi: Yeah. 75 Sales, which was amazing.
Matt: Most of those came from that hundred. Didn’t they?
Heidi: Yes. Basically, I created a funnel that not only helps me, but it helps my customers.
Matt: What is the price point on that prep course.
Heidi: It was $397 if you were a member and then it was $597 if you weren’t a member, which this year we’re going to raise because we totally overhauled everything we have it been so much better. Because whenever you launch a course or something at first, you kind of are trying to do what you think you need to do.
Matt: Yeah.
Heidi: Then this past year we nailed it. It was so awesome and people were like, oh my gosh, I would’ve paid so much more for this. I don’t want to say that, but this is so good. We really did do a good job of what they needed. So what we ended up doing now is this past December, we did the pre-launch for it.
We had 279 people sign up for the Paint Party Outer limits. So it went from me hoping 10 would sign up to a hundred signing up to 279 signing up. Again, Stu was that he was a guest in that course, we talked openly about funnels, about membership, about this is the next step if you want this.
That’s what led to the affiliate I think is so good and TRIBE this year is because we have been prepping all year for it. Now the cycle starts again. Right now, even in my membership, some people are saying that I want to know about memberships or I want to know about email marketing. I’m like, that is for Paint Party Outer Limits and TRIBE, those are things that come up once a year. It’s basically just notifying my audience. Like yeah, if you want to learn more from me you’re paying so much a month now. That’s great and I’m very thankful for it and we over-deliver, but to learn that higher-level online marketing, that’s a different, different strategy, a different course, a different at different paths.
So the ones that kinda know that we’ll know, okay, I need to go this route with Heidi if I want to learn that. So it really was just a very, very strategic thing from the beginning.
I think that’s why I just…! My goal was top five, but then once I saw myself in the first place, I was like, okay, now my goal’s first place.
Matt: I never knew it was just top five because from about the word go, you were like, where am I? Am I still in first? like I just assumed you wanted to be, first of all, time.
I want to go back real quick and then I want to come to where things are now with the Outer Limits Course, you mentioned something kind of interesting. You said, that first year when you sold 19, you said, people were asking you. And so you’re like, well, ‘let me get a link and I sold 19’, what were they asking you?
Heidi: Basically like what I’ve learned and I’m sure you’ve learned this too, is anytime you start doing something and then you start doing it. Well,
people know. So what happened with my pink party business? I was doing that to make extra money on the side as a full-time teacher. Then all of a sudden I’m doing paint parties of 100, paint parties of 130, and all of a sudden I’m getting people asking me like, okay, Heidi, how are you doing this?
So it just brought me to the next step of, okay, well maybe I can teach some people how to do this. Again, that brings you to the next step. When I had paint party headquarters, which I still do, it’s three years old now and we have over 2,400 members. So it was one of those things where people started asking, okay, how are you doing this? How are you making paint party headquarters happen? How are you making a membership happen? Because I was teaching people how to do stuff, paint parties in person and online. That started to become a question and those questions are way more involved than what they were paying me for paint party headquarters.
Like of course I’m spending lots of money every single month, learning from people who are way smarter than me and then also studying myself. So I was like, okay, how can I structure this? Because what I also noticed, Matt was people were skipping over me to go to different people, to learn from just because I wasn’t offering it because I remember going, wait a minute, I can teach them way better because I’m doing exactly what they want to do.
That’s why I was washing my curtains because I was so scared. So scared of like offering it, even though I have found in this many years of doing business, now, the things that I’m most scared of are usually the things that bring me the most money, which is kind of crazy.
Matt: I’m writing that one down. That was good. That is super awesome. That’s a great lesson because it’s like people asking you then there’s clearly a market for it. And what started as 19 people fast forward two years, correct me if I’m wrong, but you were one 160 ish this year.
Heidi: I think we ended at 149 and my goal was 150. I’m really good with having numbers and being so close to them but…
Matt: That’s probably because I remember one year I had to go in an affiliate promo, Michael Hyatt’s promo. This is forever ago. My goal was $20,000 and I made $19,991 and I was just like sucks.
The worst part about it was I had a friend of mine, a really good friend of mine, who I was texting with on the last day he was like, ‘Hey, do you need me to go buy through you?’ I’m like, no. I mean, I’m not going to ask you to buy a course just to make me happy.
I think I joked. I was like, ‘if you want to send me a hundred bucks, send me a hundred bucks.’ and I’m like I should have said yes to him, but it would have cheapened it, it would have felt bad.
Heidi: I know that’s how I was. I was like, you know what? That was the number, but it does have that feeling of like, and I know people listen to this where it is about the money. Like for many, many times, I mean, I’ve gone bankrupt. Like I know what it feels like to have no money. And so I have that feeling that will still that many people it’s still that much money, but then there’s something inside that drives you competitively where it’s not even about the money anymore. It’s about, that was my goal, that’s what I’ve set up for, that’s what I’ve been working for a year. And yes, the money is great, and yes, I am so excited and have so many plans for that many coming in to help my family. But it’s like something about hitting those goals and those numbers that just make it exciting.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, it’s just in that competitive nature I don’t know about you, but I grew up, I was a college athlete and played professional golf for a while. So my thing is I remember there were times where I would win a tournament, but I screwed something up in the last three holes and I’m like, that’s what I was always focused on. Like, man, I should’ve finished two shots lower. It’s like, well, you won by six. Yeah. But I should have won by eight.
Heidi: Well, I was not an athlete by any means and so I was definitely like the B team volleyball players sitting on the bench, laughing, being stupid. But something with business, it’s like even if those of you listening, it’s different, there’s something with a business that where you can have this competitiveness. And I like to turn it into a game. So I like to make it fun. Even me and my family get in my daughter is 14 and my husband will get in on it and we’ll be like,
so-and-so like, you know, we’ll say names of the people that are on the leaderboard. And we’ll like, oh my gosh, we got to take them down. And it’s all in good fun, but like the whole involved and we’ll be in dinner like, well where’s, so-and-so at. And we’re like, I know we got to take him out something’s gotta happen.
Matt: Feeling like you have a dark board with the faces.
Heidi: No, No, but that is a good idea.
Matt: In the spirit of this I do want to share with everybody before people think that Heidi’s plotting to take these people down. If anybody ahead of Heidi gets food poisoning, it wasn’t her fault. Like when Sarah Williams won, there’s a video. Hopefully, I think we can get ahold of Stew’s team. When Sarah one Summer on the student’s team had messaged me about two days before the cart closes said, ‘Hey, if Heidi or Sarah wins, like, I live like an hour from both of them. What do you think of taking like a large, one of those like publishers clearing house checks and like doing a whole thing.”
I was like, that would be awesome. Yes, please I’m signing you up for that. I had no idea you were going. So guys, when Sarah won like the super tight competition, less than 10% separating the entire top three and they wanted to beat each other so badly. Again, I’m not rubbing this in, but like we’re talking in $85,000 difference between first and third. I don’t know if people realize that is more than the average American family brings in in an entire year is a lot of money, super competitive.
Then I see Summer, I’m expecting to see Summer and there’s Heidi like going to congratulate Sarah and taking the big check. And I just thought that was super cool.
Heidi: Sarah is one of my dear friends and every day, so on Sunday, she’s like, I don’t know, should I promote?
And I’m like, yes, you should promote as I talked her into being an affiliate. I was like, yes, you have you’re welcome. I was like, I was like, you have the perfect audience. I mean, I’m an affiliate. I actually pushed some of my people to her. So I’m like, actually, technically you probably have some of my sales.
Like I was giving her a hard time, but I mean, we were on the phone every day. That was actually who called earlier and just heard it, it was from that group. And so we’re on the phone every day, like strategizing, where are you at? Okay, what can we do now?
I mean, there was nothing she held back or I held back to have a more competitive edge. Like we were both wanting each other to win. I think that’s when it made it so fun because for her in some sorts of stresses around like, no, it’s fun. Let’s have fun with this, let’s just go for it. Especially with me being in the first place, the first several days, she was like saying, Hey, I’m going to show up at your house at the big check. And so once we heard, once you and Steve made the announcement, I remember, and you announced the third place and you said my name and I typed the word dammit.
And immediately Sarah saw it, she knew, I didn’t mean it a meaningful way. She knew that I was just I was so close. I wanted a second. I went on a walk with my husband right after, and I was it’s not failure. It’s defeat and we were talking about the feeling of it. And I was like, ‘Hey, I said, we’ve got to show up at Sarah’s house. Like we have to bring a snack. Because she had been talking about doing it for me. And I was like, we got to show up, like, let’s drive two hours.
Let’s go surprise her. And then the next day Summer had contacted me and said, Hey, do you want to do this thing with me? I was like, yes, we’re already planning it. Like, yes, let’s do it. And so it’s all in good fun. I don’t know. I love it.
There’s something about it. Even though I wasn’t competitive in sports. There’s something about business. When I know it’s a right fit for my customer. It’s different. If this is something that I like, I’m trying to sell my customer that I know they don’t need, but when it’s something that I know they need and they want, like, I am like game on, let’s do it.
Matt: That is so cool. So I have so many questions for you now. Guys, I’ll let you know insiders, we’ll be talking to Sarah to give you kind of the background on that. She had nine sales last year and this year had more than 160 and won the hundred thousand dollars first prize. That’s, what’s possible when you go all in like Sarah and Heidi, both did.
I want to talk about the prep course for just a moment because I think this is a really cool concept. Something that we’ve been teaching for forever, you kind of find that part of your audience. First of all, they’re willing to invest, a little bit more, but secondly, they end up being the people who are one step ahead of everyone else. So they’re more prepared for the thing that you’re offering as an affiliate. So I want to talk about when is that prep course? Because to gives people’s perspective, you start pushing people into the tribe launch in late March.
We’ll just say April 1st, just even though I know you started in late March, but that’s kind of the prime time is from April 1st to the first week of May. So what does that look like in terms of the prep course? When does that happen?
Heidi: Right now, if it comes up naturally or during training, I say that’s for Paint Party Outer Limits, some already seeding the fact that I offer a course once a year, December 1st is when I officially open it to paint party headquarters for pre-buys. So the course does not start until February 1st, that what I like to do is give people an option to do a payment plan. What I’ve decided is I do a webinar at the beginning of December for the paint party headquarters, which is all the people that are in my membership. And I give them a huge discount. This year it will go up, it’ll be instead of 397, it’ll be 497, but they have three months to pay it. We do a three-month payment plan. Before they even start the course, like they’re on their third payment, now we’re starting the course. So it’s paid, they’re done and paid for.
Then January 1st, they all get that discount if they’re in paint party headquarters on January 1st is when I launch it to the public. I do like a big launch to the public. I was really surprised this year. We had a lot of just new people that were paying the 597 to do the course so that will go up to 697 this year. But the coolest part was pretty much by the time everybody starts, February 1st, they’ve already done two, possibly their three payments. And then what I do is I just hold it all. Like I don’t spend a dime until the course, because it’s a, it’s a 10-week course. So all of February, all of March. And then it basically just butts up to when TRIBE starts.
Matt: That was the next question. Yeah. I mean, at 10 weeks, starting February 1st would be about April 10th, 11th, 12th, somewhere in there would be the end of it. I mean, 10 days later, the TRIBE workshop started.
Heidi: Well, a lot of people have been asking for like a mastermind level or for me to help them more. When I did the survey last year and this may be something I want to do in the future, but right now I don’t want to do it. I’m like, if you want more time with me, you sign up for TRIBE. And then I give them another 10 weeks of study group where I go live once a week and answer their questions.
So it was almost like a way where I can still bring in, you know, a really great income for my family, but I’m not having to push myself in every direction because it, it can be overwhelming. because once you start seeing opportunities, opportunities show up everywhere. And so once you train yourself to see those, it’s like, oh, well I could do this. I could do this, but that’s going to be an energy sacker time sacker, whenever I can just focus on, paint party headquarters to outer limits to TRIBE, and then just have that very clean funnel that helps my members.
Matt: That is so cool. Earlier and you said this a couple of times because you got a call and you mentioned the creative club and I know a little bit about the creative club from a few years ago I think with Stu, but I know this is a little bit off-topic, but I’m kind of curious, tell us what that is really quick, if you don’t mind because I think there are some lessons in there that the people would get some value out of. So what is this, this creative club. Okay.
Heidi: Not at all… So when we first took TRIBE, that’ll be my fourth year going through it. There were several of us that kind of just got put in a Facebook group that we’re all artists. Well, it kind of dwindled. You know, some people would interact, some people wouldn’t. There’s basically nine of us girls in there that have all gone through TRIBE at the same time, have all grown our businesses pretty similar, like as far as like revenue and growth, it’s almost like we push each other. So if I see, oh, so-and-so’s got 2000 members now, well I need to get to like, it kinda like makes us want to like do better, but in another way, we meet at least twice a year,
we go rent a beach house and we actually already have our August one scheduled and we usually do four or five nights. And we do one morning as a mastermind where we actually like going through, the problems we have because we’re all at the same level, it’s not like this complaining type atmosphere where a lot of times when you’re just getting started,
it’s like, well, “I don’t know where to start” you know, you just find that out, and really you’re just needing help tweaking. But the coolest part has been, is like I said, they were calling just a second ago, but we’re on a constant Facebook chat at all times. Like I talked to them more than I talked to my family because we’re constantly on a lot of chat. Like what’s going on? Here’s this check out this what, and it’s not all business-related. It’s personal, it’s fun, check this out. Oh my gosh, this is the tick talk when we’re 70 and we’re going to the beach and it’s two old ladies, who are going to be those two, you know, like, naming each other out. It’s a bunch of different stuff that it’s so cool because we’re all cheering each other on and then we’re all helping each other. Cameron, one of them, for example, just messaged me the other day and she’s like, oh my gosh, I had a cancellation, can you jump in and fill in the spot for our guest artists? And I’m like, yes, no problem. What do you need? Tell me when, where how to do it. And then it’s done. It’s no, it didn’t just happen. And we didn’t like all of a sudden just have this trust for each other.
It took a good year of communicating online and then meeting each other and then knowing like, oh my gosh, we have so much in common that our families are sick and tired of us talking about Sue or TRIBE or whatever it is that we can come to each other. And you know what I need to do with this? Where do I need to be with this funnel?
Why is this not converting? And even during my launch. So I went from Stu’s launch straight into my third anniversary, which I’ve changed the dates for next year because it was too intense.
Matt: Those were full workdays, like for TRIBE. Yeah.
Heidi: Yes. And in the background, we were prepping for my launch too so it was a lot and we still, we didn’t hit our goal, but we still welcome like 520 new members into paint party headquarters on the back of another launch. But what I had to say about that is like how, like when you do a launch, the first two days, you can kind of tell where it’s going.
You can tell based on those numbers, what it’s going to be. I had messaged the creative club girls and I said, y’all, I was like, this is killing me. I was like, I am nowhere near my goal. What am I going to do? Like, and they know I’m very, very goal-driven and, and they’re like, what do I need to do? And they’re like, oh my gosh, I just went and watched your live. You need to do this. You need to, I mean, immediate, immediate response. And then I was able to tweak and those two days were so much better. One last thing on his say about the creative girls,
because this is really telling, so you and Stu were still life and you were still talking and you had just announced the winners or whatever. And oh my gosh, within two minutes they started a group call and it wasn’t about Sarah. Congratulations you’ve won. It was like, Heidi, are you okay? I mean, it’s like, that’s how we are.
Just like I drove to Wichita to go tell her congratulations and celebrate her. It’s almost like they knew like that was killing me because I wanted it so bad. And so I’m like, no, no, Sarah, this is about you. You won like congrats. And they’re all like, but we know Heidi. Like we know what you were feeling right now.
And we just want to be here and like, know that you did everything he could. And I think that is the power of like, when you’re doing this entrepreneurship thing, whether you’re doing affiliates, whether you’re building your business, like find a group. I mean, I never thought in my forties, I would find eight other girls that I could call at a moment’s notice and talk business with. So that in itself is worth more than any money I’ve made over the past few years. It’s been pretty incredible.
Matt: Yeah. That is super powerful. That’s why I knew where you were going with that. And I wanted you to share that because I think all of our members and really everyone in this journey, I know it’s cliche, but you really can’t. You can do it alone, but it’s just harder. I mean, it’s crazy. Like you would probably agree. I know I find this like I have a group, that’s similar. We can solve problems that I’ve been beating my head against the wall.
Because my default is getting very insular, in seal. I don’t know how to pronounce that word, but it’s like, oh, I gotta solve that problem. All I need to do is just think really hard for an hour and I’ll come up with a solution. And sometimes I do. And then sometimes I don’t and I go to the mastermind and one thing, they’ll just say one thing, what if you tried this? I’m like, “oh actually, I know you gave me the idea, but it’s like, why don’t they just do that from the get-go?’ And that is that power of community.
So guys, if you’re interested, we’re going to put a link below to our mastermind. One thing you said in there that’s super important is you guys started at the same point. You were in very similar starting places and you’ve each grown. So even for three, four years later, you’re still pretty much roughly at the same level. It’s really important to get around people who are at that same old because you’re around people who are way too advanced. They have different problems than you if you’re around people who may have different problems. If you’re in a million-dollar business and people are asking ‘how do I set up my email list?’ That’s the wrong question to ask.
Same thing if you’re in a year in a thousand dollars a month business starting and people are talking about hiring their 43rd employee, it’s like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’ So we’ll put a link below guys where you can sign up for our mastermind and get into that. because it’s all beginners. So if you’re more advanced, don’t click the link. Don’t sign up.
I want to talk real quick. One of the things that you did that I thought was super awesome. When we ran the very early, we call it the way too early to mean anything leaderboard. Unlike April 1st, now the workshop guys don’t start till April 22nd. We’re not even talking about the promotion starts, for another two weeks really, you’re already thousands of leads.
Your runway was like a month before the workshop. I mean, I’m curious, is that something that you think worked? Would you change that? Would you start later sooner, next time? What, how would that go?
Heidi: The Runway was actually earlier than that because it was on Outer Limit. Like we had Stu as a guest for 200 and something people inside outer limits while that was going on way before his stuff started.
And yes, I would definitely do that again because I won that, how y’all do those different contests because I won the contest. Basically, I won enough money to pay for all my ad spend for the entire tribe launch. So in the beginning, I was like, ‘oh my gosh.’ Because I’d spent like 15,900 for the tribe launch for my ads and I had one 15,000 by Tuesday I was like ads covered.
Matt: Just so people know I mean you won $2,500 for most workshop leads, $2,500 for most webinar leads, and $10,000 for most overall leads. That’s that power of it, it’s really hard to do that unless you have hundreds of thousands of people and, half a million people on your list. It’s really hard to do what you did in five days. You can only do what you did if you have a few weeks, which was really, really cool.
Heidi: I just went by Sue. He always talks about the long runway and that’s what I kept thinking in my head like,
okay, if they’ve heard about it, they know they want to go this route. I already have people. That’s the thing too, that was really curious was a lot of people that wanted to take it last year. They couldn’t, they immediately signed up like they were ready. So I wanted to be that link for them because I knew they were ready. It’s just a matter of when they’re gonna hit that link they’re going to, as soon as they see it, they’re going to sign up because they’re ready. And so I had a lot of people this year that basically, it’s like promo is like pre-advertising for next year that they are ready to take it next year. I’m like, here are 365 days to get ready and I offer all this cool stuff that goes with it. So it’s okay. Just take it next year with me. So I think that’s the cool part is it starts to compound and then people know almost, they almost know the sales cycle, you know, as well.
Matt: Yeah, you have a certain number of people. I don’t know how many of the 149 this year you had lined up, but let’s just say it was maybe 30, you had 30 people they knew last year, they were going to buy TRIBE through this year.
Heidi: Yeah.
Matt: So 120, you had the busted 429. You had to really work hard for 119. Whatever the math is on that math was never my specialty, but next year you’ll have 60 who were like, they’re ready in June of this year, July like they’re ready, 10 months in advance to join next year. Like some of these people that are saving up their money, they’re getting domain names like they’re doing some of the pre-work like, they’re going to be ready to go on April 21st, 2022, mark your calendars, tell all your friends they’re going to be ready. So you could maybe do the same number of workforce sales 119 and just make 30 extra sales. Of course, you’ll make more than 119 of that.
Heidi: Oh, Yeah.
Matt: I know you are it’s just 250 or bust.
Heidi: I might send my number officially, but it’s the biggest change. I like that number.
Matt: And here’s the thing. I just want to point out. One of the things is like a lot of people think, oh, with the early runway. Yes. Sure, she won the early contest, and maybe overall, you still won the webinar leads contest, which is pretty freaking amazing because like this happened just to give you guys some perspective, the webinar registrations really didn’t start until after about the second day of the workshop. So the webinar registration period is like five to six days, maybe seven, if you go a little longer and you think,
‘oh man, people are probably tired of Heidi and Stu by now.’ No, I mean, you still, you won that thing. It was close up until about the last 36 hours and you blew everyone out of the water. I feel like it was really, really close going into the last two days. I’m just watching. It’s like Heidi is up by a hundred, 200, 300, 400. It’s like she’s lapping the field and all of a sudden, and that just shows like the early one runway didn’t stop that late push either it just made it even better. I thought.
So last few questions here, Heidi, What was the number one thing you did that led to your success in this promo? because it really was an amazing promotion. There are probably a hundred things you could point to, but is their one that stands out that you say if I hadn’t have done that this would have been a lot worse.
Heidi: Yeah. One of the things that you were telling me to do that I was terrified to do, and the reason I did it is that I was terrified. I knew if I like I said earlier like when I’m scared of something, I wash curtains. I was like, okay, so I remember messaging you and being like, okay, you’re talking about doing this, this private group. And I was terrified.
I didn’t want to do it, I don’t know why I was so resistant to it because last year I was basically sharing all of Stu stuff into my membership, which caused a ton of confusion. People who were, not wanting to do it were starting to feel pressured, they were just wanting to learn how to do the paint party and here I am like blasting, membership, do a membership, do all of this. And so finally after about two weeks of battling it and just being like hanging out, I don’t want to do it. Like I don’t want to do it, but I feel like I need to do it. I started this group called artists who want to create a membership site.
I remember asking you, ‘How can I do this?’ I don’t want to be tied to it and you said something like, we’ll just do like a 10 day or a 20 day. I literally named it. I named it artists creating membership sites 20-day pop-up group. And within a couple of days, I had over a thousand people join that group. I just advertised it to my paint party headquarters and my Texas art and soul page. I said, ‘Hey, this isn’t for everybody. But if it’s for you, this is where we’re gonna be talking about all things memberships for 20 days, that’s it. You got 20 days,
we’re going to talk about it. If you’re a fit for TRIBE. Like I was very open. I was never like that. Oh, you’re going to get something. Yeah. Oh, hereby $2000 course like I was very open with, he’s going to talk about a course he offers that has changed my life. I was very open about that from the beginning. I never wanted anybody to feel like it was a bait and switch. Like we’re getting you in this group and now you’re going to, hopefully, we can psychologically sell you on this. No, like even in my course, when I had Stu as a guest and when I talk about, the TRIBE, I always openly say, ‘this is a course he does once a year, it costs this that, we think it costs us this year. This is what it costs last year.’ And I always kind of over, I’ll say, ‘I think it’s around 2,500 because in case he raises the prices.’ I’m very open about it so they know it’s coming and they either know, they want to learn it or they don’t want to learn it, but they’re never going to come in thinking, ‘oh, Heidi’s doing this free thing for me and now she wants money.’ Like I never want that feeling.
Because I’ve done that before and it bites me in the butt. Like it’s bitten me in the butt a few times and I’m like, I don’t want that feeling. I don’t want my artists who were very sensitive souls. Like we are hard on sleep. So I was like, I don’t want to do that to my audience. I really value how much they trust me. I really put a lot of effort into not just being, ‘here’s something you have to buy because I’m going to make a commission off of it.’
Like I tell them this. So that group was really cool because I could be very unapologetic about this is what this is about. Stu is lives now here’s his sale. Here’s his webinar. And I can immediately start pushing as much as I wanted in that 20 days and I never felt bad about it because they were coming in for that. So that was a really big tip. So thank you, Matt. I really appreciate it.
Matt: That’s awesome. I love the name because I know you asked me. I think it was in Facebook messenger. Like, well, what do I name the group? And I’m like, let me give you the formula it’s the audience who wants to blank, whatever they want to do. I remember we did the training. It was like, I’m pulling up the examples, like bloggers who want to create recurring revenue, artists who want to start a membership. Like you just say what it is, gym owners who want to start an online plan for stay-at-home moms who want to earn a side income.
When you’re naming these groups people like, ‘oh, I got to get like super creative and like use thesource.com, the source, whatever hard word I, I grew up in North Carolina and went to the government, run schools, pronouncing words like that is difficult for me. Look it up and get super clear, just say the audience who wants to, and then the result, that’s it. That’s the name of your Facebook group. You can change it later. If you want to come up with some creativity.
Heidi: I love that is again, you were saying exactly what you’re going to be talking about. So there’s no question. And I can unarchive this group next year. Now I’ve already had like this huge base of potential customers who really wanted to, a thousand something people didn’t sign up. So I know I already have almost 900 people that want to potentially sign up for next year.
Matt: I love it because when you start talking membership sites, membership sites, they’re not confused because at the top of the page, says artists who want to start a membership site. You know, that the people that are coming there are at least on some level and ideal clients. In a way you kind of want your Facebook page or your Facebook group name to repel people. We want them to look at it and go that’s not for me.
Heidi: Yeah. I even Have a picture of me and Stu I was at a training, so it’s him teaching me something so that they can immediately relate, oh, wait, this is not only artists creating membership sites 20-day pop-up group, but this is Stu teaching Heidi. Like to relate Stu.
Matt: Especially when your audience is almost a hundred percent women and then suddenly you introduce a dude.
Heidi: Yeah. They’re like, yeah.
Matt: I know, I mean, like 94% of his audience is female, but they don’t know that they’re still like ‘you’re a female from Texas and he’s a dude from Canada. Like, could you get any more polar opposite demographically? Right. So yeah, creating those connections, just those subtle things where it’s like, ‘oh yeah, that’s the guy that was on the whiteboard teaching Heidi. He’s cool. ‘ Like there’s no suspicion. So, here’s kind of, as we wrap up the last two questions, what would you do differently? I’m very curious and I truly, I kind of felt like that your number one thing would be your number one thing. I have probably narrowed it down to two things. This one, I really don’t know what you would do differently. I’m curious to hear from you.
Heidi: Oh my gosh.
Matt: More sales. I know, but so Yeah,
Heidi: Yeah. One more sale for sure. I should have just bought it myself. No, no that would not have felt right. I think I, for sure, which we have already tweaked and are ready for next year that I moved my May launch, which I’ve always had. because it’s kinda like an anniversary, it’s my third anniversary. We just had our May launch. I already had my plan, my marketing plan for 2022. And so I moved my big spring launch to March. So that is the biggest thing because then that new influx of people is done. I’m already in the middle of teaching outer limits, which, you know, I prerecord, so that’s kind of already off my shoulders. Then I’m just helping people and doing the Q and A and stuff like that. But as far as strategy-wise, we went all in. I think maybe, I don’t know if I would open up the artists who want the 20-day pop-up group. I think I would still keep that at 20 days. I think I will still, hopefully, be learning some new tips from you Matt, that will help me be able to do that, even to hit those higher numbers.
I think I would maybe take a day or two, like I know this sounds cheesy, but I think I would just schedule out like time to go out to eat every day at the launch because I think what happened was I got very focused and then I just worked, worked, worked, worked, worked, and it, I kinda got a little, a little obsessed, so maybe like, put it out on the table, just like I did. I would definitely still, and I will be going just as strong as I did last year, but that may be taking some moments. We had fun, definitely. Like I had so much fun with it, will definitely add more of that is like the trash talk. I love that. I think constantly get my whole face, get my teenage daughter to trash-talk people on the leaderboard. Like that is so fun to me. In a competitive spirit. I hope y’all can hear that, but I think just having like an hour a day to just go, okay, this is real life. Like, this is fun. This is intense for a few weeks, but we still have a real life. Maybe that, I don’t know. I maybe I’m just still too close to it to know for sure.
Matt: Yeah. And I think it’s important like it’s cliche, but self-care and keeping up your energy for the end so that you can be creative. Here’s what I would say to that. I think pre your launch because your launch will be in March now and you’ll need that decompression time between of course. So pre your lunch. I would do as much. I would probably plan a full strategy day. You may even do this with your creative club and your team and do it to get, just kind of like a getaway and do like planning for this launch, an outline, even right down to like the email themes and you might even like to have subject lines in mind and things like that. I would analyze what worked from this. Let’s just say, I’m just making up the numbers. You sent 10 emails in seven of them had really good open rates and really good click rates. Let’s just keep those, but let’s completely go back to the drawing board on the other three. Let’s everything about them redo it and then I would come up with my stories and my content.
Like, I would have all that you mentioned earlier, like all the content for the Facebook group, you had to invent that this time. You’re coming up sometimes you’re coming up with it, like posting it live, maybe well then next year it’s like, we did this with one of the Facebook groups that we run for a challenge. We preloaded everything like posts would go out and I’m like, ‘oh yeah, we scheduled that like four weeks ago, nice.’ And so you can schedule those things in advance, right. And then you said, that frees you up to like, to execute the plan, to do the lives, to do all that. But like you said, to be able to watch a movie and to go for a walk. I know for me, when we’re running these big launches, as you can imagine, it’s, it’s 14 hours a day for about three straight weeks. It just feels like, it’s go, go, go. But one of the things that we instituted this year was Robby and I alternated nights and weekend days. So I was off a full day every week of the launch and I was of three or four nights of the week. So even if just for the record, even if you got an email response from Matt Mcwilliams it was Robby. I wasn’t working I imagine we’re like I got to go to my kid’s soccer.
And it felt like, and I got to eat out in life was normal half the time, another half it was complete and utter chaos and busyness and people messaging me and just, ‘ what am I doing? Oh, that’s, oh, shoot. I forgot to send that email.’ Let me talk to you that’s what it was half the time, as supposed to all the time. And so when it got to the end of the launch like you saw this we did some really creative things during the open cart, most of that stuff actually came up on the fly because I actually had the mental bandwidth to be able to do those things. Whereas normally by about the third day of the launch I’m like, I just want this launch to end. That’s important if you play it out as much advance and then, you know, and reuse as much as possible, identify where it’s at. And then yes, take the time for self-care, get the exercise like that was like, I didn’t work out like an hour and 20 minutes.
I was working at like 40 minutes, but it was 40 minutes. Like every day come hell or high water. I was in the gym sometimes. I’m like on the phone. I remember one day I was talking to, who was it? I think it was Paul. That was on the road. I’m like, “dude if you’re going to talk to me right now, I’m on the rowing machine.” He’s like, it took me like three minutes to explain something that normally it takes five seconds. because I was like, “okay, what… you…”, . And so, yeah, that’s super important. And I think that’ll keep you going through the end, which will help you finish strong.
Heidi: Yeah, I think just moving that launch ahead, it’s going to help a lot and just taking a lot of the things I learned and also the tip you gave me at the end was so, so helpful that I’m like that I’m sorry, email and that I’m sorry. And oh my gosh. I had people like messaging. They were just like, ‘oh my gosh, thank you so much for that.’ They were feeling so much pressure.
Matt: Wich email was this? because there are two that I might’ve given you.
Heidi: This one was that this was the last, you said it was from this cupcake girl email.
Matt: Yeah. We name all of our emails. We name our emails after people are kind of like the theme of the email. So many of them, like we have a John Workman email, have a Kara Andretta email.
Heidi: What’s that one about?
Matt: Well, the subject line is ‘screw you, Matt’,
Heidi: What do you send them?
Matt: It’s a re-engagement email that really works well, actually I know we got a bunch of replies to it recently and it’s basically like, ‘Hey, I noticed you haven’t opened any emails recently. Are you saying screw you Matt what?’
Heidi: Oh my gosh, My audience would not be okay with that.
Matt: It’s because they have it open and email like in so many days, so it’s like, I need them to open this to get reengaged. We get a couple of angry emails, but it’s like, well you have an opening an email in three months.
Heidi: Yeah. We’re Paying for you to be on that email list.
Matt: You are getting this email. I am Cool if you unsubscribe. But yeah. So we have the tough questions email, we had the midnight mover email, but yeah, the Kara Andretta emails. So that’s, that’s a good one. Tell us about how you use that real quick and then we’ll wrap up.
Heidi: It was basically kind of given them an out. So it was like, I’m sorry or no, it was more like it’s okay. And it was about, it’s okay if you don’t do this, I’m still gonna love you. If you don’t sign up for this course maybe it’s not the right time for you.
And so I did three different things with this basic script. I sent an email and, typed it up and then I sent a voice message. Actually, I filmed it as a video and I put it on YouTube, and then I sent it through my community app and said, I filmed a short video for you. Please watch. And so they immediately from their text message could see the video. And then I also ran it as I did a Facebook live or I took that same video. It was like a minute long. And then I ran it as a Facebook ad to all the people that I had been running ads to for the past few weeks because I wanted them to see. I just put in the subject, I put it’s okay. And then that way they wanted to watch it because they’re like, wait, why is it okay? Which she does differently. So it really, I think it went a long way with, again, I have an artist creative group that’s very sensitive, so when they’re getting hit a lot and they’re filling this.
I mean, I literally, before I had sent that, I had gotten a message on my tech stacks. I have about 3000 people on my texting and one of the ladies was like, I am so sorry. I let you and Stu down. And I’m like, you didn’t let us down. Like you’re taking it so far and I’m like,
oh my gosh. So then, so once I sent that, it was almost like the ones that couldn’t do it or weren’t ready for it. Because a lot of people they, especially if you’re following somebody and I know I do this too, like if I’m following somebody and I just want to know what they know, like if they tell me to buy something,
I’m just going to buy it. Like, I usually don’t question it. If it’s 2000, our course, of course, we got to have a little bit more of a talk about it. But when you have somebody you respect and is always lead you in the right direction, and then they’re telling you, buy this,
buy this, buy this for well over a week, some of my members, and I’m so glad you had sent me that idea. It’s like, they needed to know it was okay if they didn’t buy it, that I was still going to love them, but I was still going to show up for them. So that really went a long way with my group. So I appreciate That.
Matt: Immediately it works to sell too when you kind of do, we want to turn the pressure because most people respond to that. But like, to your point, I literally read this article today and it was talking about, I forget the exact context of it,
but it was talking about as we’re recording this the CDC has like completely reversed course in their messaging from fear to hope. And the very simple reason they did that is psychologically fear. And there’s a reason why they call it FOMO. It is a genuine fear of missing out fear works. Fear is a great form of marketing for a very short period of time.
And what the CDC finally got. And this, I remember talking to people about this back in like January, I was like, I’m not here to debate like the whole like wear mask. Don’t wear a mask, get a vaccine. Like that’s not my thing, but you can’t hear people with fear for an entire year and expect that to work. It’s psychologically proven not to work.
And so they reversed course to this message of hope because the fear wasn’t working anymore and they had to do it. And the same is true with like, there’s a deadline, there’s a deadline, there’s a deadline. There’s, you’re going to miss it for a year. The tribe only opens up once a year, once a year, once a year. And it’s like, oh my gosh, people start to get, they pay, they get paralyzed. And then you come in with that message and they go, and then what happens is they take a big deep breath and they look at things from a big picture and they go, okay, I think I’ll give this a try. They buy. So it works from both ways actually gets people to buy. Wow That was awesome.
Okay. Thank you for reminding me what email I told you to send And we’ll have that in next year’s thing too because it really helps See there’s another one. Like you don’t have to write that email this year or next year, it’s like,
you’ve already got it. You can tweak it a little bit, but that’s awesome. So, wow. Okay. I know we were in long guys and Heidi, but thank you so much. This has been like a master class for our members on how to do affiliate promotion. So thank you so much.
Heidi: You’re very welcome. I’m glad I could help next year I’m coming to win it.
Matt: We talk about your win next year how about that? So real quick as we wrap up, I know I’m sure somebody is watching. This is like, well, I want to learn how to do paint parties or what the heck is a paint party or I don’t know like maybe they want to learn. They just want to be around some artsy-fartsy people. Where can they do that?
Heidi: So you can find me on Facebook, my Instagram, as well as my website on Texas art and soul. So Texas art and soul. And then if you do want to learn about email marketing, which I love, that’s my paint party, outer limits course once a year and that happens February 1st. We started again.
Matt: So Yeah, guys check out. We’ll put links below. Make sure you guys check out Heidi and Heidi thank you again.
Heidi: You’re welcome. Y’all have a great day. Thanks for having Me.
Matt: I hope you enjoyed that interview with Heidi Easily. Hope you got a ton out of it. I know I continue to learn that’s one of the reasons why I love affiliate insider monthly. I love AIM because I’m constantly learning. Like I get to interview these people and I’m taking notes. And I took about a page of notes from my interview with Heidi. So I know I’m learning stuff and I hope that you did as well today. If you want more of this,
as I said earlier, go to Mattmcwilliams.com/aimtrial. Get in on that $1 try. You get two Full months. So you’ll get two insider profiles to backstage passes, to affiliate trends, monthly reports, and to fireside chats to get all of your affiliate marketing questions answered for a whole dollar.
So go to Mattmcwilliams.com/aimtrial and check that out and then come back next week. I’ve got an a, what I think is going to be an amazing episode for you, how to stop procrastinating once and for all. So don’t miss that. Don’t delay don’t procrastinate. Listen to that episode when it comes out on Tuesday, August 31st, you don’t want to miss it. I’ll see you then.
