Aug. 15, 2024

217 - From 7 sales to $30,000 launch (Wayne Fick interview)

We are doing something we’ve NEVER done before in 200+ episodes of our podcast… having a guest! We are excited to share this chat with our friend Wayne Fick, who, over the past two years, he transitioned from working with clients, having zero audience, to selling his own digital products, and building a calm business that he’s thoroughly enjoying.

 

Wayne started with his first product, which sold to just 7 people. Realizing it wasn't a good fit, he pivoted and a year later generated $30,000 in sales for his Canva course! 

 

🔗 Wayne’s business is https://createdbywayne.com 

📺 Subscribe to Wayne https://youtube.com/@createdbywayne

 

Using our un-boring coaching advice and our Calm Launch Formula, Wayne managed to grow his email list to thousands and his YouTube channel to 20,000 subscribers in just a year and a half. He achieved all this with intention, honesty, and without using any sleazy or dishonest tactics.

 

In this interview, we discuss picking a niche, pivoting strategies, and overcoming the mental hurdles to finally being consistent and growing an audience. We hope Wayne's story will inspire you as much as it inspired us. Enjoy the conversation!

 

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🚀 If you want less stressful launches, our proven plan of action, and tips to help you generate more sales, get our 4-week Calm Launch Fundamentals email series by joining our weekly newsletter at https://wanderingaimfully.com/newsletter 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a Calm business, one that's predictable, profitable, and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an Un-Boring Business Coaching Program and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well-being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show.

[00:00:37] Caroline: Well, hello there and welcome back to our new interview channel. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding.

[00:00:40] Jason: This is it. We're just doing interviews now.

[00:00:41] Caroline: We do have another interview for you today with Wayne Fick of Created by Wayne. Wayne's story is incredible. He has gone in the past two years. He has transitioned from working with clients to now selling his own digital products. And I'm just so inspired by his story.

[00:00:55] Jason: His story is great because he started with his first product selling to seven people only.

[00:00:59] Caroline: Been there.

[00:01:00] Jason: Realizing that wasn't a good fit, to transitioning to the most recent launch of his Canva course, which did 30,000 in sales and felt extremely calm using some tactics that we taught him, which is awesome to see those in practice. But we just love Wayne's story. He has grown an email list to thousands of people, a YouTube channel to 20,000 subscribers, all in a year and a half doing it with intention and doing it honestly, and not using any sleazy or weird tactics.

[00:01:23] Caroline: We talk about picking a niche. We talk about pivoting. We talk about just the mental hurdles of finally being consistent and what it takes to grow an audience. And I think you're really going to be inspired by this conversation with Wayne. So please enjoy.

[00:01:36] Jason: I already know the answer to this question. Caroline already knows the answer to this question. But the people watching and listening don't know the answer to this question necessarily. So I'd love for you to just give a little bit of a background in the past couple of years what you've been doing as far as business stuff goes and fill us in.

[00:01:50] Wayne: Sure. I mean, the last couple of years have been my move from being a brand designer and helping clients with their designs, with their launches, that kind of thing, to working on my own business and moving more to digital products. Before that, for a long time, I was focused on experts in their field, helping them develop their own brands online and also develop their own courses and sell their own products. Actually, pretty much this month, two years ago was a turning point where I was like, "Okay, I got to make some changes." And so, since then, been slowly building up a business focused more on digital products and selling courses and other products rather than working for clients.

[00:02:32] Caroline: I'm glad you mentioned that because I think a lot of people listening are probably maybe in a similar situation where their journey of online business started with working with clients, as so many of us do. And I'm curious about, take me into that moment two years ago, what was going on in your mind where you had that realization of it's time to build my own thing. What were some of those thoughts that you were having or feelings that you were having, or maybe what the catalyst was for knowing that you wanted to start doing your own digital products?

[00:03:00] Wayne: Sure. I mean, I think the short answer is it was really burnout, but the long answer is that for so many years, I built my business around, my kind of USP was that I was always there when clients needed me, and I would solve everything. And that was great to have that reputation as the person that they were like, "We need this now, like in five minutes." And I'm like, "Sure, no problem." Because they loved that I was calm, and I could just get it done. But that people pleaser in me really just sacrificed all of my own sanity and time to do that. And I think I got to a point where I realized that I actually couldn't put more hours in on client work. So I was either going to have to really massively up my fees or I was going to have to make some other change to be able to manage and to grow the business. But the other thing was that because of being like that with clients, I'd come out of a couple of years of working for a few clients, one of whom particularly was a great person, but was going through a rough time themselves. And I took on all of that emotional stuff as well as helping them with the business. So I was therapist on-call as well. And it was just draining. By the time I came out of that period, I was just exhausted. And I just thought, I can't keep doing this. And then one of my long-term clients also said, "Hey, I'm downscaling, so I'm not going to be able to have you on a retainer anymore, so we'll still love to work with you." But very quickly that retainer of like, "Hey, that's my rent paid, it just disappeared like that." And so, it was all those things where I realized this is not as reliable as I think it is. And also, I can't keep doing this. Like, I have to find a way of balancing it. And at the time I actually thought if I can just move to having some digital products, it will at least give me the freedom to go, okay, I can take on the clients I really want to, but I don't have to take on everyone that comes my way or feel like I have to because when you're in that position, you tend to live on the I can't say no because what if another one doesn't come around? Like there's that real panic sometimes. And so, that's where I got to is I was just like, okay, well, I've just lost this retainer client. I've come out of that which was exhausting me. If ever I'm going to make a change, I need to do it now. And I'd been wanting to for a while, but in all honesty, I just hadn't. I mean, I'd been talking about it for two years, three years before that.

[00:05:32] Caroline: I'm so glad that you said that about the people pleaser aspect of you with the clients because this is something I used to talk about more back when I had my own personal business before Wandering Aimfully. And I had the same trajectory of doing client work and realizing us people pleasers, boy, can we kill it at the client game, you know? And it's because we make for excellent service professionals, because we're willing to do whatever it takes to provide that service. But this is why I'm so passionate about digital products, which is like such a funny thing to say because it's like, who's passionate about digital products? But for those of us who do maybe struggle with those boundaries don't come as naturally to us or drawing those lines. I arrived at a point where I thought to myself, either this is going to be a deep personal skill that I quite frankly don't have the time to really learn and practice because I am running myself into the ground. And so, I just thought, cool, like the personal growth junkie in me was like, use this as an opportunity to draw boundaries with your clients. And I was like, or, or I could completely just say, this is not the right business model for me and move to something where I had more control, more flexibility. And that's what I'm hearing you say too, is when you were talking about, even when you were thinking about maybe I can take the clients that I really want to work with, it's like taking that control back a little bit, which I think is really important.

[00:06:54] Wayne: But the irony being that some of the clients that I still was working with and doing bits and pieces at the time when I said to them, "Hey, I'm changing my business model. I'm only going to be available for a few hours on a Tuesday, so if you need stuff done, that's when it's going to have to be." They literally all kind of went, "Okay."

[00:07:11] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:07:11] Wayne: And I was like, why did I not do this five years ago? But I know that I was still going to lapse back into that feeling of like one job is wrapped up. Oh, my God, what now? Next client. Got to find the next client. Can't say no. And so, that's why I say, at that point, I was like, nah, if I'm going to change things, I need to give this a proper go. And truth be told, I also had got to a point where I was like, I'm not getting any younger. I've been saying this for 10 years, that I wanted to do stuff like that, seriously. I was like, I need to do something about it because it gets a little harder as you get older.

[00:07:45] Jason: We've seen this in our online business journeys, is that there are these inflection points, and a lot of them are really out of your control, but they're the catalyst to make the biggest change in your life. And in the moment, they feel really scary. Right? When the clients say, "I'm downscaling." When the client treats you like you're their therapist, but then it's just like, "Hey, my business is shutting down. I can't have you on anymore." Those things really sink in the moment. But there are also those little moments where it's like you start a whole new branch on your journey that goes off in a way that you never really saw. So I'm really curious, as that was happening to you, and you already had this thought in the back of your mind of wanting to pivot to digital products, what were the next steps? What did you do next? Because I think a lot of people can relate to that of like, okay, it's great to want to make the transition from digital products to digital products, or from client services to digital products, but what do you actually do? And how did you decide on what audience did you want to serve? What were those thoughts and exercises that you did?

[00:08:40] Wayne: I mean, I think a lot of it was that I was really lucky having worked with clients for all those years, because they were, a lot of them were involved in online product sales courses, that kind of thing, that I'd learned so much over those years that I didn't feel completely out of my depths because I knew the environment. But in all honesty, one of the first things I did was log into Wandering Aimfully and start looking through the courses and stuff, because I had the resources there. I knew that I had them, but I'd had them for ages. So it was more a case of going, okay, I have to do something with this. And I think that was one of the most difficult things for me is that there was lots of knowledge and lots of thinking, but actually, what was missing was action. And that was one of the reasons that I came to Jason and said I need some help. I can't do this on my own.

[00:09:31] Caroline: He's very good at the action. You came to the right...

[00:09:33] Wayne: Yeah. But it was just that thing of, I was like, I'm not doing it on my own. It is very clear that I am not moving forward the way I want to on my own, so I need some help. And that action part was really the missing thing, was just being able to just take action and to put the perfectionist aside, which I say put it aside, that would be a lie.

[00:09:57] Caroline: It would.

[00:09:58] Wayne: Kind of make it sit down for five minutes.

[00:10:00] Caroline: Yup. Yup, yup.

[00:10:00] Wayne: That's probably more accurate, but, yeah, and going, okay, I just have to take action. So, yes, I think my next step was obviously to ask for help but was to then work on figuring out what I could do, what I would enjoy doing, and then figuring out whether there was actually an audience for that, that would buy from me whatever the product was. And so, that was a lot of the thinking was making sure it was something I could enjoy doing, because the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a business where it's all about just I've got to sell the product and I have no belief in it, because that sometimes you have to do that if you're that strapped. But really, I've always had a belief that you have to at least believe in what you're doing, because otherwise there's just, I don't know, I guess a lack of authenticity, if you're selling a product purely just because it's a product that sells, rather than because you actually believe in what it is or what you're doing.

[00:11:00] Jason: I remember a time a couple years ago when you didn't even want to publish your new website, and we had been working on just this website. I know you remember what I said because you actually told me recently, and it made me riding me back to it.

[00:11:16] Wayne: Oh, yeah.

[00:11:16] Jason: But I want you to share this because I think this is such a helpful moment for all the perfectionists who are watching or listening to this, to just let this soak in for one second, because I think it's very real. So I'll let you tell it.

[00:11:27] Wayne: And I will say, I have used this line, and I have credited you, to be fair, but I have used this line with so many people I know where I'm like, "You know, somebody once said to me." But it was when I had developed the new website, and it was nothing major, but it was a new website. It was still partially focused at client work, so it wasn't even into the digital product stuff yet, but I was just nervous to make it go live. And I thought I had a holding page for eight months, and I was like, "Yeah, well, there's only five articles and whatever." And I was all of the excuses. And I remember Jason saying to me, "So if you do go live and people don't like it or it doesn't go well, if you make the website live so how much traffic, how many people per day, how many clients will you lose if they don't like it?" And I was like, "Well, nobody knows my website exists, so no one really." And it was a real, just pieces clicking into place where I was like, that's a very good point. Nobody even looks if there's a website for me. So unless I tell them about it, which I wasn't even sure I wanted to yet, what is putting it live actually going to lose?

[00:12:41] Jason: And I just think that this is the perfect example of everyone has their own hurdles to get over. Everyone has their own things that hold them back. And perfectionism is obviously a thing that holds you back, which is ironic because you fall into the same bucket that we do, which is are good enough, is very good. And so, it's like your content on YouTube that people can find now, which we'll get into the course that you've made. Like, these are incredible things that you've created. And the bar is very high on the quality of those, but we have these little self-doubts and things that just stop us from moving forward when moving forward is the thing that's going to help you take that next step. So I do want to talk about moving from you decide you're going to work on digital products, you make your first product, which we decided on. So I'd love for you to share what that product was and how the launch did or didn't go so well of that first product and what that felt like and how we worked through there how you worked through that.

[00:13:34] Wayne: Yeah, sure. I mean, one of the things I love doing with my clients was designing and building sales pages for them. Not entirely sure why, but I loved it. I loved the idea of this journey that you take people on, and I loved actually designing them. So I knew there was a demand for that because a lot of people had asked me about my services to do that, but a lot of them couldn't really afford what I would charge them hours in terms of charging hours. So the product that I came up with was sales page templates for Canva because we used Canva's website builder, which they had been trying to promote, and I built really beautiful looking sales pages. And that was my first product because I thought, well, anyone who's got an online business will want a sales page. So that's great. And designed a few of those, put a few emails together to promote that. And at the time I had a very small list still and it only just started doing YouTube content, but wanted to get something out there as quick as possible and did that to my list, had some really nice comments about them and by the end of a week or two of the whole sales process and sales emails, I had, I think, seven purchases.

[00:14:49] Jason: Better than zero.

[00:14:49] Caroline: Better than zero. Looks like it.

[00:14:51] Wayne: Exactly. It wasn't a complete dud, but it definitely didn't do what I wanted it to do or what I'd hoped it to do. And it was a bit of a weird one because it was my first launch doing this part of my business, this new business. It was a real up and down because obviously there was a moment of like, oh, nobody wants these. Like, what's wrong with them? And then it goes on to was I so wrong that people would need these? Like, how did I get it so wrong? But I have to say all of that was very quick and resolved itself quite quickly because of the work that I had done up until then where we had talked, Jason and I had talked a lot about, and your coaching online as well had helped me to get to the point where I was like, okay, if it doesn't work, you have to pivot and change quickly. Like, I know the one thing I've always taken from Wandering Aimfully is experimentation is key. And again, I use that to encourage so many people myself to just say to them, "You have to just experiment." And some of those, by nature of an experiment are not going to work, but you have to keep trying to do that. And that was the thing is I went through that whole feeling of like, oh, God, and now what? And, oh and I was running out of money as well, so I was like okay, this is getting really tight, and that didn't work. But it was really nice to be able to get to a point where I was like, okay, it didn't work. There is no point flogging this. And I think one of the things that really helped with that was, again, on your suggestion was asking people, was after the launch, sending my whole list an email saying, "Did you see this? Did you like it? Did you buy? If not, why not? Was the price too high?" And just really asking them questions. And fortunately, I had enough people on that list that I'd built a bit of a relationship with that I got some really nice responses, and a lot of the people basically just said I'd probably use a free template and build it myself. So that was a clear sign that I had to shift away from that product because if people are still buying those templates, by the way, like every now and then I still get a sale. I say every now and then, but it's picking up as my list grows. So it's not that they are not wanted, but it just was not going to do what I wanted it to do in terms of numbers and the amount of sales that I wanted. So, yeah, it was a little bit of an adjustment. But...

[00:17:22] Caroline: Yeah, you knew what your business and what you needed in that moment. But I want to just take a second to commend you so much because also as a perfectionist, I can imagine you do all of this sort of buildup and mental coaching of yourself and seeking support to convince yourself that you're going to make this pivot away from clients into digital products and you come up with your first idea and there's probably all this insecurity and doubt that's baked into that process because it's new. And then to launch your first product and to have almost some of those fears and doubts be confirmed in the form of, wow, this didn't do what I was hoping. I just want to pause on that because I think it really speaks to the power of taking action. Because by the time you had reached that point, even you yourself said it didn't last that long, because I feel like you had broken the seal on the way to clarity now is through action. And so, I got information, framed it as an experiment, and I checked in with my customers, and now at least I can check that one off the list of cool, that's not going to be the one that does it for me. Let's try to pivot this into something else. And so, I want to underscore that for people, because that is something we talk about so much in Wandering Aimfully is especially people like me, I want to think myself to clarity. I want to live in the world of the abstract and come up with the perfect plan.

[00:18:42] Jason: How does that work out for you?

[00:18:43] Wayne: Right.

[00:18:43] Caroline: And it turns out, you can't relate.

[00:18:45] Wayne: I can't relate.

[00:18:46] Caroline: You can't relate at all?

[00:18:46] Wayne: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:47] Caroline: And it turns out that the scenarios that I've come up with my brain, as detailed as they are, do not exist in the real world. I have found out. And so, nothing gets figured out until you actually put it out into the world, you get feedback. So I just want to underscore that for people. If you're of the Wayne and Caroline ilk and action doesn't come as naturally at first, you do get better at it, and you do find that the clarity that you're seeking is on the other side of trying these things.

[00:19:14] Jason: We call it a floppy launch. You had a floppy launch...

[00:19:17] Wayne: Yeah.

[00:19:17] Jason: ...a couple sales...

[00:19:18] Caroline: Because it's fun.

[00:19:18] Jason: ...which is great, but not enough to pay the bills. What did you do next? So you talked about you coach yourself through it. We worked together through it as well, but you moved forward. So what were the next steps that you took to experiment again or to pivot again? How did you move beyond that?

[00:19:37] Wayne: Well, one of the key things that came from the feedback that I got from my list was that people still thought Canva was a great tool. They still wanted to use Canva for a lot of things. And as part of my design background and part of building this business, I was like, I'm starting to love Canva as well. Before, I had a real hesitation about it because it wasn't a professional design tool. As somebody who's not a qualified designer but has trained themselves, there's always that little thing in the back of your head of like, well, professional designers use all the Adobe suite. So if I'm using those, I'm a professional designer. And getting over that myself but knowing that my audience also was interested in Canva, I was like, okay, that's a definite spot that I can try and play with. And asking Jason's advice on that as well, because I wanted to create, and I was creating content on YouTube, we knew that it was something people look for on YouTube. So that was where I was like, okay, let's focus on content for Canva. And then that was where the idea came from that if I can then build a list, build an audience, I can do a Canva course. And that was what I was really hoping to get to because I enjoy teaching and because I had done so much work for clients on their courses, that felt a little less scary to me, the creation part anyway, because I was like, I can create it. I know how to do this. So that was me finding the stuff I knew I was already able to do and going, "Okay, let's play on those strengths."

[00:21:09] Jason: I remember when we were chatting about this, and it immediately as we were going, okay, we need to pivot, what's the next move? Where do we go? And it made me think of Justin Jackson's metaphor for this, which is just so great, which is just like, "You go where the waves are if you want to be a surfer." And so, you don't go and try and make waves happen in a part of the ocean where they aren't happening. And Canva is a place that is making waves. They have invested it so much. Their product has improved so much. And as we were talking through this and you were telling me, "I really like Canva." Because I remember we were going back and forth between Squarespace and Canvas. "Should I focus on Squarespace? Should I focus on Canva?" And I think we both decided, were like, "It feels like Canva is making moves. It feels like there are a lot more people using it." And I really loved that you were coming out of your own shell of telling people like, "I don't feel like I'm a designer qualified to say. I felt like Canva was not really the place that was cool for people to use, but..."

[00:22:01] Caroline: Which I felt the exact same, by the way. Like, my reaction was the same and then I slowly but surely falling in love with it because of the just accessibility of use of it all. Everything's right there and the way that they continue to invest in features...

[00:22:13] Jason: Yeah.

[00:22:13] Caroline: ...because they're making waves.

[00:22:14] Jason: And I just think that seeing those things, like seeing the waves happening there and then you basically grabbing your surf and being like, okay, I'm going to ride the Canva waves. I think that is a really good intuitive decision that you decided on and I think it's easy to see those decisions. But again, these are the inflection points, right? Where it's like you got forced into, "I had a flopped launch of this type of product." You could have decided to go completely separate, but you said like, "No, I see something here I want to stick with. So let me stick with that." So I want to chat about next your journey into making weekly YouTube content around Canva. Because we talk about the content matrix. You have your short form content, you have your long form content, you have your nurture content, you have your find content. We have a whole separate video on our channel if people want to watch and learn more about that. But importantly, you have to pick one foundational content that people can find you for. And so, when we were chatting, you had already written articles before and you're like, "I think I want to do YouTube videos. Is that a good idea?" I think is what you're asking me. And admittedly, we have never had a consistent YouTube channel that has worked as a discovery mechanism through content. I see how this could work. I see how you could make Canva tutorials. I see how you could talk about this. You could become a voice in this space and ride some of those waves. So I'd love for you to just chat more about how you decided to do that, how you got over the difficulty of making them publishing those first videos. Also, I remember when the videos had like 75 views on them. So there was a time when they weren't doing what they're doing right now.

[00:23:39] Caroline: And what do they have now, Jason?

[00:23:40] Jason: I mean, the last video I think you posted is already nearing up to 10,000 views and it was posted like a week ago.

[00:23:45] Caroline: Wild.

[00:23:45] Jason: So there has been some pretty awesome growth in your channel now up to, I think, as of recording this, 20,000 subscribers, half a million views in a year and a half, in a year and a half, which is amazing.

[00:23:55] Wayne: It's insane. But I think that's, talking about the whole kind of being passionate about digital products and stuff. I have always been excited about this whole area of business, but I still regularly, Jason knows, he gets messages from me going I'm getting like 10 people joining my list a day. Like, that's insane to me. And the same for my YouTube videos. I have moments still where I get all goosebumps, where I literally am like, this is crazy. Like, I never genuinely never thought that it would get to this. Like, the snowball effect is real, but I mean, we can come back to that. But I think choosing to do the YouTube videos was a really interesting one because part of it was because of trying to figure out what's next. I knew that I didn't want to use social media as my main focus for attracting and getting audience. I actually really enjoy Instagram and stuff like that. I really genuinely enjoy it. But I know as soon as there is a pressure to deliver on it every single day or every week or whatever, I knew that that would go away. And I also, for so long, I've just not liked the idea of relying on a social media platform for your audience. I know people who have made their entire livings off it. So it's not that I don't think it can work. I just don't like the idea. And truth be told, the longer I spend on social media, the worse it is for my mental health generally. So I want to use it as something I can play with and have fun with, but not something I have to be on all the time. So that I knew I didn't want to do that as my main part, my main search and attract feature. And the thing with YouTube is that I had a lot of the equipment because I had done videos for clients before. I had a decent-ish camera. I had one light, I had a microphone. So again, that was me going, "Okay, well, I know how to plug those in. I can do that." And in all honesty, it was a little bit of a poke at myself because I had spent so long being so nervous about putting myself out there that this was almost my way of going, "Okay, if you're going to put yourself out there, then you're going to put yourself out there, your voice, your face on video, on screens." Like not just articles where you're faceless. Like, it was almost a way of pushing myself to go, "Okay, if you're going to do this, you better do it properly." And so, that was a combination of knowing I could probably do the tech side and also wanting to do something like that. And then the other part was going back to what you were just saying is the Canva thing. I knew that Canva was something people search for on YouTube. So that was a big part of going, okay, those three things together sound like it's something I could do. The difficulty or the fear was that the perfectionism would get in my way, and I wouldn't be able to deliver each week. That was my real fear. Knowing that that sometimes holds me back. I was like, "Are you going to do this?" And then after the second one, you're like, it's not perfect enough. I'll wait two weeks. So I was really worried about that. But like I say, once I started getting going, I think I found that spot of, actually, I can be like myself and be authentic on this and try and have a bit of fun with it. And that's where it started snowballing was like, once I had done the first few videos the first five or 10 videos, it wasn't so scary anymore. I was like, I can do one a week.

[00:27:35] Jason: There was a time early on, I can't remember how many videos it was, but I sent you a screenshot of, and I highlighted green videos, and then I highlighted, I think, one or two red videos. And I just want you to touch on this, because I think this is a really good lesson for people who they can sometimes sabotage their own momentum because they want to go back to what's comfortable, as opposed to living in what can be uncomfortable that's something that's new. So I just wanted you to share that, because I think it's a really helpful lesson for people. Sorry to interrupt the interview, but we've been talking with Wayne about launching, and we wanted to give a little bit of a shout out to a new program that we are releasing called the Calm Launch Formula. This is included with our WAIM Unlimited Un-Boring Coaching Program, and we are doing our first ever live cohort going through this program with you so you can have a Calm Launch of your digital product.

[00:28:22] Caroline: That's right. And if you want to grow a calm business, one that's more predictable, more profitable, more peaceful, our Un-Boring Coaching Program WAIM Unlimited is perfect for you. Our enrollment period opens up on August 26th. So mark your calendars and you can check out more information at wanderingaimfully.com/join.

[00:28:39] Wayne: Well, this goes back to what we were talking about a little earlier about choosing the topic and things like that. Is that when we were talking about it, I was constantly going back to, "But brand design." Because it was completely my safe place. I've been doing it for so long, I knew that there was nothing scary about doing brand design and talking about it. So every time we were talking about what can I do videos or what did I want to do topic-wise, I was like, "Brand design?" And I remember Jason going, "Okay, but how are you going to stand out with brand design on YouTube?" And then when you look at the searches, and it just was very clear that actually there was no way I was going to do that. And so, that was part of it was like I kept wanting to go back to, "Let's go back to the safe place." And with my videos, with those that you highlighted to me was exactly the same thing, like I had those weeks where I was like, "I don't know, is this good enough? I know I'll do one on brand because someone mentioned brand." And I enjoyed them, and they did okay, but nowhere near as well as the other videos on Canva, because by the time I did those, I had already built up enough momentum that the people who had subscribed and the people who were watching wanted to see stuff about Canva.

[00:29:57] Caroline: We talk all the time about bringing joy to your business, and you've touched on it many times that it's important that you like what you're doing. And so, I do think there is this fine line of, you don't want to pigeonhole yourself so far into a niche that you then lose the spark for your business. Right? But I think what's so important about that moment for you is and for anyone out there right now, it is a matter of timing, too, in your business, where you go, "Okay, I have the momentum right now, so let me not do the thing where I'm afraid of being pigeonholed. Let me ride this momentum. It's about knowing as a smart business owner, what moment am I in right now in my business? And you were in this moment where you were making this transition, you were making this pivot, you were trying to get that offer that could be sold reliably in launches. And so, at that moment of your business, I think the advice of let's not go try to find those other waves over there, let's just stay here and try to catch some good ones, I think is good advice.

[00:30:53] Wayne: And that's difficult when you're a multi passionate person and you have a lot of interests. I do have to keep that in check because there are times where I'm like, "Oh, I found a new tool. I want to do like a whole video series on that." And I probably will at some point, but I do have to keep reminding myself it's going the right way at the moment. It really is. It's working. So I will get to that point where I can do that and do something completely different. And I'm hoping that I'll get to that point because it will be fun to do. But for now, this is working. I mean, on a slight tangent, I think one of the things about it's not just that I'm enjoying it, but it's that I found a way of being really open and authentic about what I think about like business and design and stuff like that and incorporate that. So even though I'm talking about Canva, when I talk about sales pages in Canva or those kind of things, I am able to talk to people about this is what I believe about marketing. And so, it's not that I'm just boxed into this is the only topic I can talk around it so that it's more me.

[00:32:01] Jason: I wanted to have you go over the strategy that was put in place for your YouTube channel because I think it's a very effective one and I think you have nailed the execution of it. And I know that in the beginning it maybe felt like, I'm not sure if this is going to work. It's also very simple, but I wanted you to share what that has looked like in the weekly upload. I have a lead magnet. I'm building an email list because I can't necessarily just sell people stuff through YouTube. And you're not making a lot of money on AdSense, I'm guessing in the beginning, as no one is in a new YouTube channel, and even now you probably don't make enough in AdSense even with half a million views total on your channel to pay all of your bills. But I think the strategy would be fun just to share of what has that look like and what has it led to where you are now a year and a half after basically publishing your first video.

[00:32:48] Wayne: I mean, the interesting thing is that the basis was having a really good lead magnet and having a weekly YouTube video and pointing people to my email list. Because again, I knew that I can have a million subscribers on YouTube, but actually I own my list. So that's where I want people. So that's why it's still a bit weird to me because you have whatever it is, 19,000 subscribers on YouTube, but my list is nowhere near that big. It would be great if they were equal, but that's not how it works. But that was the focus, was to do the weekly video, push people to a lead magnet and then have them join my list and nurture them once they're on the list with a weekly newsletter. And that's pretty much been the whole strategy from day one and that's what I'm still sticking to. Interestingly, the current lead magnet is a Canva sales page template. So it's one of the things that I learned while I was creating those initial products that didn't go so well was that people were still interested, they just didn't want to pay what I wanted to charge for it. So I used that and I used the videos that I created as tutorials for those and packaged them as a lead magnet that I really thought was great value. The interesting thing about that is that from my experience with some of my clients, initially, my sort of inclination was like a different lead magnet every week for every video. And I think that was one of the things where Jason said to me, "You don't need to do that." Especially when I had four followers. So it was a really great piece of advice for me to just focus on creating one lead magnet and I thought was really genuinely of value and stick to that for now. And I have created a few as I've gone along, but none of them have done anywhere near what that one has done because they have been quick and short lead magnets that were not really strategically thought through. But that's worked for me really well because I've treated my newsletter a bit like a product. So when I am on my YouTube video, at the end of the videos, I talk about what I add through my newsletter. I talk about what I share and what they'll get and promote it almost like a product if I'm not in a launch period. And that's been helping to just consistently grow my list. Like I say, every day I'm like there are people joining every day. It's crazy.

[00:35:19] Caroline: Yeah, it's like, who would have thought, that was the dream at one point, which I think is so amazing and why we wanted to interview you because you truly, I get chills when I think about the transformation that you've been on. And like I said, going back to my passion, because I see how digital products can change people's lives, can change the freedom they experience, to change the financial security they experience. And so, we're always like, "Oh, what's Wayne up to? Let's look at his videos." But two things I wanted to touch on that you talked about. Number one, I think speaking to the simplicity of the lead magnets, I think this is what you gain from having an enough mindset, which is, of course, yeah, if you had an individual lead magnet for every single video, sure, you could eke out maybe, but more subscribers are the perfect thing, but you would have to manage this very complex ecosystem then of email automations and who wants what, and from personal experience, it becomes complex very quickly. And so, I think when you have that enough mindset, which we talk about often, which is this is working enough, and the simplicity that I'm gaining from just keeping it simple to what's working is giving me then the mind space and the clarity and the calm to be able to effectively execute consistently. So that's a point that I want to point out for people is sometimes you can convince yourself that more is better, and it really isn't always better. So I love that point. And then the second thing is, as you're saying this, I'm reminding myself, sometimes I think we get sort of our strategies end up reading like boring sometimes, which is so funny because we talk about being un-boring in our delivery and in our silliness and all of that, but we talk about the balance of boring and un-boring. Boring being you use these words like online course and email list and lead magnet and YouTube, long form YouTube videos. And I think sometimes people, especially in this day and age, start to go, those tactics are like so 10 years ago, that's what worked back then, that doesn't work now. And I'm like, no, no, no. It absolutely still works for those of us who maybe, like you were saying, want to use social media for fun, do not want to be out there doing short form content all the time. I just want to point out that these things still really do work, if you bring your authentic self to the table, if you play in a sandbox where people are interested in your content, if you work really hard to deliver value, you know what your value proposition is of what problem you're solving. If you have all these foundational elements, it really can still be that simple and work.

[00:37:52] Wayne: Yeah. And you know what? They have changed. Like I've seen it through the clients that I've been working for like five years ago, their courses what they were selling and the prices they were selling at and how they were selling at is very different to now because the audience has matured and become more aware of that. But I do think I am still, in fact, probably even more now, I am a believer in email marketing as one of the most, I don't know, just the most successful and the best ways to sell digital products and digital courses, because I know it's not a quick kind of, "Hey, I can put an advert out and get 50 sales in one day or whatever." But it does require nurturing, and it is a bit of more of a long-term strategy, but without a doubt, it's felt so much more manageable. And that was the thing with you talking about the multiple lead magnets thing. And I knew that for a while, there's no way I was going to be able to afford to get someone to help me with this business. And I also knew that I was having to cut costs as I was still building it, and money was getting tight. And so, I had to be sure that I could manage doing this, that it wasn't going to be something that I either felt out of control of or that I was worried about, that I had to quickly hire people to do it. And so, that kind of helped to know that actually I've got that lead magnet, but I don't have to worry about creating that every week.

[00:39:15] Jason: You said boring. I like to call it simple so that we sound like we, maybe are a little bit...

[00:39:19] Caroline: Boring and un-boring.

[00:39:20] Jason: ...better than being boring. But I agree. Right? These very simple things still work very well. And I think you're such a great case study, Wayne, which is why we want to chat about this. And I would like to jump ahead a little bit in the story to your most recent launch of your Canva course. So you went from the Canva sales page templates that didn't sell very much, but turned them into a lead magnet, which is a great strategy to reuse the work that you already did and have it become a way to generate new people on your email list. But this recent launch that you did, which did $30,000 in sales, and I remember you setting your low and high goals, and neither of those were a $30,000 launch, which was absolutely fantastic. But I just wanted you to share how you got to that place and what that felt like that this launch is way calmer than any previous launch that I think maybe you've ever had. And so, just to share what that has been like and how that has changed for your business.

[00:40:13] Wayne: Yeah, I mean, so this was the third launch of my course. And I think the big difference really, in terms of why it was so much more successful was because the consistent videos every week and nurturing of my newsletter and that kind of thing means that my list had grown, had doubled from the second launch to the third launch. Like that snowball effect had started to happen. And so, that makes a big difference. Just in terms of a pure numbers game, it makes a big difference. And the launch was very much the exact same process that I'd followed in the other two, which was having a two week launch window, one week of early bird pricing, and then the second week of full pricing, an email series that went out over those two weeks. And it was the exact same thing that I followed in the other two. I think because I'd done it before, I had some of the assets to reuse, like some of the emails. I was like, I just need to tweak this email. I don't have to rewrite the entire series from scratch. And so, it felt so much more manageable leading up to this launch. The second launch it had grown since the first launch in terms of sales, but it gave me a little more breathing room, money-wise even, for me to go, "Okay, I can wait a couple of months. I don't have to do it every month and try and push it." And so, this one I was like, "Okay, this one will do. Okay, I think." But it felt so much more, like I say, manageable. And I will not lie, there is always nerves.

[00:41:38] Caroline: Of course.

[00:41:38] Wayne: And you send the first email out and you're like, "Oh, my God, it's been two hours. Nobody's bought anything."

[00:41:43] Caroline: Yup.

[00:41:44] Wayne: There is always going to be that, I think, but I realized even from the first and second launches, I realized that actually following this process and feeling like, "Okay, I know what I'm doing for the next two weeks, actually made it fun." Like I said to Jason, I've sent Jason a message going, "Am I weird that I'm excited about a launch? Is this what people are? People excited about launches? Like what?" And then, of course, as soon as I sent the first email, Jason also gets a message going, "Oh, my God, everybody hates it. So swings around about. But, yeah, it did. It felt very manageable. And the nice thing is that as the launch went on, people were emailing me, asking me questions and that kind of thing, and I felt like I had the time and headspace to respond and to go back to them and talk to them and just be very human about it. And yeah, and it just, the launch went on and the numbers came in and I got to a point where I was like, I am actually too scared to look at what the numbers are. So I literally was filing any email notifications about purchases through Teachery and not looking at it. My partner was like, "Where are you at now?" I was like, "Don't know." I know I saw it hit 20, and then I stopped looking. But it was incredible. Like that feeling of getting to the point where I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to hit my normal goal." I had a normal goal and a high goal, but I was like, "I'm going to hit my normal goal. I'm really excited about this." And then two days later, I was like, I think I've had more. And it was just genuinely, it's such an incredible feeling because you spent a long time for me, anyway, it's been two years building this to a point where I felt confident in it, and it was just exciting to go, "Oh, my God, it feels like when I come out of this launch, I don't have to go, "Okay, this has done enough to keep me going for two weeks, but then I got to find a client or something." Because I think that's what I've struggled with is getting my mindset out of the client thing because every time money is a bit short, I immediately am like, I probably need to find a client. And this is what this launch has done is it's got me to a place where I'm like, "Wait, this actually can keep me going for the next five months." That makes me feel like I'm a real content creator, a real course creator, because I can actually say I have nothing to focus on apart from this business now, for the next month or couple of months, and that's a really exciting place to be.

[00:44:18] Caroline: Again, that's why I just think your story is so emblematic because it's what we try to tell people is especially those business owners who are making that pivot from clients to digital products, it is this long, patient journey where you do have to do that, what we call straddling strategist. You have to play both worlds for a little while. And I think it's one of the hardest pivots that you can make in business because what it takes in order to have a successful digital products business is an audience and is a lot of effort. And so, having to do that while you're still playing in the questioning of should I go get clients to like bridge the gap and all of that, it's really difficult. But you are proof that if you take action, you have the strategy, you focus on consistency, you be yourself, you bring authenticity, you focus on the fundamentals. And this is why I'm so just now passionate about us talking about this repeatable launch formula that we're trying to get people to really focus on because of exactly what you just described, which is by the time you come around to the third launch, you don't have to rewrite every sales email. You don't have to redo every aspect of the sales page. You tweak and you change and you optimize over time, but then you get this feeling of entering into a launch, feeling confident, feeling in control, and dare I say, having fun and that's the benefit of doing something repeatedly.

[00:45:45] Wayne: In launch two, I added a new email in the series where I was like, "Okay, a few people have said this, so I'm going to write an email about that and like touching on what people had said they had experienced or what they felt about." And I wrote it, and it was a complete dud. I got one really annoyed person who had taken huge offense to it. And the sales, I think there were no sales on that day from that email. And it was really interesting to me because obviously my first reaction was like, "Oh, crap, that's not good. Like, I've really messed that one up." But then it was really interesting because I very quickly was like, "Okay, that one doesn't work."

[00:46:24] Caroline: Exactly. It's the experimenting thing.

[00:46:25] Wayne: Like it wasn't, "Oh my God, it's the end of the world."

[00:46:27] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:46:27] Wayne: It was like that one doesn't work.

[00:46:28] Caroline: That one didn't work.

[00:46:29] Wayne: So that one's not going in next time.

[00:46:30] Jason: I love just hearing you talk about how you felt in this most recent launch. And obviously the financial success is wonderful, but I think it's such a great illustration. We've talked about this a couple of times, but it's the experimenter's mindset in action. So you're seeing it from the first launch to the second launch, to writing different emails to making different tweaks to seeing them work or not work and just knowing that that's an entire part of running a business is making those decisions and making those changes. And I think the other thing that's really helpful for anyone listening to this who's like, "I don't want to send the same sales emails. I don't want to send people to the same sales page." That is literally making more work for yourself than you need, especially if your audience is growing. So that was the conversation that we had, too, was like, you have twice the amount of people on your email list who never saw those sales emails. And also, we all get similar sales emails from people constantly and none of us are angry about it. So it is a smart business move to reuse previous work that you've already done in as many ways as possible. And then when things stop working or if you try something and you're not getting any sales that day or anything else, then you pivot, then you make a change. But I think you continue to use the same thing over. We had the same sales page for four and a half years, and this will be the first enrollment period upcoming that we have changed our sales page. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit nervous because I'm like, "Wait, are we making a mistake? That sales page made us almost $2 million. Is this dumb to change it?" But there are a ton of people in our audience who have never seen that sales page. And also, for us, we're at the point where it's like, "Okay, four and a half years, it feels like it's time to refresh it and to have it be more akin to our brand.

[00:48:00] Wayne: I think one of the great things about the way that I've been able to approach it, and actually it was very intentional. The way that I wanted to approach this business was to be very upfront with people and very honest with people and not try and manipulate people into buying and all that kind of thing. I mean, you know this because this is why we get on. But being able to be like that gave me more confidence in my emails as well because it felt, I mean, it still feels terrifying to me that for my last launch, I sent like eight emails over 14 days. I was like, "Are you insane? Every second day, people will hate me." Like, the first launch, I was like, "There's no way. I can't believe I'm doing this." Second launch, I was like, "Okay, we'll see." This last launch, I was like, "Send the emails." But I also know that I give people a way to opt out, which again, I like, put it right up front, not in the bottom, hidden away. I put it right up front which I learned from you guys. And it also, the way that I do it, I am perfectly confident that if somebody says to me, I've got like nine emails from you in the last two weeks, what's going on? I am completely confident that I can say I totally get it, but this is why I do this. I do it because this period allows me to create the rest of the free content. And I feel so confident being able to have that discussion with someone without feeling like, "Oh, no, I've pissed them off." Because I've been very upfront about it and very honest about even the early bird pricing and stuff. I'm very honest with people. I don't say, "Oh, never going to be a discount again." Because they will. But I am very comfortable saying to people, this is why I do it, because it builds excitement. It gives me a chance to really get people on board with this. I add some special things. I'm just really honest about it. And that was very important to me, is I didn't want to be the snake oil salesman, and I didn't want to be one of those people who's like, "Hey, limited time webinar." And then you discover that it's there all the time anyway. Like, I really hate that.

[00:49:57] Caroline: We're the same way, which is sales is so much less scary when it's coming from this place of real integrity where you go, "Okay, I'm not going to pretend that I'm not selling something, we're all not under some pretense about what's happening here." Because then that feels icky. But on the same token, there are things that I can choose to not deploy, and I can make sure that if I am introducing some element of urgency when I'm using an early bird this or that, I'm being honest about what that window is like and why I'm doing it. And I think that's comforting to some folks who maybe sales really scares them and maybe that is holding them back from going down this digital product path. But there's a way to do it where, trust me, A, you get more comfortable with it over time. Like you said about sending them more emails when you realize everyone doesn't hate you. And I think it is actually important to get those one or two or handful of emails of angry people because you realize you don't die when you get those emails. It feels crappy. And the earlier you are in your journey, I remember very vividly the time of like I'm an awful person goes from a day to a few hours to then you just go, "Okay, first of all, the tone that they were taking with me is not nice, so right back at you." And then you just realize it's not actually about me and it's going to happen. Like, I still remember, I still remember for a $20 course on hand lettering an email I got that said something along the lines of, "This is like absolutely not the value is worth it." And I said, "Ma'am..."

[00:51:30] Jason: "$20?"

[00:51:30] Caroline: "You're not going to convince me this wasn't worth $20."

[00:51:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:51:32] Caroline: I already way undercut the price. But so yeah, you have to go through some of that fire in order to build up that armor a little bit. And I think it's really important. But I think you are proof that you can sell in a way that's authentic.

[00:51:45] Jason: Watching closely your business evolve over the years, I have seen that you have a much more calm business, which is the thing that we talk about all the time. And that you have gone from fighting through perfectionism, fighting through getting to the last day of doing something, feeling the stress and the pressure of, okay, this launch has to do this or whatever to now, I think you have a lot more breathing room, and I just wonder if you wanted to share how that feels because I know that that wasn't the reality just a year and a half ago. It was a very different feeling. And now you're in a place where you have a lot more optionality. You have a lot more things at your disposal that you can try and experiment with, and you can go in different directions now because you have some financial leverage. But you do also have to keep being consistent with your content. You do have to obviously do another launch upcoming to keep the money coming in the door, but it doesn't have to feel as stress filled as it did before.

[00:52:34] Wayne: Yeah. And I think it absolutely is like a journey because, I mean, I just think if you've never done it before, it's going to be terrifying the first time you've done it. I don't see how it's not going to be, but I do think that it gets easier. And I think having a system that makes it feel manageable also then takes away that anxiety. For someone who is regularly riddled with anxiety, having a system that I'm like, I actually know what I'm doing means that that isn't an additional thing playing on my mind during a launch because I'm going to be nervous about the launch. I'm going to be wondering how well it's going to do. But I don't have to wonder like, "Oh, my God, what do I write? What do I say? What do I do?" Because now I know, I have a system that I can follow and I can experiment and try things, but I genuinely know that it works. And I think what it's given me is just a confidence in I can launch, and I can launch this again. But I also now feel like when the time comes and I've created another product, I actually feel really confident that I can do another launch and another plan for it, and I can do it. I just feel like this has given me that confidence because I've seen it slowly work and grow to this point. And yeah, the financial thing was a big thing for me because over a year and a half, I literally watched my savings dwindle as I was doing this because I was really committed to like I had to do this. I didn't want to put this on hold for a few months to go back to client work because I knew that would be dangerous for me. That was a scary thing. But each launch gave me a little bit more leeway. And like I say, this launch, that was one of the biggest feelings for me was just like, "Wait, I have space. I can breathe for a few months."

[00:54:25] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:54:25] Wayne: That immediately then made me really excited about, "Oh, my God, for the next few months, I can focus on this. This business, like now my focus right now is trying to refine some of my systems and things because I know they're not as good as they could be, or I'd like them to be. And it's just great to have that headspace and feeling like I have the space to be excited over the next few months to get things in place and to try things. And that's a great feeling. Just like I say, it's that feeling of space.

[00:54:58] Caroline: And that's what I want for everyone. That space, that breathing room. And it's like, that's what we all, maybe not all of us, but I think a good amount of us get into this independent creator business in the first place because that is the ultimate freedom is like being able to wake up and decide what you want to work on and be in control of your financial future and to take care of your mental health and to enjoy life, like all those things. And I just think, I've said it so many times, but I think your story is so, just such a perfect example of what you can accomplish when you commit to it. When you do the scary thing and you do it scared, right? Is like, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to commit to just doing it anyway. And also good on YouTube for recognizing that about yourself, about I need some support in order to really, I haven't done it in the past. I've known what I needed to do, but maybe I just didn't have that extra fire and push to do it. So good on you for recognizing that. And I just think I'm so, I hope it doesn't come off in any type of way, but I'm so proud of you. Like, I'm just very proud of you.

[00:56:05] Wayne: Oh, that means a lot because you guys have been, your resources and things have been there for me for ages. And like I say, like everything else, I had access to them for a long time. I didn't do anything with them for a long time. So again, it comes down to you can have all the stuff there, but you have to take that action. And the other thing for me has been the consistency. Like having that accountability and once you get going, it's easier, but knowing that I have to do that email and that video every week. And I mean, there have been weeks I've missed and skipped and stuff, so no one's died, but over the last two years consistently I've done a weekly email and a weekly video. And in the beginning, it was a bit like, "Okay, well, it's growing a bit, that had seven views instead of six." But then it very quickly adds up because that consistency gets that snowball effect is so real. Like, there comes a point where I was just like, "Wait, I've gone from like four people a day joining my list to 12." Like, that suddenly felt like a huge jump like in a couple of weeks. And that's what the consistency does, I think, is it just builds that up to a place where the stuff you've already created is getting eyes as well as the new thing. And that's where it starts to snowball.

[00:57:25] Jason: We see this so often because we have now 1,500 plus people have come through Wandering Aimfully as members. And we have watched so many people, they can get started, which is great, and we love that we can help people get started, but so few people stick with it long enough to hit the snowball effect. And I think that the unfortunate part of the digital products world is that people are sold a bill of goods, that you can do it overnight and in 30 days you can have $100,000 and you can have your course and have your audience and all this stuff. And like I have just never seen it happen for us personally. And I consider us to be pretty smart, hardworking, action taking, experiment loving people, and it does not work that quickly. And as Caroline said you're such a good example of, I think, the reality of, okay, it might take a year and a half for you to get to a place where you can make a product that has a $30,000 launch. However, while we know that's not going to solve all of your financial woes and it's not going to set you up forever, what it has done is it has created a new normal for what your business looks like and what is possible.

[00:58:29] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:29] Jason: And I think we've talked about this, I think it was a year ago, I told you, like October of 2024. I was like, I think you're probably going to have like a $50,000 launch of your product. And I called it way ahead of you even having the growth that you're having, because I could just see it in the consistency on YouTube with you hitting a niche, you finding those waves, you riding those waves with building a product that people actually said that they wanted to learn from you because I know that you were a little bit hesitant to build your Canva course, but you have moved past all those things and this has set yourself up for years of building a great, profitable business. And so, I just hope people listening to this, they might hear what you're saying and what we're saying as keep going, keep looking for those little inflection points, those little moments that are showing you, you're in the right place, you're on the right path, or you're not, and you need to move. You need to find the waves that are currently going so you can surf better waves. And you need to be able to be okay with the fact that it's going to take six months or 12 months or 18 months to get to that spot. And that's difficult. It's difficult for all of us, no matter where we are. But you can get there, and consistency is going to be the thing that does that and action taking and experimentation.

[00:59:35] Caroline: And I always say would you rather have the million-dollar, 30-day overnight dream or would you rather have the year and a half, $30,000 launch reality?

[00:59:44] Jason: Yeah.

[00:59:45] Caroline: Because one of those two things is probable and one of them is not probable.

[00:59:49] Wayne: The other thing is that having, like I say, the experience of working with clients who are selling courses online for years, I obviously won't mention names, but I have seen clients and people I just know do $300,000 launches and everyone's like, "Oh, my God, that's incredible. Their first course, they've done that." But they're paying 60,000 of that to the team. They're paying 100,000 of that to the Facebook ads that have gone out every day. So I know it works. Like, you can do that because at the end of the day, they're still ending up with a lot of money. But I also, from that, I was, all of those launches, I came away thinking, launches are stressful. Wow, this is so much to juggle, and really just so stressful. And that's why this way of doing it, I'm like, sure, if I want to experiment with Facebook ads or something one day, great, I will. But the way I'm doing it now feels so much more manageable to me, and so, much calmer. And that's kind of what I want. I think that that, for me, feels more like what will work for me than chaotic launches that I do and then can never do that again because it's oversaturated, oversold, whatever.

[01:01:03] Caroline: Launching does not have to be pressure filled. It doesn't have to be so complex. You don't have to hire a big team. There are plenty of people who can definitely go that route. I just want people to know that there is this alternative and it works for people.

[01:01:15] Jason: Also. It's really fun to read these big launch emails, but you really don't hear the full story of how much was spent on ads, how much was spent on the team, how much your mental health degraded because you were stressing yourself out, doing all of it and running all of it. And getting to a place afterwards where it's like if someone offered you $50,000 less, but it was no stress at all, I think you take that deal and that just gets left out of those stories quite often. Share with us what's next for you, what does the next immediate journey look like for you? And where do you see yourself maybe a year from now in this business?

[01:01:45] Wayne: I mean, the next sort of focus for me really is, again, having this space is to uplevel and sort out the things in my business that are not working quite the way I want them to be, even just simple things like systems and processes. And that's, like I say, that's one of the things that this launch has given me, is the space to go, I can spend a week focusing on my processes or my setup or my filing, and that's a great place to be for me because it feels like that's then setting me up to be more efficient and to feel more in control for the launches going forward. My next focus in the business is to try and see if I can experiment with getting in evergreen funnel setup so that I can do launches but not need to worry about doing them as regularly. And so, that'll be an experiment again to see if that works for my audience and for the product, which we'll see. But again, it's nice to feel like I can try that without it feeling like it's a panic if it doesn't work. So that's my real focus is to just make everything work a bit better and to continue upleveling my content as well. So I want to expand creating content a little bit more and try and do some more short form stuff again as an experiment and to have some fun with it. But ultimately, I know what my foundation is every week, and that's still the main focus for what I'm doing.

[01:03:10] Caroline: And where can people find you if they're interested in Canva, if they're interested in brand design, if they're interested in all things?

[01:03:15] Jason: They should definitely subscribe on YouTube somewhere so we can get that subscriber count going.

[01:03:19] Caroline: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:19] Wayne: Indeed. Yeah. You can find me pretty much everywhere under Created by Wayne. So my YouTube channel is called Created by Wayne. My Instagram is createdbywayne, and my website is createdbywayne.com, so they can find me there.