239 - Spring 2025 Launch Recap (lower sales, big lessons, and future shifts)

[0:00:06] 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.

[0:00:30] Jason: All right. Cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show. Welcome back to the podcast. Hello. Here we are. We are recording in our brand-new office.

[0:00:43] Caroline: New office.

[0:00:45] Jason: That was the primary bedroom of this house that we moved three doors down, and if you listened to last week's episode.

[0:00:51] Caroline: Great job.

[0:00:51] Jason: And it's pretty much set up. We got it done, all the things.

[0:00:55] Caroline: I can't believe we got it done. All credit to you.

[0:00:59] Jason: We're going to share a photo of it somewhere. Where are we going to share a photo of it? Maybe on Instagram?

[0:01:05] Caroline: We'll be back on Instagram in the next few weeks. So...

[0:01:08] Jason: How about this?

[0:01:08] Caroline: What?

[0:01:09] Jason: We'll put it on the now page on our wanderingaimfully.com/now.

[0:01:13] Caroline: Okay.

[0:01:13] Jason: We'll put a little photo of the studio finished so you can see it. Because it's very cute and...

[0:01:21] Caroline: Yeah, and you're very proud of it.

[0:01:22] Jason: Yeah. I mean, I just think it looks... It's very fun. It's very awesome. Will you fix that little thread that's just pointing up in the wrong direction? Yeah, that was bothering everybody. But yeah, we found this cute little couch. We got a nice little bookshelf. We got some fun art on the walls. We put a blanket on the wall from tropical Scandinavia. Such a cool spot.

[0:01:38] Caroline: I just think it's very cute that you go through these phases where you don't care about interior design whatsoever.

[0:01:44] Jason: Yeah.

[0:01:44] Caroline: And then you just get like a little burr in your butt, and you just are like so into it and you love designing it and...

[0:01:50] Jason: Yeah. And also...

[0:01:51] Caroline: And you love a mood board.

[0:01:52] Jason: It feels very us. Like it's very eclectic. It's very funky.

[0:01:56] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:01:56] Jason: I think when we send it to people, they probably feel like it's for a children's room, but I think we're just two big kids.

[0:01:59] Caroline: Which is kind of our vibe. We are two big kids.

[0:02:02] Jason: Yeah.

[0:02:02] Caroline: And we embrace that. And life these days is way too stressful to not just like, find joy wherever you can.

[0:02:09] Jason: Yeah. But I'm...

[0:02:10] Caroline: Hang a blanket on the wall.

[0:02:11] Jason: I know there are some of you who listen and you very much care about the audio quality here.

[0:02:16] Caroline: Uh-huh. Are you talking to yourself?

[0:02:17] Jason: So I'm curious how you all, there's a lot of you who care so much, and I get so many messages from people. They're like, "Oh, the decibel level is a little bit off, and the frequency felt a little bit chirpy."

[0:02:28] Caroline: Right.

[0:02:28] Jason: So you'll have to let me know how you feel. But just in talking right now, there is a little bit of an echo. But there was a little bit of an echo in our previous spot.

[0:02:35] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:02:35] Jason: And I think it's going to be okay. I think these mics are going to do a good job.

[0:02:36] Caroline: I think it's going to be okay.

[0:02:37] Jason: Yeah. Okay.

[0:02:38] Caroline: I don't think it's going to be unlistenable by any stretch of the imagination.

[0:02:42] Jason: So if you do want to see what this office setup looks like, again, go to wanderingaimfully.com/now. I will try to remember to put a link to that.

[0:02:48] Caroline: I need an update right now. Don't I?

[0:02:49] Jason: In the show notes from 2023. Yes, you do. And we will have a photo posted there when this episode goes up as of recording this tomorrow.

[0:02:58] Caroline: Okay. More preamble tops before we get into the launch recap because I know you, once again, nosy nellies, you tune into this podcast because you're like, "That Jason and Caroline..."

[0:03:06] Jason: Give me a launch recap.

[0:03:07] Caroline: ..."they can't help it. They have to share all the behind the scenes of their business. And I'm a nosy nelly and I like to know what's going on."

[0:03:12] Jason: Yeah.

[0:03:12] Caroline: But first we must do pramble tops. The biggest pramble chop is thank you so much for listening to last episode and for all of you who reach out to me on Instagram or sent us emails.

[0:03:21] Jason: Which we haven't even posted on Instagram yet.

[0:03:22] Caroline: No. But I still got DMS in my personal account. People were like, "Oh, my gosh. I just listened to the podcast." And it made me so excited. I still have yet to announce on Instagram. I don't really know what's holding me back. I think it's the last genie out of the bottle.

[0:03:34] Jason: Yeah.

[0:03:35] Caroline: And I want to be in a place like, energetically and mentally where I know that people are going to...

[0:03:40] Jason: Respond.

[0:03:41] Caroline: Respond. And so, I want to be able to respond to their responses. So I think I'm dragging my feet on that.

[0:03:45] Jason: Well, we have nearly a hundred emails that are unresponded to as well.

[0:03:47] Caroline: I'm going to get through those as well.

[0:03:49] Jason: Boy, you want to drum up some attention? Just get pregnant, you know?

[0:03:53] Caroline: And that is the crux of family vloggers. I think actually their...

[0:03:55] Jason: Yes, 100%.

[0:03:58] Caroline: Children as content is a real ethical problem.

[0:04:02] Jason: Gosh, I can't wait to just get some sponsors for our child and...

[0:04:05] Caroline: Oh, God. No, no, no, no, no, no.

[0:04:09] Jason: I'm not...

[0:04:10] Caroline: He's just kidding. He's just kidding. I have very deep feelings about that. But so just want to say thank you. And it feels like, again, such a relief that I can just like, ramble on about the real time things that are happening. I did have a third thing. What was the third thing? It was... I forgot it.

[0:04:27] Jason: Also, not good to podcast and cover your mouth, just a little quick tip.

[0:04:29] Caroline: Well, I didn't want people to hear the whole thing. I forgot.

[0:04:31] Jason: Okay. Yeah.

[0:04:32] Caroline: So it's fine.

[0:04:32] Jason: Well, yes. Thank you so much for all the kindness and the loving support. And I know everyone says this to everybody who's pregnant, but wow. So many people have said we're going to be great parents, and I don't know if that's setting us up for failure because now, we have a high bar to stand.

[0:04:45] Caroline: That's just something you say, right?

[0:04:46] Jason: I was just planning on being a mediocre parent.

[0:04:48] Caroline: Me too. I was like...

[0:04:49] Jason: And then all these people are like, "You guys are going to be the best parents." I'm like, "Oh, wait, I didn't even... That wasn't in my lexicon."

[0:04:53] Caroline: We got to try really hard.

[0:04:54] Jason: Yeah. I mean, I guess.

[0:04:56] Caroline: Okay. Let's step it up. Okay.

[0:04:56] Jason: We'll just... Yeah. All right. Let's get into this launch recap. And a part of this launch recap, I think we're going to share with you just some of the shifts that we are making in our business here in 2025.

[0:05:07] Caroline: I thought I might...

[0:05:08] Jason: Okay.

[0:05:10] Caroline: It's so stupid, but you know when you think of something and you're like...

[0:05:13] Jason: Go ahead, hurry up.

[0:05:14] Caroline: I really like waking up early.

[0:05:16] Jason: Oh, fantastic. Yeah.

[0:05:18] Caroline: I am not a wake-up early person, but I think just being pregnant, I go to bed earlier and then like, I pee so much.

[0:05:25] Jason: And you nap.

[0:05:26] Caroline: And I nap. Yeah. So I just get enough sleep and then I wake up. I woke up at 6:15-ish. I woke up before you.

[0:05:33] Jason: Yeah.

[0:05:33] Caroline: And then you got up to go make coffee. And then I got up and I told you I accomplished so much. And it was 10:00, I like...

[0:05:40] Jason: And you thought it was lunchtime.

[0:05:41] Caroline: I thought it was lunchtime. And again, not to be one of those people whose like, the 4:00 AM club people are onto something. I'm not ever going to be that person. But there is a part of me that is very much enjoying this shift in my clock.

[0:05:54] Jason: Yeah.

[0:05:54] Caroline: And because also, my brain only functions until about 2:00 PM.

[0:05:59] Jason: Right.

[0:05:59] Caroline: So I just like, I'm on the train. I'm a 6:00...

[0:06:03] Jason: Let's see how long this lasts, everybody.

[0:06:05] Caroline: I'm a 6:00 hour girl now, for the time being.

[0:06:08] Jason: Yeah. For March.

[0:06:10] Caroline: For March. And I'm just going to see how that goes. Okay.

[0:06:13] Jason: Let's check back in in April.

[0:06:13] Caroline: That was a dumb pramble top, but I just had to let everyone know because it came to my mind. Kick off the real episode again.

[0:06:20] Jason: Here's my recap of the thing that I just said, which was, now let's get into the launch recap. And also, as a part of that, we will be talking about some of the shifts that we are making in our business in 2025, leading into 2026. And you might be thinking, wow, shifts already? It's just March, like what's going on?

[0:06:36] Caroline: Everything.

[0:06:36] Jason: And obviously when you get pregnant and you know that you have some pending time that you're going to take off of the business, which we will talk about. Again, we're going to do a full episode for our...

[0:06:47] Caroline: Parental leave plan.

[0:06:48] Jason: Parental leave plan.

[0:06:48] Caroline: How we're preparing the business to like take time off.

[0:06:50] Jason: And we'll share a little bit here, but there'll be a full episode dedicated to how we're doing that. And then we'll also just like, as we go before that time, you'll listen in as how we're preparing for that. So it won't just be like one episode in three months, we're like, "All right, here's our plan." And then we're gone. We're going to share that along the way.

[0:07:06] Caroline: Exactly.

[0:07:07] Jason: Okay.

[0:07:08] Caroline: Launch overview.

[0:07:09] Jason: Let's do it. So just to give you the like high-level stuff, it's the WAIM Unlimited is our core program. We had the same $2,800 price with two payment plan options, $100 a month or $400 a month.

[0:07:23] Caroline: And just to clue people on who maybe are not fully aware, WAIM Unlimited is a lifetime program.

[0:07:29] Jason: Right.

[0:07:30] Caroline: So that's partially why it's $2,800 is once you stop paying, you still get everything we create in the future.

[0:07:36] Jason: Yeah.

[0:07:36] Caroline: And so, it is a coaching program, and you get tons of other things.

[0:07:42] Jason: So listen, they know, they've been listening. That's fine, that's fine.

[0:07:43] Caroline: They know. They've been listening. Yes, yes.

[0:07:45] Jason: But the thing...

[0:07:45] Caroline: I wanted to contrast it with the other option that we offer.

[0:07:48] Jason: Yes. So the end of the Fall launch last year, we sent a survey. We always send a survey after a launch. We recommend that everyone does this after launching. It is one of the core ways you learn about your launch and how it goes. And we asked people, if we were to do a six-month group coaching option, again, which we had in 2020 when this all started, would you be interested? And we had about 100 people that basically selected and said like, "Yeah, I would be interested."

[0:08:11] Caroline: And so, the idea here is it's a $600 program, not a lifetime program. $100 a month for six months. You get the live coaching, you get a little roadmap, and you get an intro into the WAIM Unlimited world.

[0:08:24] Jason: Yeah.

[0:08:24] Caroline: But not everything that WAIM Unlimited offers. And this was really tailored more towards people beginning their businesses. It's not quite such a hefty investment right off the bat. You can see if you like our coaching style, if you keep up with it, et cetera. That was the hypothesis.

[0:08:37] Jason: I think now looking back, I think what we should have probably done is maybe made that like $50 a month, because really contrasting it with $100 a month for WAIM Unlimited or $100 a month for coaching. I would probably tell someone now looking back, they should be different prices because they feel the same. Even though one ends after six months, and one keeps going. And again, this is all stuff that's just like, well, we did it this way before, so let's just do that same way. But now in hindsight I feel like it would have been more of an enticing offer to price a little bit lower.

[0:09:06] Caroline: Maybe. But also, again, we were like, we put ourselves a little bit in this position. And this is, this is the position you put yourself in when you are trying to target two different audiences.

[0:09:18] Jason: Yeah.

[0:09:18] Caroline: A beginner audience and an intermediate audience is we were putting ourselves in the position where we didn't want to cannibalize our true product. Our true kind of like chef's kiss offer being WAIM Unlimited and our ideal customer being someone who's a little bit further along in their journey. But we just, we know that a lot of people that do end up in our newsletter audience and things like that are beginners.

[0:09:42] Jason: Right.

[0:09:42] Caroline: So we were trying to serve two audiences. We knew that going into it, we were just doing a little experiment and seeing what would happen.

[0:09:51] Jason: Yeah. Also don't try and serve two audiences. We continue to give this advice to everybody else, but we don't take it ourselves because we just like doing things the hard way. And then important to talk about the circumstances leading up to this launch, which was obviously we were in the first trimester of pregnancy, and we had to be okay with so much less capacity.

[0:10:13] Caroline: Yes. Just to give you a behind the scenes. Yes, partially, like some of you might have been like, why are you doing a launch in February? Like you guys don't normally do that. And part of it was the fact that we had to scoot up our Fall launch of last year. So that was truthful that we needed to bridge that gap. But it was more like we did a big planning meeting as soon as we knew we were pregnant of what the year was going to look like.

[0:10:38] Jason: Like, January 3rd.

[0:10:39] Caroline: And the baby is due in fall, and so we're not going to be launching in the fall.

[0:10:44] Jason: Exactly.

[0:10:45] Caroline: Oh, we have a newborn. That is not a recipe for a calm creator business.

[0:10:48] Jason: Yeah. And we don't want to be launching right before. So let's say our due date is September 1st. Well, we're not going to launch after that.

[0:10:55] Caroline: Yup.

[0:10:56] Jason: We didn't want to launch in August because it just is a tough time. And also, we don't want to be launching while you're any day could be giving birth.

[0:11:02] Caroline: Yeah. So we had to get creative with a few things. And so, February felt very soon for us to do a launch. Didn't give us a lot of time. Then we had no idea what you hear about first trimester, but you just don't know until you experience it. And again, even though mine was relatively, I would say, easy compared to what some people go through, your capacity is so much less. Your brain, you have brain fog and fatigue. And the only thing I could really work on was the thing that we had already promised WAIMers that we were going to do, which was this WAIM of Stone's accountability app that became my sole focus and project. So I say all of that to just, again, you listen to this podcast because we're two real people who don't pretend like we are some conglomerate empire of a business. Like we're just two people who want to run a business that suits our lives.

[0:11:55] Jason: Yeah.

[0:11:55] Caroline: And that was what was going on in our lives.

[0:11:57] Jason: Yeah. And life gets in the way of your perfectly laid plans. And so, this is why if you listen to this podcast for any amount of time, you will hear us talk about this all the time. And it's to try to be relatable to you and your life that you can create a great plan, and you can buy a roadmap from someone in a blueprint and like, okay, I'm going to start my Etsy Empire and I'm going to make $100,000 in sales in the next six months. But then you have like a family member die and then you can't do any of it.

[0:12:22] Caroline: You're like, she didn't mention how to accomplish all these tasks while in the first trimester of pregnancy.

[0:12:28] Jason: Yeah, exactly. And so, I think all that to just give a preface to this launch. And we knew that this would be different. So Caroline did a really good job of as we would talk about the launch, like the weeks leading up, like we didn't have a lead up series and we always talk about premarketing as like the number one thing you need to do before a launch. And we just...

[0:12:46] Caroline: Spoiler alert. You will see that not having a pre-launch series really does affect your bottom line. Period.

[0:12:52] Jason: Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Normally we think about rewriting all of our sales emails just because we like them to be fresh and new and interesting. And we probably only did two to three of those. And also, we ended up moving our home in the middle of the launch. So it just gave us...

[0:13:07] Caroline: Was out of our control.

[0:13:08] Jason: ...a lot less capacity. So all of those circumstances, it led to you reframing the launch as this is a mini launch.

[0:13:15] Caroline: I kept telling Jason, I'm like, oh... He would be like, "Oh, we need to do such and such for the launch." I'm like, "Oh, you mean the mini launch?" He's like, "What?" I'm like, "No, the mini launch. We're doing a mini launch." He's like, "We're doing nothing different than our..." I was like, "Yeah, but it's a mini launch." And that's just my like fun tongue-and-cheek way of setting my own expectations. Like, you cannot like be... The point I'm trying to make is be aware of what effort you're able to put towards a launch. Don't be delusional about, oh, I'm going to put in half the effort that I might normally and I'm going to get double the results. That's not how that works.

[0:13:50] Jason: Yeah.

[0:13:50] Caroline: So you have to reset your expectations and be okay with that. Like, not every launch is going to be the best launch you've ever had. That's just how we do things in our business and that's how we stay sane. Because if I would've like freaked out and been like, oh, my gosh, like I don't have... I would've put so much stress on myself. And to all tell you what, I don't need more of right now is stress.

[0:14:10] Jason: Yeah. And we definitely talked about that as we were leading up to the launch of, hey, we don't have any premarketing content. Like, are we trying to figure this out? And we both just kept chatting. We're like, it'll be fine. Like this is a smaller launch. It'll be okay. And yes, we should just expect to make less revenue. So we set a low goal. And I believe this was our low goal as we talked about it, was 35 WAIM Unlimited sales. And then we really had no idea what to do with the six-month coaching. So I think we just said like 10 six-month coaching sales.

[0:14:38] Caroline: Mm-hmm.

[0:14:38] Jason: So that would have been 45 total buyers. That would have been our low goal. We didn't even set a high goal because we were just like, we don't know it all. Let's just go with a low goal and that's fine. And our advice always when you're doing a launch is to set a low goal and a high goal. Especially if you're not in a place where we were where you like you're going through the first trimester of pregnancy, you're basically a person down and then you have like half of a person working on WAIM Unlimited because I'm also working on Teachery and keeping that going. So when you're doing your launch, just a little note, you'll be in a better place and you should set low and high goals so that you can manage your expectations.

[0:15:11] Caroline: Yes.

[0:15:12] Jason: Now...

[0:15:12] Caroline: Let's get to the results.

[0:15:14] Jason: The drum roll into the results. So our total buyers ended up being 33 buyers during this launch. We had six six-month coaching buyers. And then we had 27 WAIM Unlimited buyers. 25 of those, the $100 per month plan, two at the $400 per month plan.

[0:15:32] Caroline: Were you surprised that there were so little at the $400 per month plan? Like I would have expected like five.

[0:15:37] Jason: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think...

[0:15:39] Caroline: So I think that's interesting.

[0:15:40] Jason: I think that's going to go directly into one of our main takeaways from this launch as well.

[0:15:43] Caroline: I think so too.

[0:15:44] Jason: But yeah, so 33 total buyers as opposed to 45, which was our low goal. And...

[0:15:50] Caroline: So quite a bit lower. But still, again, 33 buyers of a premium program is still amazing and something to celebrate.

[0:15:56] Jason: Yes. Because when you look at the total net revenue that will be generated when all of the payments work themselves out, which it won't be because some people will cancel and whatnot, but it's basically an $80,000 launch.

[0:16:08] Caroline: Right.

[0:16:09] Jason: It's just like round up 79,200.

[0:16:10] Caroline: Nothing to scoff at by any means. However, when you put it into context, these are the results from our last four launches, just to tell you how this stacks up against and what the trend line is. So for our last four launches, I'm going to do reverse order chronologically. So fall of 2024, our most recent past launch, 49 sales of WAIM Unlimited. Spring of 2024, 45 sales of WAIM Unlimited. Fall of 2023, this was the last launch of our previous price, which was $2,000. That was our best launch ever at 142 sales. And then spring of 2023 was 113 sales. So when you really look at going from an average of, let's say, 130 sales in 2023 to then 47 sales in 2024 and then now 33 sales, it's not the trend line that you would want for business.

[0:17:06] Jason: No.

[0:17:08] Caroline: And that's okay. You have to pay attention to that. And this is where Jason and I have had some really serious conversations about like, cool, it's clear that the playbook that we ran for so long has sort of run its course. And you can use that to scare you about your business or to freak out or to feel like things are falling apart, or you can just embrace the entrepreneurship mentality of like, cool. What's next?

[0:17:34] Jason: Yeah.

[0:17:35] Caroline: How do we pivot?

[0:17:36] Jason: I think a really important note here because the majority of these podcast listeners that we have here are WAIM people, right?

[0:17:42] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:17:42] Jason: And so, it's like, oh, well, I still like the coaching, and I still like that I get a Teachery account, and I like the Slack, and I like the WAIM accountability. And are you guys giving up on WAIM? And the answer is absolutely not.

[0:17:52] Caroline: No.

[0:17:53] Jason: And I think one point that I really want to make because it's so easy when you get to this place where we're in the seventh year of running WAIM Unlimited, or WAIM as a business, we're in the, call it the fifth year of WAIM Unlimited existing as its thing.

[0:18:08] Caroline: I think we're in the eighth year, actually, because 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Yeah, we're in the eighth year for WAIM Unlimited.

[0:18:15] Jason: Oh, that's awful. I don't like that. I don't like that.

[0:18:17] Caroline: That's a lot of years. That's almost 10.

[0:18:19] Jason: But the point that I was trying to make is this business has been around for many years, and it has generated over $2 million in revenue for us. And that feels amazing. Like, we clearly landed on something that was worthwhile for people and something that we loved doing. I mean, we're creeping in on 70 coaching sessions that we've had live, and I would say 62 of those we've loved doing.

[0:18:43] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:18:44] Jason: Maybe eight of them, we just kind of like we were tired, we were traveling. We were whatever. Like, the pandemic had just started, and we're just like, this is just not enjoyable. But for the majority of them, we've loved it. However, this trend line in sales, plus the way that we have just felt about this business now in our eighth year, as you've mentioned, we're just ready for a little bit of a change.

[0:19:03] Caroline: Yes.

[0:19:04] Jason: And I think this last launch was like the feather in the cap of that change. And so, I don't want to jump ahead. We are going to talk about what might be our final launch of WAIM Unlimited here in a couple months, and we'll talk about what that means. But do we want to shift to the hypothesis about this launch and why it was potentially lower?

[0:19:21] Caroline: I do, because I love the postmortem of okay, we had a lower launch. Like, what happened? Like, why do we think... Not just lower, but so much lower. It was, I will just tell you it felt so different this time.

[0:19:35] Jason: Well, the most drastic... There's one most drastic thing.

[0:19:38] Caroline: Of course.

[0:19:39] Jason: Yeah. The most drastic thing we experienced was in every previous launch except for the Fall launch of last year. Or was it last spring or last fall?

[0:19:50] Caroline: No. I think you're saying the zero sales days.

[0:19:52] Jason: Yeah.

[0:19:54] Caroline: Both in 2024. Both launches had two days with zero sales.

[0:19:58] Jason: Okay. So...

[0:19:59] Caroline: But this launch had...

[0:20:01] Jason: Six days.

[0:20:02] Caroline: Six days of zero sales.

[0:20:03] Jason: And that's crazy. 

[0:20:05] Caroline: Never happened before.

[0:20:06] Jason: That is a weird feeling that we've never experienced. And honestly, by the fourth day of having no sales, because I think it was five days in a row. Or four days in a row.

[0:20:12] Caroline: It wasn't in a row. It was four days in a row. And then it was two extra days.

[0:20:15] Jason: The fourth day of the four days in a row, I was like, uh-oh.

[0:20:17] Caroline: Uh-oh.

[0:20:18] Jason: We're done. Like, it's over. And then it picked back up.

[0:20:20] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:20:21] Jason: But I want to share that because it sucks. And I think for anybody listening to this who's afraid of launching or has not wanted to launch or has launched before and it completely flopped and failed, it does, in the moment feel like, oh, this is my business, no one cares. Like it's just I should give up completely. And you have to really just zoom the lens out and go, it is okay. Because you know what? The vibes are weird right now.

[0:20:46] Caroline: Yes. So I have three reasons why I think that this launch was much lower. And my first reason just starts with weird vibes.

[0:20:55] Jason: Yes. Yeah.

[0:20:55] Caroline: Okay. Weird vibes in the air. Like we all know that consumer buying behavior and all these things, like these are very real forces in business and market economics. And so, obviously, everything is so fresh after the election, so fresh after the inauguration. And let's just call a spade a spade. Like things are happening right now. Terrible things are happening right now at a clip that is hard to digest.

[0:21:22] Jason: Yeah.

[0:21:22] Caroline: And people are scared, and people are worried about the future. They are glued to the news because just the volume of unbelievable, unprecedented, awful, slow march into authoritarianism shit that is happening in America.

[0:21:38] Jason: In America, for being clear. Yeah.

[0:21:41] Caroline: In America. However, it's not just in America, it is globally, because we live in a country in Europe where not literally, you would almost never have people talk about American politics to us in the time that we've lived here. And since all of...

[0:21:57] Caroline: The Trump and Elon stuff. Yeah.

[0:21:59] Caroline: The Elon stuff. The way that Zelensky was treated in the White House, we've never had more people in Europe like...

[0:22:06] Jason: Like what's going on?

[0:22:07] Caroline: Like, what's happening?

[0:22:08] Jason: Yeah.

[0:22:09] Caroline: And so, it is now permeating beyond the borders of America, and people are worried. And then you add the fact that already last year, the big topic of discussion was just like the rising cost of living, the wealth gap, financial instability. People are uncertain about that. And I think a lot of people hinge their hopes on a huge change coming into power. And guess what? Things are even more uncertain.

[0:22:38] Jason: Yeah.

[0:22:39] Caroline: And you start hearing whispers of recession. And let's just all be honest. It's scary. And it's an uncertain time, right? So to ignore that as business owners is not a smart thing to do. You have to pay attention to where people's buying behavior is, where their price sensitivity is.

[0:22:58] Jason: Yeah.

[0:22:58] Caroline: And just where their attention is.

[0:22:59] Jason: Yeah. And I don't think this is at all just us experiencing this. We have multiple WAIMers who I was chatting with during their launches, and they were like, "Oh, I'm not getting the same replies or sales or et cetera." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm hearing from other people that I know that have businesses that they're feeling this way, too." And, yes, there are going to be outliers who like, it doesn't matter what's going on. They're going to have big launches, big sales and like things are going to work. But I think you're also just seeing it across the board for digital product businesses that it's just less people buying right now. And that is just a known factor for maybe 2025. You just have to accept the fact that sales will be lower because sentiment is lower.

[0:23:39] Caroline: Yes. And there's a lot of different forces at play because the next part I was going to say is of course people are still going to buy programs, people are still going to want to grow their businesses. But this speaks to my number two hypothesis, which I think is right now people are just less likely to pay for broad solutions and programs. So at its core, WAIM Unlimited is a pretty broad grow your business, have a calm business community program, right? Like it's very much meet like-minded business owners. We teach you everything from copywriting to your website to marketing to... I mean, really everything under the sun. And we have loved the flexibility that that broadness has given us over time. I think it has allowed us to re-fall in love with our business many, many times. And so, we've really enjoyed that. But at this moment, and we've talked about this on previous podcast episodes where now the online industry, especially like business coaching industry has matured to the point where many people have tried programs before that they've been burned by them. Like I think a lot of people entered maybe the coaching market and the online business market in 2020 and I don't want to say that that flooded the market with maybe like low quality products. But I do think you had like this crop of people who were just looking to make a quick buck and people bought programs that were a lot of fluff and didn't give them real results and they've been burned, right? So it's not that they're like never going to buy a program again, it's just they're being a lot more discerning. They need a really specific solution, and they need to really trust that the ROI is going to be there and that they're going to get something out of it.

[0:25:21] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And let's be honest, like the introduction of AI and just the ability to go to ChatGPT and say, hey, I'm trying to start my own Etsy store, like can you just tell me what to do? And you get a really good information because it's trained on all the information of the internet. And so, you're going to get what a lot of people put behind programs. Now, that's not to say that we believe that you should get all your information from ChatGPT and it's going to be great. But it is just something that is the truth of the matter. And so, it's like courses in 2015 and 2016, it was really easy to sell a course on anything because it was really hard to get that information anywhere.

[0:25:57] Caroline: Right. In like a consolidated way.

[0:25:58] Jason: But then YouTube, it just starts to take off and everyone starts putting all this content on YouTube and course sales go down because it's like, well, everyone's just giving me the information away for free on YouTube so they can get subscribers and make money and et cetera.

[0:26:10] Caroline: Now, the thing that differentiates from ChatGPT that people will still pay for is they want to learn from people they like, and they want to learn from people whose style styles they connect with. But in order to have someone decide that they like your style and they like who you are and they like what you're about, you have to be more visible...

[0:26:27] Jason: Which we were doing a great job of.

[0:26:29] Caroline: Yeah. Which brings us to reason number three that is just so obvious is just we as a business have... be and kind of relevance in the today's attention economy than ever. And that's because we made an intentional choice to move off of Instagram for the past three years. We still had our legacy web traffic that really was like carrying us because we had all of this historical traffic. People would come, they'd join the newsletter, they'd join our audience. And so, we had this amazing, beautiful, calm business that ran basically on web traffic, newsletter, podcasts and affiliates. And that was the engine and that has worked for so long. But you can start to see that especially in the past year with ChatGPT, with AI, web traffic is just, it's going off a cliff. Like you watched a thing this morning. Tell them about that.

[0:27:19] Jason: Yeah. Well, for our own data, we were averaging 2,000 visitors per day to our website four years ago. 2,000 people a day were coming to the Wandering Aimfully website. Today it's 200.

[0:27:30] Caroline: Yup.

[0:27:31] Jason: And it is actually, it fell off a cliff like two years ago. Like that's actually when it fell off. But yeah, I was watching a video this morning where a guy showed the organic traffic from Google to HubSpot. And HubSpot is basically like the number one Google traffic generating website on the internet. Like that's all they do. They do it extremely well. And the cliff of their traffic is absolutely insane. Like it is...

[0:27:54] Caroline: It's undeniable.

[0:27:55] Jason: It's basically like going under itself. It's like you have the cliff that goes down. This one's like curling underneath. And I think that that's a really important note because I would bet anybody listening to this, unless you are like a plumber in a very specific city, SEO content is just not working anymore. Like your traffic has dried up or it is drying up. And I just think that this is where I said to you so profoundly this morning...

[0:28:19] Caroline: So profoundly. I was like, whoa, profound.

[0:28:22] Jason: This idea of the attention shifting. And you were like, "Oh, you mean like Gary Vaynerchuk's book, Day Trading Attention or whatever?"

[0:28:28] Caroline: Jason literally described the concept of Day Trading Attention to me, and I was like, I think I've...

[0:28:32] Jason: Which I don't watch any of Gary's content and I don't know any of it, so.

[0:28:35] Caroline: Well, you really...

[0:28:37] Jason: You just come to these things as you pay attention to stuff. But the whole idea is like 10 years ago, everyone's attention, probably like 15 years ago, was in Google. Like, that's where you go to find information. And then five or seven years after that, it's like everyone's going to YouTube. And now five years after that everyone's going to ChatGPT and AI tools and everything else. Or social media, sorry. And then now they're all going to AI tools. And so, I think the thing for us in this reason number three, the first one is the vibes are weird. The second one is people are less likely to pay for broad solutions but being less visible and less relevant on platforms where people are spending their attention, you're writing your own death sentence for a business. And this is where, for us being smart business owners, we have to realize, okay, things have to change. So what does that mean for us and what do we do with this info? Because yes, having a $80,000 launch is not a failure by any means, but having two $80,000 launches in a year is not going to sustain our overall lifestyle and revenue based on all of our goals and the things that we want to accomplish.

[0:29:38] Caroline: Yeah, for our enough number. And that's okay to say, we talk about this all the time, identifying what your enough number is for your version of a rich, spacious life. And then if your business is not meeting that gap, asking yourself what the solutions are to get there and in a way that doesn't burn you out, in a way that doesn't... Like you might have to make some compromises in the fact that we don't want to be using Instagram and be glued to our phones all the time. But we're willing to make the compromise to create content that we like, that's helpful for people and find a way where we're not beholden to our phones all the time. Like, I do think there is a middle ground there. And so, it's going to require not being such purists when it comes to, we're going to run our business 100% without Instagram.

[0:30:23] Jason: Yeah.

[0:30:23] Caroline: We did that for three years and it was great.

[0:30:25] Jason: One crucial data point that we didn't talk about when we talked about the numbers of this past launch, 48% of the people who bought came from affiliates. That's actually almost 20% lower than normal.

[0:30:35] Caroline: It's wild. I was like blown away when I saw that.

[0:30:39] Jason: Yeah, normally our affiliates drive 65 to 70% of our sales.

[0:30:42] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:30:43] Jason: And I would say we actually put in more effort this time for affiliates to help with the launch.

[0:30:48] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:30:48] Jason: And we got less results.

[0:30:50] Caroline: Well, I think it could have been a few things. Number one, we don't know how much the variable of the timing really affected things.

[0:30:54] Jason: Right.

[0:30:55] Caroline: A lot of our affiliates are used to promoting in this April, this March, April time frame. Like a lot of them could have been doing their own simultaneous launches and they just decided not to promote. That's totally fine. That could have been an element. Some of them could have felt not comfortable promoting in this environment.

[0:31:14] Jason: Yeah, that's my hypothesis.

[0:31:16] Caroline: Some of them could have been just quite frankly, completely burnt out on the news and just the devastation and just didn't want to put together a launch. And like we don't fault them for that at all. So it was very interesting though, to see what a drastic drop that was. And again, this just speaks to, as a business owner, you look at what have been my growth engines before, what is the data telling me and how do I move forward with that information?

[0:31:40] Jason: Okay. So how do we move forwarder... Move forward. How do we move forward? And the first thing that we've been talking about is just not to freak out.

[0:31:48] Caroline: You don't freak out because when you were in a place of scarcity and like, oh, the business is crumbling, nothing is working anymore. You cannot make good decisions. You do not feel motivated, you feel scared, you feel numb, you feel unmotivated. So that's the worst thing you can do is freak out or cling to the good old days. Like I think you and I went through a grieving process of remember the good old days when you could write an article, or you could write a newsletter and that would fuel your business. And it wasn't so overwhelming to open up these apps and see just like a million different creators and compare yourself to them. And the blogging day, remember blogging, and it's like, okay, but it's gone.

[0:32:33] Jason: Yeah.

[0:32:33] Caroline: And so, you actually don't do yourself any favors. And this is like the whole idea of detachment and acceptance is like you do yourself no favors by wishing for a past that is already gone.

[0:32:45] Jason: Exactly. So this year, we have decided, is going to be our pivot year.

[0:32:49] Caroline: This is a pivot year.

[0:32:50] Jason: So we are going to try out some new things. We're going to allow it to be messy.

[0:32:53] Caroline: Pregnancy pivot. 

[0:32:54] Jason: It's a pregnancy pivot. Yes.

[0:32:55] Caroline: I love alliteration.

[0:32:56] Jason: And yeah, we're welcoming a baby at the end of the year. So our pivot year is actually happening in a condensed version where all of it really needs to occur before August is like our own internal timeline, because we don't want to be working when the baby comes, and we want to have that time freed up to be able to do that. And again, we'll have more conversations about that in separate episodes. But we don't want to be freaked out again by like, oh, this launch was lower. And like, okay, if we do another launch this year and it's not good, what are we going to do? It's like, no, the mindset for us is we are going to embrace change. We are going to go back to being a little bit more experimentation oriented, and we're going to focus where people's attention is. And so, forever, we have really relied just on this podcast, on our affiliates and our email newsletter, in our organic traffic that had been even falling off the cliff, but had been helping fuel our business. And now we're going to get back to being on Instagram. We might do some stuff on YouTube, but for now, I think our focus is just, let's just get back to Instagram and let's build a plan to focus on selling our Calm Launch Formula program and that be our specific solution.

[0:34:05] Caroline: Yes. I want to pause to say two things. First, keyword is...

[0:34:08] Jason: You mean to pause the recording?

[0:34:09] Caroline: No. No, I want to pause because I see where you're plowing through the notes, and I want to pause to circle back on two things. One is the keyword Instagram. The other is the keyword of... See, I already lost it. Dang it.

[0:34:23] Jason: You got to say the keywords fast.

[0:34:24] Caroline: I know. You got to say the keywords fast. Oh, no, I got it. I caught it. I wanted to say that something that has surprised me is whenever I envisioned the timing of us having our first child, I mean, ideally, it would have been two years ago when WAIM was at its height, and it was its most predictable, and it was making its most really predictable launches, our biggest launches. Like that would have been great, right? And so, as I look at this pivot year, I'm like, there's a part of my brain that goes, man, it really sucks that a pivot year we're trying to deconstruct things is falling in the year when you would probably want the most stability. But I have surprised myself with the fact that it doesn't freak me out that much, and I think it's because of exactly what you said, which is embracing this mindset of change. It's like, there's something about the fact that I'm having to deconstruct my entire identity and reconstruct it again as a mother. I'm already doing that. So I'm already in this weird... Everything beneath me is shifting already. Our relationship is changing, our lives are changing. Like we already mentally prepared for that big shift. And so, there's something about the business shifting, too, that just makes sense to me. I'm just like, yeah. Like literally break it all down, see the pieces, and reconstruct it. And I'm just sharing that because I hope that maybe if anyone else out there is in a big transition year in their lives and they are lamenting the fact that maybe it's not coinciding with a time in their business where things feel particularly stable. And that sucks. I'm just offering up the reframe that maybe just embrace the chaos. Like just allow yourself to look for the excitement of things being pulled apart so that they can be put back together in an even more aligned way. That's what I'm looking forward to, at least.

[0:36:24] Jason: Yeah. All right. Your second keyword Instagram.

[0:36:26] Caroline: My second keyword was Instagram. And for those who are loyal listeners who listen to this show almost every week and have been listening for years, I just need to acknowledge that we have come on this podcast, and we have said, we are going to come back to Instagram, we are going to come back to YouTube, we are going to create more content. I recognize that we have said that so many times.

[0:36:45] Jason: We've also said we're not going to do it. We're going to stay off. We're going to focus on YouTube, not Instagram. Like, it's just we have waffled.

[0:36:51] Caroline: I want to acknowledge that, and I just want to share that I think that is a relatable feeling to have because it's not as easy as just deciding... I mean, it is actually as easy. And that's what I'm realizing is like, you actually can just like hop on and just start doing something. But I just want to share that if you are finding it hard, if you keep setting this resolution for yourself to create more content, put yourself out there, market yourself more, and you just keep running into roadblocks. We've been in business for over 10 years and that still happens to us. It is a very human thing. There are so many mental barriers that can prevent you from creating the things that you want to create. And I sat down with Jason this morning and I was like, I need a pep talk again. Because it's like I can't understand why this is so hard for me. And it's a lot of different things. It's like part of it is like, I'm not comfortable being a beginner again at something. I feel like I've been in business so long that I should... If I'm going to go back to Instagram, I better have the most well-formed Instagram strategy out there. I better use all the hooks, I better know how to use audio, I better get the best results. And that will hold you back.

[0:38:01] Jason: Yeah.

[0:38:02] Caroline: Your need to be good at something right at the beginning is holding you back from getting good at something.

[0:38:08] Jason: Exactly. And just getting going, like that's the...

[0:38:10] Caroline: And getting going. And so, it's like, yeah, it's humble.

[0:38:12] Jason: What's the Ali Abdaal? It's like...

[0:38:13] Caroline: You get going, then you get good, then you get smart.

[0:38:16] Jason: Yeah.

[0:38:16] Caroline: And so, it's like, yeah, it's humbling to go back to the beginning and be like, I used to be so effortless in being able to share social media content. I used to be one of these creators that created so much more than I consumed. And that's not me anymore. I am now a consumer, and I have to get over that hump again and become a creator again. And like, that's hard.

[0:38:36] Jason: All right, we'll do a full episode or two or three or four as we start getting into the Instagram of it all. And just to share with again, what are we doing moving forward? And the idea is WAIM Unlimited is still going to exist. We're still going to do our monthly coaching. We're still in our community. Like nothing with that is changing in the very near timeline. But for us, in the like tomorrow of it all, we are going to focus on Calm Launch Formula, which is our... It's a course, essentially. And we are going to have that be our specific solution that we create content around on Instagram via our Wandering Aimfully account.

[0:39:09] Caroline: And this speaks to the hypothesis of like, yeah, you need something specific...

[0:39:14] Jason: Exactly.

[0:39:14] Caroline: ...to attract someone who has a specific problem.

[0:39:16] Jason: Yeah. So one of the things that we want to do as well is we want to pull out the AI prompts that are in the Calm Launch Formula program because people have absolutely loved those and raved about them as they've used them and use those as a low-ticket offer. So someone maybe it's 15 bucks or 20 bucks, whatever we decide to sell it for, however many prompts is what I was thinking is like however many prompts are in there, that's how many dollars we should sell it for.

[0:39:36] Caroline: Fantastic.

[0:39:36] Jason: So if 17 prompts, $17. And get people a quick aha moment, because that is impossible with WAIM Unlimited. That is the thing that has been so difficult for years. It is so hard to get someone an aha moment when your program's promise is grow a calm business.

[0:39:51] Caroline: It's so comprehensive. Exactly.

[0:39:52] Jason: It's very difficult. And so, I'm really excited for the challenge of we actually have a thing that we have mastered, which is launches. Now, the problem is when you've launched the same thing for eight years and like it has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and it's really hard to get like a definitive task that it solves or a problem that it solves that's difficult to share. Whereas this I'm really excited about because it's going to be a very specific thing that solves a very specific problem. We're also going to try to put in some evergreen funnels in place. "Don't know how evergreen", it's actually going to be because I don't necessarily believe that it could ever be that. But we are going to explore Manychat, which is the automation tool that works with Instagram, where you can do the old calm at launch, and it gives you a thing, and as much as we feel cringe about that. What we don't feel cringe about is making money and getting people to have successful launches of their own by using Calm Launch Formula. So let's use the tactics that work and not be so like, oh, I don't want to do that because I see everybody else doing it. Everyone else is not doing it, just all the marketers are doing it.

[0:40:53] Caroline: It's true.

[0:40:54] Jason: And then, yeah, live launching is still a very viable thing and it's not at all something we would dissuade people from doing. I just think that especially folks who are launching in this very moment right now, the vibes are weird. The political landscape of it all is weird. People's spending is down, so you need to have lower expectations of things. But if your product still solves a problem and if people are still subscribing to you via some content channel, then you can absolutely still launch and you can still be successful in what you're doing.

[0:41:22] Caroline: Yeah, it's like both things can be true, right? It's like people can be more discerning with their dollars, but like, the world doesn't stop turning in the sense that people will still need solutions to their problems. People will still spend money. It's just about finding how has the buyer's decision making changed that you can meet that moment.

[0:41:41] Jason: Yeah. In my personal opinion, I've told Caroline this. Maybe I mentioned this on a previous podcast. I'm speaking for myself, not necessarily for both of us. I think the soft skills are harder to sell right now.

[0:41:52] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:41:52] Jason: I think the coaching, the masterminds, the like, this type of stuff, I think it is much harder to sell than the hard skills of let me show you how to use ChatGPT to become more productive in your business. Let me show you how to set up a Notion template that specifically runs your Etsy store. Let me show you how to master CapCut as an editing software. Let me show you how to make Instagram reels faster and easier. Like those are hard skills that people are looking for because they lead to very specific tangible results.

[0:42:19] Caroline: They're not only hard skills, they are related to tools. Because now we have reached this place, it's a supply and demand thing, right? We've reached this place where the supply of software tools and solutions is so vast that what is in short supply is people's time in order to learn those things.

[0:42:40] Jason: Yeah.

[0:42:40] Caroline: There's an opportunity there to save people time in they want this solution that these, like software tools can bring them, but they do not have the time to invest in figuring out how to use them to get to that solution. And that's where your opportunity is. And going back to what you were saying about pulling out the AI prompts as the low-ticket offer, this goes back to what we said many episodes ago, which is how people's behavior has changed as well, is they are looking for done-for-you solutions. Because we are in such an environment now where there is so many things pulling on people's attention and time that they need... People are looking for what is that quick fix, what is that do-it-for-me type of thing. We can argue whether that's a good move for society or not, but it is an opportunity. And so, not only it is AI something that Jason and I are just very interested in and love and has brought value to us and we see it as the future, but it is also coinciding with people's need for time saving things.

[0:43:43] Jason: Yeah. And so, really what that means for us in like the next three months, which I am actually kind of excited about. We have no idea how much energy you are going to have, Caroline, in the next three months. But what that looks like for us is posting content on Instagram regularly, trying to drive people to a funnel of selling the AI prompts and then selling the Calm Launch Formula course and just sharing that journey with here on the podcast with our WAIM community. Like it's going to give us really great content to share in coaching sessions to go, great, it's 2025. What we taught you about Instagram in 2021 when we made that coaching session has changed dramatically. So let us update what's working now. And like this information may only work for six months because they will change the algorithm faster than ever before. But it is what we are seeing actually work and it is leading to dollars in sales for a product. So I'm actually excited for that because I feel like it's the first time we've actually gotten back in the driving seat of, hey, we're doing stuff and we're going to share with you what that stuff is as opposed to just, hey, we're coasting. We've got this calm business, let us show you how to have a calm business as well. But we're not actually on the forefront of learning the things that are working.

[0:44:52] Caroline: Yeah. And I'm excited to find what that middle ground is because as I said before, like with the Instagram thing, like what happens when you come to this conclusion in your business where being "invisible" and taking a backseat isn't working anymore. So you do make the decision that you want to be on some of these platforms, but I'm not willing to be on a hamster wheel that makes me feel crazy and that makes me feel attached to my phone at all times. And that takes away and steals the calmness that we've worked so hard to cultivate in our business. I'm not willing to give that up. And so, I do think there's a lot of people listening right now that go, this is the crux of it. How do I build a business that uses these marketing tools in a smart way without sacrificing my mental well-being in the process? And I hope that we're going to experiment and figure that out and...

[0:45:46] Jason: Share some results.

[0:45:47] Caroline: And share some results with you.

[0:45:48] Jason: Yeah. And yeah, then the next phase after that besides three months of focusing on those things, then taking parental leave, is really leaning into AI and AI tools for creators and streamlining workflows and building things. And we've talked about the app Lovable multiple times in this podcast and how much we just love it.

[0:46:07] Caroline: It's just so fun.

[0:46:08] Jason: And so, I really think for us, 2026, there's going to be a really big shift in what we do and how we present ourselves and we'll share more about that as we get to it. Because right now it's just like a little bit of a foggy idea and we're not going to put any pressure because we don't know what the second half of this year is going to hold.

[0:46:25] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:46:25] Jason: But yeah, this year is definitely a pivot year. Next year, we're thinking as like a reinvention year. And maybe you're feeling like your business has been run for a couple years and you've been doing the same thing and you're looking for a permission slip to know that it's okay to do that. It is okay to do that. Like I think for digital product creators, the way things are changing online and the way that new things like AI are shifting how people use everything, you have to be willing to shift how you're doing everything.

[0:46:56] Caroline: Yeah. And I think whether it's because you need to shift your business to meet shifting market demands or you want to shift your business in a drastic way because you want to fall back in love with it, that's an equally important reason to do a big shift is like, if you just feel like you've changed so much that you want to reconfigure your business in a way that feels more aligned. And I think for you and I both, there's still so much a part of our heart that is connected to WAIM Unlimited. And like you said that that part's not going to change. But we did arrive at this place where I think the pendulum swung too far to the... Like calm became complacent. Does that make sense?

[0:47:39] Jason: Yeah.

[0:47:39] Caroline: And we just, we went a little bit too...

[0:47:41] Jason: Calm became coasting.

[0:47:42] Caroline: Calm became coasting.

[0:47:44] Jason: Yeah.

[0:47:44] Caroline: And that's actually not what we want because you and I are such creative people that we love learning new things, we love challenging ourselves, we love growing. And so, we just need the pendulum to swing a little bit more towards that spark that was ignited when we began the business in the very beginning, which is... And it's a lot of what it started with Wandering Aimfully, even before we did business coaching was watch us as we wander aimfully as we use experimentation with intention to build a business that aligns with who we are as evolving people. And so, in that way, it's very tied to the entire origin of our business to begin with. And yeah, we're two changing people. And so, the business has to change, too.

[0:48:28] Jason: Yeah. Speaking of change, so what does that mean for WAIM Unlimited as a program?

[0:48:33] Caroline: Great question.

[0:48:33] Jason: Because obviously with this launch being lower and with us maybe seeing the writing on the wall of Caroline's hypothesis, and my hypothesis as well, which is these like bigger, broad programs not necessarily selling as well, is what we're thinking at this very moment is we're going to do one final sale of WAIM Unlimited.

[0:48:52] Caroline: This is not set in stone. It is what we were thinking. And so, we're taking you along in the process.

[0:48:56] Jason: Yeah, so that'll happen in May or June because again, we are going to be taking off, like August through December. Now, for anybody who's listening to this, who's a WAIMer, who's like, oh, but what about monthly coaching? Monthly coaching will continue. We're going to have prerecorded sessions for the months when we are like, absolutely off and we're taking care of a brand-new newborn baby.

[0:49:14] Caroline: Human.

[0:49:15] Jason: But yes, we believe that right now our plan is one more final sale of WAIM Unlimited and sunsetting it and then moving into 2026 with a new plan, a new business model, a whole new shift in things. Now, that could change, and we could walk that back if we think of a whole new direction we want to go. But at this moment that's what we're thinking about because that gives us the ability to go, we're interested in other things.

[0:49:42] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:49:42] Jason: Like we've been coaches for six years now, or however... Yeah, five years now. And I just think it's okay to be honest with yourself that you're ready to evolve and you're ready to step into a different way of doing things. And I think our life is going to change so much with a kid that the being tied down to like a monthly coaching session and, oh, what if our baby's sick that day? And it's like, oh, but we're tied into this thing. Like we need more flexibility than ever before. And that's not to say that you listening to this like have to run your business how we're going to, and we have a kid. But you get to make that decision, and you get to choose all of those things.

[0:50:19] Caroline: Definitely.

[0:50:20] Jason: And yeah, I think for any WAIMers listening to this you just know, like we're not going anywhere. If anything, you're probably going to get a little bit more focused time with us throughout this year because we were talking about like, I think I want to do an office hours thing every Friday in the WAIM Slack community. Obviously, I'll be off for August, September, maybe October, like really taking that time. But I think even during that time, like I am going to get bored, and we know this about me specifically, like I don't do well. I'm obviously going to be taking care of a baby with you.

[0:50:50] Caroline: Obviously.

[0:50:51] Jason: But there are going to be hours in the day when I'm going to want the stimulation of helping people and answering questions and being there. So for WAIMers the rest of 2025, you're still going to see us, we're going to have the coaching sessions. We're going to be in Slack. We have our accountability game. You're going to get our email updates, all that is...

[0:51:07] Caroline: And if anything, you're going to get the real behind the scenes look at how we are pivoting the business. So that is one of the benefits that you get in being WAIM Unlimited is you get the front row seat, you get the WAIM weekly vlogs. You are going to figure out things with us as we figure them out. And I think that's a huge value that people have told us from being in WAIM Unlimited is like sometimes you just want to know that to normalize the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur and realizing that some of the things that you're navigating in trying to build a business that suits your life, that you're not alone in those things.

[0:51:42] Jason: Yeah. And I think just to wrap up, one thing we didn't say when we were talking about the launch recap is just the financial implication of having a lower launch. So we've basically been around this $30,000 per month in recurring revenue number with Wandering Aimfully for the past year, essentially. And what happens is is people start to pay off their lifetime plans, that number obviously goes down like a cliff, just like HubSpot's traffic and all of our web traffic goes. But this launch essentially brings us back up to, I think around 27, $28,000 in recurring revenue, which is great. Now, the reason why we're focusing on another launch for WAIM Unlimited in May or June, not just because we don't want to do one in the middle of the summer, and we don't want to do one later in the summer is because we have a big cliff of those two launches in 2023 that were big.

[0:52:29] Caroline: That were big. Those payoff.

[0:52:30] Jason: Those are all going to...

[0:52:31] Caroline: Exactly. And this is why it's so important. And this is what we teach inside WAIM Unlimited. But this is why it's so important to know your numbers and to do your projections for your revenue, especially if you have payment plans, especially if you have client payments that are paying off. Like you need to know what your cash flow looks like by month so that you can make strategic decisions to smooth out some of those cliffs so that you're not left in a position where you are having these feast or famine, these high peaks and high valleys. So every decision we make with launching and timing of things is strategic in order to create a smoother cash flow. And because we have built this very sustainable foundation for ourselves and because we have been in business long enough to see the highs, the high launches, the best launches ever, and the lower launches, we realize that none of it is permanent and that that is just a benefit that you get from being in business for a long time. So as time goes by, you get freaked out less by some of the lower launches or whatever, because you just trust in your own capability to come up with solutions. And it all ebbs and flows anyway. So that is why we're not freaked out. We're embracing the change. We're excited about shaking things up and we're just, this is our shake it up year.

[0:53:47] Jason: Yeah. And just I hope this really helps those of you who are listening that maybe your revenue has been going down. Maybe you've had a launch recently that wasn't very good. Maybe you're just worried about the state of everything. Nothing is forever, right? So things are going to change. Things could get worse this year, things could get better this year. We could go into a recession. We could not. Like all this stuff are things you can't control. Control the things you can. If that is creating content so that you're visible in front of people who need the problem that you're solving, then focus on doing that and...

[0:54:16] Caroline: And... Go ahead.

[0:54:18] Jason: And I think just like for everybody listening to this, all the algorithms are changing. AI is changing everything. You have to be open to experimentation more than ever before now. And you have to let go of the good old days of how you've done everything and be willing to learn new things, adapt your tactics, try new marketing channels that maybe you've never tried before, but not just stick to, but I've done this for like five years and it's worked perfectly. That is all changing and you have to be open to following where those changes go.

[0:54:46] Caroline: Yeah. And the last thing I would say too is just pay attention to how your creativity and your productivity and your brain power is affected when you are living in a place of fear, uncertainty and scarcity. Because to Jason's point, like if you have a launch that does less than you thought it was going to do, or if you just feel like you are maybe checking the news compulsively, things like that. Of course it's good to be informed, but I'm talking like doom scrolling, compulsive, all of that. Pay attention to where your motivation and your brainpower and your creativity is when you do that because you are perpetuating a self-fulfilling cycle for yourself where you're living in the place of fear and uncertainty and it's not fueling your creativity at all and then you're not creating any solutions and then you feel like it's all... You're not seeing any results because you're living in that place of fear and uncertainty. So again, it's not about sticking your head in sand and saying this isn't going on. It's about trying to find the things that make you feel lit up and sparked and creative and in a place of solutions thinking instead of problems thinking.

[0:55:53] Jason: Yeah. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed this launch recap episode. It's obviously not so exciting to get on a podcast and say, hey, our launch wasn't fantastic, but also our launch wasn't a complete failure. And so, I think it's important to acknowledge, like we're not at all upset. And I think we said this in last year's launches, like those two were both still over six figure launches, so it was a little bit easier to be excited about them.

[0:56:15] Caroline: Of course.

[0:56:15] Jason: This is our first launch that we have done in such a long time that is not at that number. But also, that number is just so arbitrary, and I really believe in our ability to get creative and in these next couple months sell Calm Launch Formula and the AI prompt pack, and to make up the buffer of what we missed in this launch with that effort. And then the final sale of WAIM Unlimited will be a really good boost because if it truly is the last time we're going to sell it, obviously that creates some scarcity that you just can't compare to anything else. So I think it'll be a really interesting journey for us the next couple months and hope you enjoy listening as we start to do a lot more things than we've been doing in the past.

[0:56:55] Caroline: And we hope that you enjoy the transparency because I do know that there are plenty of people in the online space who love to come on and tell you when their launches blow their figures out of the water. They end up being a little quieter when maybe sales are dropping. We have a commitment to transparency to show up and tell you when our launches do better than we thought and when they do worse than we thought. And we hope you appreciate that, and we hope that, again, we hope that this creates a community for you where you are... Feel like it's more normalized that that is going to happen in business and it's all an experiment and sometimes those experiments exceed your expectations and sometimes they don't. And that's okay.

[0:57:38] Jason: Just a very final note.

[0:57:39] Caroline: Yes.

[0:57:39] Jason: How does it feel recording in our new office?

[0:57:41] Caroline: I love it. I get to see all this, like...

[0:57:43] Jason: Yeah, I know. You get all the cool...

[0:57:44] Caroline: I know. What do you see? You get the ocean.

[0:57:45] Jason: I have the ocean view. Yeah.

[0:57:46] Caroline: Well then, it's a win-win.

[0:57:47] Jason: Which is incredible. Obviously, can't complain if you're recording a podcast and you get an ocean view. This is amazing.

[0:57:52] Caroline: Yeah.

[0:57:53] Jason: Yeah. I think it's fun to share the realness. We like doing that. It hurts in the moment to admit when things aren't going super well. But also, this is the reality of running a business, and things ebb and flow. Things change. All the things we've said throughout this episode, and we just hope that you appreciate this and maybe it motivates you to go, well, great. Like I was feeling like my business didn't have a chance right now, but it can be okay to even be less, or my next launch can be a mini launch, but I'm still doing something as opposed to doing nothing because I'm afraid of things just flopping completely.

[0:58:24] Caroline: Yup. Control what you can control. And thanks for listening as always. We heart your faces.

[0:58:30] Jason: Okay. Bye.

[0:58:31] Caroline: Okay. Bye.