In this episode, I’m debriefing the April 2025 PGSD launch and walking you through exactly how I processed a disappointing result without making it mean something about me, the program or my ability to sell.
This isn’t a “what went wrong” breakdown from a place of blame. It’s a real-time look at how I led myself through a launch that didn’t hit its goals without spiralling into shame, burning everything down or losing momentum.
In the episode I’m sharing:
- What emotional regulation actually looks like when the numbers don’t meet your expectations
- How to tell the difference between what needs tweaking vs what’s already working
- Why success doesn’t require perfect results every time (and how I’ve learned to trust that)
- The thought processes that kept me grounded so I could take clear, calm next steps
Whether you’re still working on showing up consistently or you’re refining your sales process, this episode will help you stay out of the shame spiral and keep building your business in a way that’s sustainable, strategic and self-trusting.
If you’ve ever had a launch flop or a result that didn’t reflect your effort – this episode is for you.
Join Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD): Inside Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) you’ll master our simple, proven process for getting shit done without burning out so you can finally get your business off the ground. Our next opening starts on 18 July for one week only. To find out more and join the waitlist today visit samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionists Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
Sam Laura Brown (Intro to the episode)
Sam, Hi and welcome to another episode of The perfectionism project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam. Laura Brown. I help entrepreneurs release a perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD, and for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
I couldn’t be more excited than to be sharing today’s episode with you. So this episode is a debrief of the launch that we did for my program, perfectionist getting shit done in April 2025. So a couple of months ago, at the time that I’m recording this introduction, and I love sharing the behind the scenes, me processing my thoughts, me in the experience of growing my business as a perfectionist entrepreneur, because there are so many lessons that come from that, plus it’s always my favorite kind of content to consume when you’re not having someone teach at you, but you’re actually getting to see them embody what they’re teaching and hear them go through it in their own ways.
So with this launch, there is so much that you’ll be able to take from this, but I just want to give some context so I have acoaching business. You don’t need to have a coaching business to get a lot from this. It’s not really about the launch strategy or anything like that. This is really about selling as a perfectionist entrepreneur, growing your business as a perfectionist entrepreneur, being out of your own way, and also, particularly with this launch debrief, it’s about how to be emotionally regulated when you are not experiencing the results that you want to experience, and how to take lessons from that in a way that empowers you without making yourself wrong for having the result you had, and at the same time still being able to take out what did work, so you can keep doing that and what didn’t work, so you can actually solve for it. But if we have shame in there, self judgment, self blame. We tend to have a lot of insights of like, well, next time I should do this and that, and then we don’t implement it.
So with this debrief, it’s really me demonstrating all of those things, how to be emotionally regulated, how to experience a result that isn’t the result you wanted, but what to actually do with it when you get it, and how to not have that spin you out like when I first started my business. If I had an experience like this that I talk about in this episode, I would have, and I did, spin out in, like a shame spiral for six weeks, months at a time, I would just find it so hard to recover fromexperiencing a failure in terms of results, and now, like just with this, being able to record the day after we finish the open cart, to be able to record and be in such a grounded place and in such an emotionally regulated place, so that I’vebeen able to implement the insights from this launch. It just to me, like this, debrief is such a good embodiment of that. There are so many different principles as well that I talk about within this episode that relate to both perfectionist getting shit done and also what I teach as well to my one on one, coaching clients with self trust, selling. So there are bits and pieces for both people if productivity is your biggest issue.
So typically, what happens for perfectionist entrepreneurs with perfectionism and building a business is the first hurdle to overcome is productivity, because of perfectionism and fears that you might have around visibility, being seen being successful, being seen to fail, and all of those things. A lot of times, perfectionist entrepreneurs will have a really hard time taking action consistently without burning out. So PGSD, teaches you exactly how to do that in a way that works for your perfectionist brain instead of against it. And then the thing to do after that is learn how to have your action convert reliably to sales in a way that’s aligned with you and your values and your personal life as well, that you’re not burning yourself out to make sales. You’re not selling your soul to make sales, but you are able to make sales because of the people I help are people who are selling something, whether it’s a physical product, whether it’s a service, they are selling something that benefits other people. And so we want to have you selling and we want to have you having a business that is successful and feels successful.
So some of the principles I’m talking about within this episode relate to that. Some of the principles I’m talking about within this episode relate to PGSD. And I think ultimately, just for perfectionist entrepreneurs, it is so important to learn how to be emotionally regulated through an experience of failure, and I hope that by me demonstrating that and embodying that, it supports you to do the same. And then I invite you, of course, to join PGSD to learn how to do that. And if you’re already have overcome, and maybe you’ve been in PGSD before, you have overcome that productivity hurdle, you’re now able to take action. Question that I invite you when I next open my one on one coaching to sign up and work with me to do the next level of work when it comes to selling and self trust selling, because being able to navigate the ups and downs of business is essential. And I just love also sharing results like this that we have with this launch publicly on my podcast, because so many people, if they do document things, they only document things going well, and share things going well. And we kind of end up in the entrepreneurial space with this distorted view of entrepreneurship and that you should just have success after success after success.
And I have so many friends that I have met through having a business that have all levels of business, seven figure businesses, multiple seven figure businesses, six figure businesses from all different stages. Everyone has the ups and downs, and I know myself when I was in this belief of like it should just be up and up, like your revenue should just increase year after year after year, and if not, you’re a complete failure. When we have that kind of distorted view of entrepreneurship, it can have us quit when we’re actually doing really well and having a very normal experience. So as always, like, I do this a lot inside PGSD and with my one on one clients as well. Like having normal experiences, normalized is so important because it will stop you from unnecessarily quitting or going into a shame spiral, like you actually just need to know that certain things are normal in entrepreneurship, and that will stop you from turning your perfectionism handbrake on to be like, Oh, actually, everyone has like, between those highs, everyone has the lows in terms of results, things not going to plan. And it’s so, so so, so important to just have that model. So I hope that this episode also helps on that front.
And I don’t think I’ll say too much more, except that this episode that you’re going to be hearing this debrief, was one that I recorded for my team and just for our internal podcast that we have for me to communicate things. So I listen back most of it like I’ve cut out the end bit where I’m just sharing like updates of like specific things we need to do, that’s just very like operational and logistical, but I have shared the overall debrief on what worked well, what didn’t work, and what to do differently, but a bit of context as well for this launch. So I have a coaching program that I sell and that I created that has had so many people transform their business in their life, and so we are selling that when I say a launch, it’s not that it’s open for the first time, but we do only open it periodically. So this was an opening of the program, and we had a podcast series go out. You can scroll back and see it on the podcast. We had a five part podcast series. We have emails that go out to our email subscribers. We have Instagram posts. It’s a very simple launch process. It’s one that I know converts. It’s been proven to convert very well for me and my business and how I do things, and so you’ll hear me talk about that in this episode as well, because this launch didn’t have the result that we wanted, and yet it wasn’t a problem with the actual launch itself, necessarily.
There are a few things to be tweaked, but it was actually something that wasn’t during the launch period that caused the result that we had for this launch. So I hope you enjoy listening to this episode, and also I just want to quickly mention as well, this is the approximately 15th time that we have opened PGSD for enrollment. I created the program in 2019 it has been through many iterations and evolution since then, but it’s been in a very similar form to how it is now, since about 2021 so I have a lot of experience with selling PGSD, and I think just like also exemplifying that, just because we had the result we had for this launch, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the program. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t create results. It doesn’t mean we have to completely change how we do the launches. The way that we do the launches are part of self trust, selling and having a very simple process that aligns with you and your strengths and your values and how you like doing things.
And it’s been proven to work for us time and time again. So instead of the perfectionist thing, of like, I need to scrap everything, rebuild it from scratch, and like, I have been in that headspace before. It is not a fun place to be, nor is it a productive place to be. So instead of being in that, it’s like actually, I know those things work really well, and I know the launch is working well too. There’s just a couple of things to tweak so we can get the results to where they want to be. But what I’m sharing in this episode is me at an advanced place with selling, talking about the lessons that I have learned. So if you are opening something for the first time, if you are new in your entrepreneurial journey, I have been making multiple six figures for at least five years now in my business, and I am dealing with a certain level of problem. So I just want to mention that just because you hear me saying that something is a problem. Priority for me to work on. That doesn’t mean that it’s your priority for you to work on right now.
And this is why, inside PGSD, one of the things we teach you how to do is identify the needle move is for your business and to actually follow through with them, using your momentum project and power planning and clean rest that really support you to take action without burning out by getting a perfectionist mindset working for you instead of against you. So you need to know your own needle movers for your business, and they are unique to your business. This is why it can be so harmful when we with our perfectionist brain, are looking at what everyone else is doing in their business, what everyone else is focusing on, and then instead of really identifying the decision making processes or the thoughts and like, Okay, I’m going to take that. We say I need to make the same decision they made, even though they’re in a very different place, or working on different things and having different priorities based on where their business is. We say I need to make the same decision they made, and we use it against ourselves, and then we take ourselves off the path of success by having someone else’s needle mover become our own, because we think they know better, and we don’t trust ourselves to know our own needle movers.
So that’s a major focus inside PGSD, because it’s so essential to building a successful business that actually feels successful too and is aligned with the strengths that you have and the gifts that you have to offer. So don’t think just because I’ve said in this something is my needle mover to focus on after this launch, in between the next one, that that means you need to focus on it as well. Maybe that is the case, but maybe it’s not. So just be listening to take the gems that you can take. There is so much in this episode for you to learn from, and I think the biggest takeaway is around how to stay emotionally regulated, just by listening to me actually being in that place, and hearing the way that I’m thinking about the result that we had for this launch and how I am then troubleshooting that and what I decide to do and what I don’t decide to do. So with that said, I hope you enjoy this episode.
Sam Laura Brown
Okay, so I am calling this part one of the PGSD 2504, launch debrief, because I feel like there’s still debriefing to do, particularly around the content going out between the launches. Today, I started my review, so the launch finished yesterday, which was the 12th of April, and today, the kids are at their grandparents place. And I just felt really compelled to start doing the launch debrief. I just feel with the way that we approach this launch, with having our PGSDlaunch recipe that we’ve created, and then with this launch, instead of trying to jump in and save the day or things like that, we actually really solve for things at a systems level, and created repeatable solutions to implement and identify when there are systems issues where we haven’t actually clearly defined things or said what’s going to happen, and an execution issue where something is actually clear what needs to be done, but it just wasn’t done. And solving for those, not just for this launch, but every launch that has made a huge difference, and having the same emails go out with the sales, the same sales page and a podcast series that we’d already used before that had, I think it was 21 or 22 sign ups when we did that launch in July 2022.
It was so great to just have so much of it stayed the same that when it has come to the launch result, which was one sign up, I think it was on the second day of open cart. So we had one sign up and the same content, very similar content that we had in the last launch. We had nine signups, and there were some different factors as well. With that launch, comparatively to this one, there will always be some factors and context that’s different. But to just see like, oh, it’s not just was the podcast series good? That’s where my brain has gone every time there’s just been a new podcast series or new emails or a new sales page that it goes to like, was that good? And this time, I feel like I can actually look at the launch so much more objectively. I feel like the work I’ve done on creating emotional safety as well in terms of finances and things like that, has really had me just like, not have any spin out, not have any kind of, like, emotional activation around it, and to just, I just feel so curious and intrigued and like, okay, let’s figure out what happened. Let’s solve for that. Let’s make sure we see all the sufficiency, because there is a lot of sufficiency in the way that we did this launch, and also one of the couple of things that need to be adjusted.
So I just want to talk through in this my insights from what I have done so far with the launch, and a big part of that is just going with my hunch, and my hunch has just been that the pre launch content, like the demand build section of the launch, which is from when the last previous launch ended, to just before we began, like really going into this launch, that like what was happening in that period of time has such a big impact, also lead generation, and I haven’t yet this iswhere there’s more to come. I haven’t yet looked at like, how many new leads, like new people we actually had enter our world in that time, but I know from a quick review that I’d done that I think it would be around 100 or so, like, not a high number in terms of wanting to have the conversions that we have that that number wouldn’t, you wouldn’t expect that to produce like 20 sign ups from 100 new email subscribers. So anyway, where the this launch has so many, I feel like there’s so many different things I could say about it. Like, for one, we didn’t really have a clear launch goal that was discussed. That is a problem, and that is a problem that is going to be solved. I think the way we’ve done launch goals in the past has just been like, I don’t know. There’s been different ways that we’ve done it where it’s either like, what would be the ideal goal to achieve and then thinking of it that way, or like what’s reasonable to expect and thinking of it that way.
And I really want to just have a more I don’t know you could still just be picking a number, but like to just really be committed to it, because we didn’t actually have a goal that we were solving for. And so, for example, the goal that I had in mind for this launch was 15, but I wasn’t feeling committed to that. That was just like, I should have a goal, so I have a goal, and we didn’t discuss it as a team. And then also when it came to solving for that goal, we weren’t during the launch solving for that goal. It was like, Okay, well, we have nine signups last time, and this is a rough pattern that it was in. We didn’t really take into account too much like what we thought the impact of different things were. Though, Daisy did an estimate of what the goal, what the outcome would be, and it was like three was conservative, like a conservative number of sign ups based on all the stats we had. And then maybe it was like five, and then seven, or like, basically it was between like three and seven sign ups was the estimate. And so we had that, but then we didn’t go okay, but the goal is 15. So how are we going to solve for that?
So there’s that part of this as well, and I’m just going to speak to whatever’s top of mind. Part of this as well, is that whatI’ve realized with my maternity leave and the plans for that, and they’ve since adjusted, that I’m not going to be having a defined mat leave. It just felt so restrictive to do that when I didn’t actually have the desire to do that. It was more like a societal like you should have that instead of like. But what I actually want to do, especially with this baby, it feels more like and obviously, once I have him, I’m 35 weeks pregnant currently. Once I have him, and we know what he’s like, and all of that, that will be information we can take into account. But currently, I’ve had a daughter who’s only four, then twin sons. I had three kids under the age of two, and then having we’re gonna have four under four, but it feels so much easier to think about just having one newborn. I just like doing all the things just once, instead of doing it twice every single time, and also just to shift from three to four. Feels just like mentally and I’ve done so much self coaching and getting coached, personally, like life coaching on this from my coach, about how I’m thinking about it, and I just feel like it’s more for this time around, like life continues on, because we have three kids who very much are, like, active and like old enough that they are really involved. And we’re not just kind of like educating them, but they can’t respond like they could talk, they could do a lot.
So it’s more kind of like baby fitting into our current life. And the same with it feels like business that instead of just stopping the business, it just doesn’t make sense. So anyway, all of that to say, not having to find mat leave period. And then when it comes to and like, just trusting myself to assess on a week to week, day to day, hour to hour basis, of like, what I want to do, I feel like my my clean rest abilities and ability to mentally switch off is at such a great place that I’m not worried about, like, overworking, or if I’m doing any work, that means I’m only thinking about the business I’m not in that point like I’ve I feel like advanced beyond that with my clean rest and my self trust. So. So with that said, something that has really impacted the launch result, or played a role, is that the thinking that I really had going into this launch was like, I’m not going to be around for the next launch because I’m going to still be on my mat leave, which was planned to be three months. And so we need to solve for how to have this launch be successful without me, and we need to plan for how to build the business without me and without my presence.
And I’m just seeing now how that question, while good intention, was actually not super helpful, or as helpful as asking, how can we systemize things so that it amplifies my voice and amplifies my presence, even if I’m having time off, and also the roles that I play. So I’m the CEO, I’m the marketing manager, I’m the content creator, I’m the coach. There’s a lot of other roles as well, like I’m HR, I’m the janitor, things like that. So all of that to say, with this launch, we didn’t look at like, Okay, if the like, how do we systemize the Launch Manager role? So for example, one thing that I really want us to implement is having benchmarks and like decision rules. For example, if engagement is below x, then we will do Y. Things like that, that it was revealed through this launch and the execution of it, that we’re really missing a lot of that, and I’m really excited to provide that. But also we will always have a marketing manager working during a launch. And so instead of it being okay, how can we do it when the marketing manager is not available, we want to say, how can we look at the marketing manager role so that we’re in the we are doing a launch, even if the normal Marketing Manager, which is me, if the normal marketing manager isn’t available, someone else can still step into marketing manager role and do that. Versus the thinking that I had was like, okay, the marketing managers away.
So how do we do a successful launch and basically, like, plan out the marketing manager so that they’re not involved, but 100% is just so clear, if we had a separate marketing manager to me, they would definitely be working during a launch, and if and if they weren’t available, someone else would definitely be stepping in to be the marketing manager, not just being like, Okay, well, they’re not here, so we need to just not have a marketing manager. So a big win from this launch was the marketing manager oversight from myself, because in basically every other launch, I’ve never done what I did with this launch before, which is I actually was just sitting back paying attention to what was happening. We did a daily stats report, which I think works really well. It evolved a lot. There’s still a lot more qualitative data and context that’s needed so we’ve got certain numbers. But for some things, we were missing benchmarks, like sales activity that we didn’t have a good benchmark to actually be able to solve for like, is zero sign ups today a problem or not, things like that. But also, we just need a lot more context around the data and a lot more a qualitative data, for example, like, what questions are coming in from people, even if it’s not many, like, what are those questions?
So for example, someone asked what my involvement will be in PGSD, because I’m on mat leave, and that would have been a great thing to address in an email, rather than us not actually incorporating that. And I did see that, and then I didn’t write an email about it, and but it wasn’t in that report. And so I think having that in that report would be really helpful. And then just having, I think, a lot more context around the launch, like, what other world events are happening?What are people thinking about? So for example, a recession, or likely recession, was announced during the open cart period. So instead of ignoring that, or not having a pulse on that, or having zero communication about that, I think it’s still important for us to actually start being like, is anything major happening in the news, so that we could write, for example, an email or do a podcast episode or something about like, Here’s how PGSD makes your business recession proof, instead of not really entering that conversation at all.
So I think there’s a lot of that context and other stuff that’s needed around a launch to really bring it alive and to have us not being like, Okay, well, last time we had X amount of people, I trust that that will happen. We still having that trust, but part of the trust is being engaged. Like, if you trust your partner, like your romantic partner, husband, wife, whatever, it’s not like, Okay, I really trust them, and so I’m just not paying any attention to what they’re doing. You’re stillleaned in, engaged, committed, connected. Having conversations, things like that. So I think that I could see as well withthis launch that I actually had to distinguish at the beginning of the launch, like, oh, just because everything’s already created doesn’t mean I’m not involved in this launch. Because that had been my previous like, I had just been so busy with emails and everything like that that I didn’t really even have the bandwidth to also be overseeing the launch as marketing manager. I was just really thinking as, like, content creator.
And then with some of the launches that we did where we prepared the content ahead of time, I was more so just in thislike, entitlement. So for the April 2022 launch, this entitlement, of like, okay, we got everything prepared ahead of time, so they should sign up, and I was still in the drop. Like, maybe the, it’s the messaging, and maybe it says, And at that time, to be fair, we were still figuring out the messaging, the PGSD, the different angles and things like that. So we’re in a very different place now with that. But this is really the first launch where I was like, Oh, actually, I’m the marketing manager, and I need to be engaged. If I had a marketing manager that I had hired separately that wasn’t me, I would 100% be like, You need to be paying attention to what is happening with this launch. You need to be checking in on it every day, having that high level view, seeing what’s actually happening, solving for things, and not just for this launch, but creating repeatable solutions, identifying problems, solving them different things like that.
So having that daily report really helped with that. Instead of like I’m gonna go in and look at the numbers on the back end to just identify actually, there’s different numbers we need that we haven’t ever kept track of before. And me havingthat daily conversation, or like report from Daisy in Slack, allowed us to be having more conversations about it and working as a team, even when it was like an async update, where she was giving an update at the same time every day,and then I was reviewing the update. Some days being like, no notes, no comments. Other days being like, Okay, this, this, this, and this. So that was really helpful as well. And then through that daily report, we iterated a lot like, Hey, I actually need this data. Like, tell me more about this. Or I can see you’re thinking that, but actually, this is my thoughts on what would need to happen. So that was great to have that, and just having that marketing manager hat on to look at everything as well. Super helpful. Such a big breakthrough. A couple other things to mention. And then I want to talk about, like, my hunch about it being the demand build period content, and looking at what’s happening there.
But one thing that happened with this launch that didn’t work was that we had, we knew we were going to be repurposing pretty much all of the content from previous launches. So emails we sent out, I think the same ones as the PGSD 2501, launch, which is the PGSD 2025, January launch, and the email the podcast series and things like that. But we actually didn’t have a lot of that content set up until the day before the launch, or the pre launch podcast series began, and then with the open cart content, we were still getting that going, like scheduled and out during the pre launch, into the open cart period, I believe. So we had the ability to be able to, like, a month out, get it all set up. And that would have given me as well, doing it that way and this way, I want it to change going forward, doing it that way would have allowed me as marketing manager, and now I have the awareness to know this as marketing manager, to actually go in and review. Like, here are all the emails. Yes, they were great last time. But like, is there anything that’s missing contextually for this time of year, any new insights we want to add? Like, not revamping the whole thing, but like, here’s the base and what adjustments are there like for me to actually be able to visualize this is the experience we’re about to send someone through. What needs to change, or what does that look like? That is really important.
So for this next launch we have in July, what we really need to be doing, and I’m going to be a bit of a stickler for this, is that we need to have the project in Asana set up the week after. So this coming week is like, kind of like the launch debrief week, but have the project in Asana set up the following week. And then instead of saying, Okay, we’re gonna get everything ready a few weeks before the launch, it’s we’re gonna get all the launch stuff together ASAP, and then we can review it high level. We can see what’s coming so that we can also feed. That into the demand build period content that it needs to not be like, Okay, we’ll do it right before it’s needed. But actually, that really is a priority to have that so that as the marketing manager, or if I’m like, I want to create a new podcast series that I can create that with the full context of the launch, instead of like, okay, we’re waiting for Sam to know what messaging she wants to do or whatever, for it to really be like a moving a lot forward, more forward timeline wise, so that as marketing manager, I can have oversight of that as well. So that’s a really important thing.
And then also we can make sure we get the the deadlines we need to so that everything is scheduled multiple weeks in advance, that we’re not as a team. And this is part of with the priorities or like projects we’re working on that we’ve had in the back end. Not a lot of clarity about what the projects are. We haven’t really had a system for prioritizing projects, keeping track of projects. We have that in Asana, but we haven’t had like, an overall system, which we’re now creating. But because of that as well, it was like having kind of as a team being more in like, task execution mode. It is trying to get shit done, instead of like, hey, this launch, we actually need to prioritize that, and not just because now the launch has started and we’re in it, but even then, the plan had been going into the launch, like will fit in the launch stuff around everything else, so just actually identifying the way, or solving for the way we approach projects as a business and cleaning that up, which we are currently doing. But that is really important so that this stuff can actually get done. And we have that clearly as a priority, not like we fit in a launch around everything else.
So there was a few, like, thought errors like that, of like, right up until the launch, we’re thinking we fit in around everything else. We need to to systemize it so that we can do it without Sam and really, like we need so we can do it without a marketing manager. And I think the way that for me a few things. One, the way that I’ve been thinking about content has been from this, like, how do we have it go out like this, content for content sake. How do we have the content go out with me being absent, instead of really thinking about, how do we amplify my voice and the message and get it into as many hands as possible and make sure that it’s like actually a message that creates sales and that helps people transform Am I not just like, here’s some tips, do it yourself, because we know that doesn’t lead to the transformation that it ultimately could if they had the breakthroughs and joined PGSD and got the coaching and got the support and had the full process and had the community and all those different things in there. So with the with that, I think just that being a primary question I was so focused on in the lead up to the launch, needing to systemize things looking at the back end.
I do want to applaud myself for identifying I need to stop being in the weeds of the operations, and I still want to be engaged and connected with what’s happening in operations. It’s not like this abdication, but also because I was the one really like being the operations lead and holding all those projects in my head and then delegating tasks, it was making it harder for me to be in my zone of genius, which is recording things like this and creating the intellectual property like all of that kind of stuff. So that has now been handed to Daisy, which I’m proud of, and all the progress that we have been making. And then when it comes to the content between the launches, or like this kind of, like systems freeze, if we want to call it that, that I went into this like, I can’t create anything new until we have the perfect system for the stuff I would create to go into. And I think ultimately just subconsciously trying to create emotional safety for myself, of like, if I’m going to have increased visibility and a successful business, then I need to have systems to keep me safe, and I need to be the one to create the system, or to orchestrate that.
And a few really great systems have come out of that. Thinking about the PGSD sales system as a system, not just we have a launch or we do batch creating of content, but I really have through that process such a better understanding of the pgse sales system, which includes me talking with my voice, and the magnetism and aliveness of that being such an important, important part of the sales system, but also the content in the demand build period after the last launch ends like that stuff, it’s not we had been just in like content for content sake, we need to post consistently. We need to on the podcast. We need to post on Instagram. But we weren’t actually ever looking at like, what the content of that podcast was. Was it a nurture episode, a demand building episode, a sales episode, what’s the CTA? Are we gathering leads from that for podcast for the Instagram account? It was just like post for posting sake, and that objectively, especially with Instagram, I feel like it’s just clearer. And I know this is a key insight too, from this launch of like, when I’mdisconnected from Instagram, it’s typical that I’m the same way with the podcast. And when I’m really into Instagram and showing up there, and I don’t have to be the one to create the Canva graphic. But when I’m really engaged with Instagram, I’m also am with the podcast.
And I can’t actually think of a time where I was really fully engaged with the podcast, but not also thinking that with Instagram. I think it’s just like the mindset. And when I’m in that connected flow with the podcast, I naturally want to share on Instagram, and then when I’m not that way with the podcast, way with the podcast, I don’t want to share on Instagram. But anyway, I hadn’t been actually looking at the content, having any kind of review of it. We hadn’t been really looking at any stats. It was just kind of like, did stuff get posted, and I didn’t oversee the distribution of it. So we had Daisy repurposing things, but I didn’t give a repurposing criteria, and I also then didn’t oversee the repurposing, andI didn’t say anything as well. When I could see the Instagram content looked really flat, and I could see with some of thepodcast topics that they aren’t ones that create demand for PGSD, like getting on top of life admin doesn’t create demand for PGSD, but I hadn’t, again, given repurposing guidelines, and I wasn’t overseeing or giving feedback on the distribution of it. And I know now that as marketing manager, I need to be actively engaged with, not the creation of like the carousel, necessarily, but I do need to have an input into what words go in that carousel, and then also with how it performs, and how the overall like feel of the podcast and the account is like, there’s just those things where I can’t actually, like, articulate exactly why, but I just feel the like aliveness of it, or whether something feels magnetic and like it would draw people in, or whether it’s like, yes, scroll, scroll, scroll.
And so when it has been in that scroll, scroll, scroll vibe, I didn’t say anything, because I was so busy trying to fix up the back end and create better systems so that I could be ready to share. So that is one thing that has really been a major breakthrough. I’ve had a lot of breakthroughs in the last few months, but a major one has just been and I’ve seen it in multiple seasons of the business, when I just retreat into behind the scenes stuff, and it feels really easy to justify, and that’s what a good CEO would do. But really coming to like my voice, is such a driver of this business, through the podcast, through Instagram, I don’t have to be the one to personally hit publish on the podcast or to personally create the slides in Canva, but having that energy, like when I have sold the most is when I had something to sell. So I’ve been in that energy pre having something to sell, and didn’t make that much money because I didn’t have something to sell, but now that I have something to sell and that people can buy and that people want, but then communicating it just as me letting myself be connected, be engaged. I’m not saying the perfect things, but I’m just sharing my honest, raw, real, basically, what I’ve been doing from day one, with varying degrees of self trust and, like, trying to get too strategic was a big issue for this launch, trying to have, like, systems of processes and being so polished and whatever, and I just, like, polished out the me from the launch, and like, what happened between the launch.
So really bringing that back and having that be an actual metric for the launch and the demand build. And not just looking at like, did a post get posted, but like, what was the content of that post? What was the spark of that, the energy of that and has been really helpful as well to look at with ChatGPT, like, what metrics, or how could we can look at something that has been created in more of a subjective like, Spark isn’t like a number you can look at, but like, what are the kind of things that influence that, or that resonance, and how can we measure that and just review that and have a pulse on what that is? So there’s that. And so I just want to lead to, we’re going to wrap up in a minute. I want to lead to what I’ve been looking at today with the launch debrief. So a lot of those insights I shared came from the launchdebrief today, but also my hunch about the demand build period content and like what’s happening. I didn’t have a time. Have time. Have time to look at email. I didn’t have time yet to look at Instagram.
But what I’m planning to do so I had ChatGPT review the podcast. And so what I did was I got a document I screenshotted in our air table view of the episodes that went out during that demand build time. This time for this launch, we only had six episodes before the lastlaunch. We had 12 episodes in the demand build period, which is also context that we hadn’t taken into account. But the six episodes, I got the transcripts from the episodes and put them all together and had ChatGPT review for spark, resonance, magnetism, that kind of thing also for, like, is there in terms of leading to PGSD as the next step? Is that clear?Is that not clear? Like, what was the level of CTA? Does this naturally lead people to want pgse and to sign up or not? And so I got together for this launch, and then the previous launch, andhad ChaGPT review that, and that was so interesting, even just and this is why it was my hunch, because I know how I’d been thinking about content differently in those periods. But with this launch that we just had, there were six podcast episodes. Five of them were best of the podcast episodes.
We didn’t have, like, a clear repurposing criteria. I was just, like, abdicating, really, of like, just post something because I’m busy. And there was one episode I recorded that was, I would say, my typical recording style of like, having a starting a concept essentially develop on a pgse coaching call about completion avoidance and then sharing that. But the other episodes would just repurpose ones without and it’s not an issue with having a best of the podcast episode, but without a clear criteria as to what that episode needs to do to still be creating sales. So it was just interesting to have ChatGPT essentially say, like, those episodes, pretty much all of them were just really, like nurturing episodes. There wasn’t a clear PGSD CTA, and this is where it gets, like the distinction is so important the episode still, at the end, we have an outro that says, sign up for PGSD. So, like, it’s a 32nd outro or whatever. So there’s still a mention of it, but it’s not like woven into the episode that that is the obvious next step and they want to be inside, and here’s why, and here’s what it’s like, all of that kind of thing. It was just like, by the way. So like this kind of episode that’s still valuable, but isn’t actually selling so that people can actually sign up and create the change.
Because the value on a podcast isn’t just like I had a great insight, and then I kept being the same value on a podcast is I had a great insight, I took action on that insight, and I created the transformation. And so with what I do as a coach, that that really is having wins along the way, for sure, as a listener, and then getting yourself inside and signing up and having the full transformation so you’re not just like consuming inspiring content about productivity and business as a perfectionist, and consuming that for years and years and years and still having the same issues. So having that kind of insight, because we have been in content for content sake, on the podcast and everywhere, but particularly with the podcast, because we haven’t actually, for me as a marketing manager, had a review loop of like, okay, what was that episode like? Did we have? What was the actual purpose of it like to have people sign up for the perfectionism quiz or for something else, or the wait list? How many of those sign ups did it actually produce doing any kind of review like that, that it just has been like, Okay, well, if I feel good recording it, it’s a good episode. If I don’t feel good, it’s not a good episode. Like, there, because there hasn’t been that feedback loop. My brain just goes to like, how I felt during the recording, and then it’s easy to be like, well, if I don’t feel good, then I won’t record, even though I know a lot of episodes I record but I’m not feeling good are really resonant.
But at this point the feedback loop too. I don’t really get feedback from people on episodes. We rarely get DMS about episodes or people tagging episodes that resonate. I used to get a lot more of that. Part of it is probably just a shift in the way people use social media. Part of it is just having lower number of downloads per episode, or like people assuming that I wouldn’t care to hear that, which I do so I haven’t had that feedback loop. But also then comparing it tothe PGSD 2501, demand build period, we have 12 episodes. I think eight of them were new episodes I recorded with newconcepts and ideas. Two behind the scenes launch episodes, which interestingly ChatGPT was like they are the most compelling from a sales perspective. Because it’s literally you embodying that work and sharing it in a way that really builds trust, and is an example in all of these things, like you’re not just intellectually talking about the content. I did a lotof those episodes in 2022 when we had the most sign ups and things like that, that we had 125 people sign up that year across five launches that we did, and I was just sharing a lot of like, here’s the behind the scenes. Like I wasn’t trying to be strategic.
It’s just still such a warning sign to me, if I’m trying to be strategic, an alarm bell needs to go off that I’m out of my my zone of genius, and I’ve gone into my head to try and like, be better that I don’t like. If, basically it’s me not trusting myself not to say that someone else can’t have that thought, and it’d be really helpful. But for me, when I’m trying to trying to be strategic, that’s just a really nice way of trying to say, I’m trying to get it right. I’m trying to like, be better than I am, because I’m not good enough, and that kind of thing. So anyway, just seeing the difference in that content, I know for sure with Instagram as well, that the content that we had for PGSD 2504, between the launches that we didn’t like, there was no seeding of the clean rest series is coming, maybe like one post about it like that’s not nearly enough volume that we weren’t selling, PGSD between the launches that we were sharing things. Again, that was me abdicating and saying, Daisy, can you post things and repurpose it, but without a clear repurposing criteria?
And the same with the email, without a clear repurposing criteria that it needs to meet, and without me reviewing the results beyond, did it get posted, or what was the open rate for the email? And so it just being like contents going out, but even when I could read the emails that were going out, like this, email isn’t going to create sales. And I knew that instinctively, that it’s not actually building demand. But I was so busy like trying to be safe behind the scenes, and I just have to have compassion with myself for that. Of just feeling like being pregnant, there’s a lot of uncertainty that comeswith that, and just I can when I go through a more uncertain period in my personal life, my brain wants to create more certainty and like safety in my business than it otherwise might, because I feel like there’s, like, more uncertainty than normal. So my tolerance for uncertainty has already, like nearly, been reached by my personal life, so it’s lower in my business life, and so I’m just expanding my capacity for uncertainty so I can feel uncertain in both because that’s going to be live for everyone, because uncertainty and having that control doesn’t actually give me more certainty, just the illusion of it. So what I want to do, I’ve done an analysis of the podcast, and I would also like to compare it just with 2022content, or like the 2021 content I created when I had Lydia mid 2021 and then I just got back in the flow through posting on Instagram and going on Instagram Live and sharing on the podcast.
And it wasn’t strategic, but I was just sharing stuff. And then we had our biggest launch with 50 sign ups after that. And then that year, it was still like riding that momentum, even though, at the time, I was thinking, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I was still showing up posting things. We didn’t have a system for Instagram, so that is something that needs to be solved, that I can just be a prolific creator for any platform, and we just have that go out instead of what we’ve been doing, which is trying to have the system, and then I fit my content into the system. It’s not going to work that way.Anytime we focus on doing it that way, we need to just flag it, because that is not like we need a system that just catches what I create, because I have so much to create. And I also have cycles, so that instead of it being like one episode a week, some weeks, I just have this flow of things I want to say I want to do, like, 20 podcast episodes. Other weeks, I’m like, I have nothing to say, and I’m just in a really introspective week where I’m not wanting to actually vocalize anything.
And so we need to have a system that also honors and makes the most of those rhythms, rather than it being like, Hey, do six episodes this week, then six the next week, and have it be on this certain theme, in this certain topic, or whatever that I just at this point, I want to say I’ve learned that that isn’t where I’m at my most powerful and that we’re not going to keep trying to even if I feel emotionally unsafe and want to do that, that we’re not going to let me try to do that and have this perfect content creation system that I then fit myself into. That actually, I can just create content, and then wehave a system that supports the distribution of that, and then, as a marketing manager, I oversee that. But what I want us to do is, for Instagram, do an analysis of what went out before the launch with the Instagram content, like, screenshots of like or here was the carousel copy. Here was the caption for it, like all of that. Here were the number of stories we did, because I know we didn’t, like warm people up, that we weren’t selling PGSD between it.
And then, like, I just, I just know that so intuitively from having looked at it and seeing it going out, and that we weren’t posting on stories, really at all about anything, that I wasn’t obviously present on stories with the emails, even I wasn’t like, looking at that particularly, and that I don’t feel like wrong about that. I just feel like this is such an obvious area for improvement, and to actually have the message that we share spread, instead of just kind of, like trying to systemize it and, like, remove me from it, that we need to have it amplify what I’m saying and the like, realness of the message, and to not have it just become a watered down, polished carousel. That’s about a concept. Like, there needs to be the story element to it. We haven’t had, not just necessarily Instagram stories, but like, on a great podcast episode, there’s a story,and I think that’s part of why the launch debrief episodes are so loved. It’s like the story of the launch, instead of just like, here’s a concept, here’s five ways that I just naturally know and from my own experience as a creator, like when I’m in that story mentality and sharing things, it’s so much more engaging than when it’s like, here’s an abstract concept that people might be like, Oh yeah, that’s me, but it doesn’t resonate, doesn’t stick in your memory.
So we need to actually review like, what are all the emails that went out during that period? How many waitlist emails did we send? How many new subscribers did we have? How many new followers did we have? Even if our overall following has gone down, how many new followers did we have in that time period? How many new subscribers? How many like, what? And then have all of those piece like, those assets. It’s not just like, Okay, we created content consistently, so they should have signed up. Like, no, what was the actual content? Was it just nurturing content? Was it engaging content? Was it sales content? Would they actually even know what power planning, what is like, this is such a big piece of it too, that if I look at our Instagram for 2504, that pre that, like, clean rest series going out, we weren’t talking about, like, this is power planning and this is clean rest right? It’s just like, general things about perfectionism thataren’t actually specific. And there is a lot of 101 content missing where, assuming people already know what perfectionism is, what the signs are that there’s that missing, that base level content of like, here are the signs you’re a perfectionist.
We’ve reintroduced the perfectionism quiz, but like, I’ve still been, or was still stuck in like, we need to have the perfect data to track to get it set up. But like, actually, we do need to make updates. And we just need to, like, have a date where I go in and make those updates, and then we can just say, Cool, that’s good, and roll that out. So what I most want to do with this launch is make sure, and I’m not trying to, like, how do I say this? I don’t want to go into, like, over indexing on this, if you will. But what we need to do is actually have it be like, it’s not about, okay, let’s get everything prepped for the next launch. So it’s great, like, the in between launch stuff matters more than the actual launch itself, because we know we have a launch process that converts if we have an engaged and growing audience that is interacting with and seeing that launch.
Outro
I hope you found that debrief incredibly helpful to listen to. There are so many takeaways in the episode about being a perfectionist entrepreneur, running a business, and also key principles, like, if you aren’t selling, then you’re not going to make sales. So that was one of the big problems between the launches for us, that we weren’t actually selling pgse between the launches. So the less you sell, the less you sell. So that was a big thing. I had polished myself out of the launch. I had removed the spark, removed the magic of the content, just through abdication, through focusing on other things, through having a main question for the business of like, how do we have the business succeed without me having to be there that had me actually optimizing for something that didn’t help the business to grow? So there were so many key insights for me, so many powerful reflections that we have since been implementing in the business.
So I hope you enjoyed it. And also, I want to mention that we are opening enrollment for perfectionist getting shit done on the 18th of July for one week only. So to find out more about the program and to get ready to sign up go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. I really want to invite you inside if you took away a lot from this episode. Or if you’re just someone who finds yourself procrastinating due to fear of failure, you procrastinate on showing up online. You procrastinate on selling you were just scared to be seen. You’re scared to put yourself out there, or if you’re someone, you are putting yourself out there, and then you completely spin out in a shame spiral when you’re not getting the engagement you want, you’re not getting the results that you want in terms of sales in your business, you often feel like you’re a failure. You feel like maybe you aren’t cut out for business, that you’re not going to be able to be successful, even though, deep down, you know, you have so much potential and there’s no reason that you wouldn’t be able to succeed, you find yourself questioning whether to quit your business, whether to keep going.
Is it really worth the effort when there’s no guaranteed payoff? I really want to invite you into PGSD to learn how to take action consistently and sustainably, how to stay emotionally regulated, how to feel safe showing up and putting yourself out there, online or in person. That is what you will master inside PGSD, there is so much support, and we have had so many people completely transform their business, and they were on track to not have a successful business because of perfectionism, not because they weren’t smart, not because they weren’t talented, just because of perfectionism. Once they learned how to get their perfectionist mindset working for them instead of against them, that was the unlock. They were able to start succeeding in their business. So I want to invite you inside when we open enrollment. So samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where to go right now to join the wait list and get ready to join us inside.