77. Simplifying (& Crushing) Her Launch While Being a Present Mom with Katherine Bignon

Meet Katherine Bignon - this amazing brand stylist and mom of FIVE who just pulled off her first course launch during the holiday madness and made over $5K! After years of having a million business ideas but struggling to actually implement them, she finally found her groove in the CEO Mom Mastermind. Katherine managed to launch her course in DECEMBER of all months while still keeping up with family dinners and all those special holiday traditions with her kiddos.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How we scrapped her complicated launch plan and replaced it with something she could actually do while being present for her family (yes, even in December!)
• The jaw-dropping moment when her launch hit a 5.5% conversion rate (that's nearly DOUBLE what most people get!)
• What it meant to finally work with someone who gets that your business and motherhood aren't separate things
• Why joining the mastermind didn't add more to her already full plate - but actually made everything clearer and simpler
• How she pre-sold her course and then built it WITH her students after they'd already paid (genius move for busy moms!)

Ready to stop choosing between your business dreams and family time?

If you're nodding along to Katherine's story, thinking "that's exactly what I need," head to yaelbendahan.com/mastermind to learn more about the CEO Mom Mastermind. There are 6 spots left before the investment goes up by over $2000 on April 10 so this IS THE BEST TIME TO JOIN US.

This isn't about squeezing one more thing into your crazy schedule - it's about finding a way to grow your business that actually works WITH your life as a mom, not against it. 

Katherine’s Links

The 3 Looks You Have to Nail (as the face of your brand) - https://katherinebignon.myflodesk.com/krqa7ijig4

Get on the waitlist for the Brand Shoot Blueprint - https://katherinebignon.com/the-brand-shoot-blueprint

LINKS
📈The CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix

🔥Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process that’s creating multi 6 figure years working nap times and being a full time mama of 6. Claim your spot here >>> https://yaelbendahan.com/leveragepod

💰Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers

✨Join the Collective
In the "building" stage of your business? Join the MOMentum Collective - my most accessible mentorship program for moms growing to $5-10K months.

💃 Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome back, and I am here today with my incredible client and friend, Catherine Bengal. She is someone that I met back in, oh gosh, back in 2023, beginning of 2023 in March. Yeah, at an event, I think at an in-person event. And we really clicked, because I had five kids at the time. We both had five kids, right?'cause that's not a usual thing to have apparently. And so we really clicked and we're like, oh yes, oh, you too. How's that working out for you? And it was just a really, it was really great. And she joined the CEO Mom Mastermind in 2024, going into 2024. So I. Catherine is a brand stylist for female entrepreneurs. She's a mom of five, like I said. She helps um, brand photographers basically style their photo shoot sets. She helps the subjects of the photo of the photo shoots. Style, their clothing, their branding, like really just pulls it all together in the most beautiful way. I've seen her sets. They're freaking gorgeous. I lust after her sets. I wanna fly into the states and have her do this for me. Okay this is like one of, this is a goal in my life is to make this happen. Do you wanna tell me a little more, bit more about you and like your background and your business, how you got started doing this? Sure. Thanks for that. That was the kindest intro. And I would love to style a shoot for you one day, but you can also fly me to Israel because I love to travel. So there's options. I'm, it's good to know that you're open to that though, because some people wouldn't. Ab Oh, absolutely, friend. So yeah, I am, I'm a stylist for specializing primarily in brand shoots. My background is in fashion design specifically. And so I started in the entrepreneurial world by designing custom bridal gowns. Years ago, I studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. And from there, um. I was married by the time I graduated. We had a couple kids already and I wanted to be able to run business and life on my own terms and not on somebody else's terms. And so I I graduated college and started my own business and started designing. I. And I loved it. I chased that dream for a number of years and then hit the point with with kids at home. And also it was right as the pandemic was starting that it just, it wasn't really working anymore. And I knew that I really needed to shift, something had to shift and I wasn't quite ready to let go of the dream of. Like creating bridal gowns and creating collections. But I knew that something needed to shift and there were a couple doors that had opened up for styling from a couple different angles, and I was really intrigued by it. I was intrigued by the way that clothing could communicate and the strategy behind it and the just the strategy behind visual communication as a whole and. Just, I fell in love with the idea of being able to still use my design background without having to be hands-on with white silk in a studio that my kids couldn't walk into. And ended up booking my first brand shoot. I'm totally out of the blue. So I had a friend who was planning a brand shoot and she reached out asking for help with what to wear. She said she was like, you always, I feel like you always have great ideas for what to wear. You have great solutions, you love shopping, and I have no idea what to wear and I hate shopping, so could you help me figure this out for my shoot. And I was super excited to do it. I was ab absolutely. I knew from the beginning with brand shoots that I, and styling in general, that I wanted to approach styling differently than I saw other stylists do it. I didn't want it to be a heavy trend-based approach where I would get someone dressed up and ready for a photo shoot. I. By focusing heavily on trends and what would make them look like popular or trendy in the moment, but then leave them feeling like they had nothing to wear for their next event or no solution. So I wanted to focus on more of a strategy driven approach so that we could nail that visual communication and so that we could nail what it was that their target audience needed to see in order to really trust them and to believe them and to, in the end, buy their product. And I approached the first shoot with that perspective and I created some resources to go along with the final delivery of the looks and sent everything over. And I loved the experience. She loved the experience. She ended up putting the style guide that I had created for her on her Instagram stories that night. And within a couple hours, somebody else who was planning a brand shoot and had no clue what to wear reached out and they were like. Oh my gosh. I saw the style guide that you created, and that's what I need. That's the strategy that I need. Can you please help me? And so I threw together a packages guide really quick and sent it off and within 24 hours from this first shoot had been booked for a second, and it just snowballed from there. And I ended up. Building a styling business that ran for for multiple years based heavily on referrals from both client referrals and from photographer referrals. And so they were doing all of the speaking for me. I didn't really have a website that was speaking for me. I had literally taken my bridal design website, added another page to it, left the full bridal design website up and had. Single page that like listed all of the styling options and that was where we were sending people to so that they could see a website presence and inquire from there. And that kept me really busy for a couple years until I hit the point where the level of clients that I was booking weren't trusting the level of website and the level of presence that I had online. And it's funny looking back, I had not had my own brand shoot yet, and so all of the things that I talk about with clients with showing up, trustworthy online, nailing your visuals so that your clients believe that you can do what you say you can do, that was what ended up shooting me in the foot eventually, because I didn't have any of those visuals up. I didn't have anything that was proving that I could do what I said that I could do beyond showing off my portfolio. And so it was. It was a fun season. It was very fun growth. But then it hit a stagnant point where I realized I had to change what I was doing. And that was what led me into a season of looking for resources that could help me grow, looking for programs, potential coaches, just some other people to come in alongside me so that I wasn't doing it on my own. Because I think that's one of the hardest things about running your own business is that you. You are your own boss and it's easy to be my own boss when I'm managing client projects, but it's really hard to be my own boss and create my own checklist when it's for the things that I have to do in my business to make it survive. The CEO EO stuff, right? Yeah. Like it's almost like the C stuff. Yeah. Because we, because especially if you're a, you start off as a service provider, you very much, you can still grow your business with this sort of like employee mindset where you're like, you're doing the stuff for the clients and you're still then the clients almost become your boss. To an extent, that becomes an extension of what you previously were doing. Whereas then, when you really wanna scale, then you really have to step, put on your CEO hat and then really be like, okay, I have to take a active steps, I have to have my own accountability, right? Or I have to find help and get accountability. So you said you're growing primarily based, like with referrals and obviously now looking at your website, you did your photo shoot, and I, it's very common, like shoemakers children and all that. Very often we'll neglect our own things and be like, this is so important. And then when I was a social media manager, it's but you don't have a lot of followers. I'm like, yes. I'm so busy growing everyone else's followings. Okay. I did use the potential brand shoot that was looming in the future as the excuse to buy the clothes that I wanted to buy. When I would find, I was like, oh this will be for a brand shoot. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah. It's a write off. So you ever the write off thing? Unfortunately, no. If only, I know apparently it's not actually a write off, but unless you only use it for the, like you rent it for the photo shoot. Like I spoke to my friend Kimberly about this and she goes, actually buying clothes for a red photo shoot is not a write off. I hate to write it to you. I write off. Unless it's like uniform specific, yes. Like an actual uniform that you're not likely to wear in your day to day oh so much for that. Okay, so you were so that was, so what was your, as as you're growing your business obviously you said it was hard for you to focus on the right c like kind of CEO activities to grow your business. So what were your biggest challenges? What have you tried, what have you tried before Working together with me in the mastermind? Yeah. So I am. A dreamer to the core. I have endless ideas, endless things that I want to do. And then when it comes down to the nitty gritty of how do you actually make it happen, that's where I get overwhelmed and I tend to stall in my overwhelm and I end up freezing and then not doing anything. And so I had endless ideas of courses that I wanted to launch in opt-ins and. You name it. All of the different programs, subscription models, like anything that sounded like a fun idea that I could see, like this would be really great growth. It's taking me where I wanna go. I had all the ideas and the endless list of mapping everything out and no progress was being made. And it was a mix of not having anyone to help guide me through what needed to be done, but also. Life with five kids is a lot. We homeschooled through some of that season. We moved and I, I always knew that I wanted a big family and I wanted to be able to be as present with my kids as I could while also still running something that was cre creatively mine. And so that, that's a really hard balance to find, especially without anyone alongside of you. And so I pursued, um. Around the time that I launched my website, I like the first website beyond the bridal design option. I joined a large group program from some coaches that I have a huge amount of respect for and. I looked at the outline, it was a year long group program. I looked at the outline of everything that was gonna be included for the year and it was a lot of like business foundation things, growing your brand, and I knew that there was a lot of good things that I could get out of that. I also felt like some of the core curriculum that was being offered was things I had. Already nailed and felt pretty confident on, but some of the bonuses that they had thrown in actually made the whole program feel more valuable to me than the actual core curriculum. And so they were, some of the bonuses that were in, there were some specific trainings on launching courses and growing some digital products. And so I knew that if I could. Organize it correctly and nail the timing on it, that it would be really beneficial to me. And so I worked through that program for a year. I got a lot out of it. Group programs are hard because it's not one-on-one at all. And what I really needed was some of the one-on-one oversight. Just someone to bounce ideas off and tell me if I was like. Too deep in the woods or had a good idea, but also someone to help me map out and make sure that those ideas actually came to fruition and went past just the ideas in the list phase. So it was a group program. I got a lot out of it. It was a really great program, but the areas where I got the most out of it were the specific programs within it that I had pinpointed at the beginning on writing a course and. It was not on launching the course, it was on writing the course. And so at the end of that year, I had done some really great work. I felt like I had built some really great things, but I still couldn't quite see how to get it out into the world, how to make it work, how to deliver all of these ideas. So I had nailed some of the framework for building them, but still just really needed. The oversight, the handholding into getting it out into the world. Yeah. I totally, and I, and it, group programs are like designed like for scale, for scalability, obviously. And and that is that is to me. I love groups because I think that you get so much from the collective group of people, but I also think that like people who are not who, like you said, who need, who are more of like the visionaries, right? Yeah. Really need help. Like just finding their specific. Way. Absolutely.'cause it's not gonna be, and it's not always gonna line up like exactly perfectly, with that time of year or when something is running or when something is doing. And okay. So then, so you finished, you, I think you finished around that time or close that time. So what made you, when you heard about the Mastermind what made you decide to join the Mastermind? What were like, were there any hesitations or were like, is this gonna work for me or is this gonna be just another thing? Yeah, what made you like take the leap. There really weren't any hesitations. It really felt like the right fit it. And because, as I realized as you were talking I had been referring to the past program as a group program and this, the mastermind is a group program as well, but there's different ways to look at it. So this previous program was a program with about a hundred people in it, I think, and zero direct access to the coaches. And so there was a lot of cohort conversation, but not necessarily with people. At the same level that I was working towards, not like it, it was not necessarily the right community fit. And so when this opportunity came along for your mastermind it clicked pretty quickly that this was the right fit. I knew that it was. A small, a much smaller scale program than the previous one had been because the overall goal of it was different. I knew that the coach, so you was someone who had created a program and had also created your own business to run alongside your family. And I had been really wary about doing any sort of a deep dive with. A coach whose primary focus of growth would be within your business without looking at the full picture of how that affected your family. I wanted someone who would be able to look at that full picture and understand that growth in one area sometimes takes a toll on the other and that. That can go both ways. Like family growth can take a toll on your business, and business growth can take a toll on your family. And so how do you figure out how to balance those things so that it's a benefit to both instead of feeling like there's a cost or a line that limits you? Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah the, just knowing that I was jumping into something where there would be no frustration or concern about the fact that I had five kids and still wanted to run a business. No concern about the fact that my schedule is pretty highly dictated in this season by sports and school schedules and when I show up to volunteer in the classroom and that we would be able to work things around that and figure out what. What the right seasons were for different launches based on what family life looked like. So I knew that would be like completely invaluable. I love that so much. And I, and obviously like throughout the year we were focusing on, getting more known for your expertise as well. And then towards the end, like actually toward the end, which is, this is the ironic thing. You ended up launching your course in December, which like anyone else would be like. December's kind of a busy month for moms. Because whether, there's gonna, there's bound to be a holiday in there somewhere. Whatever you, whatever kind of, religion you have, or even if you're not even religious, it's the holiday season, right? And so tell me more about that, because I do think, to me it is very important in the Mastermind that people have opportunities to get support in multiple different ways. Because you're not always gonna be able to show up to the calls live or you're not gonna be able to always show up in Slack. And having that mix of the live support and also the asynchronous gives you a chance to be supported and that meets you where you're at in whatever season that you're in, which is really important because our life as mothers is so seasonal. Like my life as a mom now is like very different than my life as a mom three years ago when my kids were all younger, right? And very different from when my, all my kids were little, right? And and my, even my baby seasons shift like every, like three months. Like his nap schedules different, right? So everyone has to find, it's never the same, right? It's never the same. And that's what makes it fun and exciting. And also you have to have a flexible business, a flexible systems that can. Ebb and flow with those seasons. Okay. So you're like, okay, I'm gonna launch before the end of this year. I'm launching this course. So tell me about that. What was your, what were your original ideas? As far as launching went? Yeah. I. I feel like we really, it started with a totally different idea and then through lots of conversations we clarified it into what it became. My original idea was more of a course on personal styling, which was the one that I had fully written out the outline for, and totally ma completely mapped out within the previous program that I was just waiting to, to get it out into the world. And as we looked at where my audience was coming from, what, what the different lead magnets I had out there that were driving people in, what people were coming to me for. We realized that was not the solution that audience was looking for right then. That there was actually like a different solution that made a lot more sense. So instead of this broad personal styling course the majority of my email list were actually all photographers. They were brand photographers, which makes sense because that's where all of my referrals were coming from, and instead of continuing on with the personal styling course as it was, which didn't really make sense, as I had continued to narrow my focus more and more into. Styling brand shoots and becoming known as the stylist who styles brand shoots, not a personal stylist who also does brand shoots. We narrowed the course idea into something that would help equip photographers whose clients couldn't afford to hire a stylist because I was realizing that so many of the referrals that I was getting. Were, and they ended up going unbooked because their clients weren't quite ready to hire a stylist, but the photographers were feeling stuck and they didn't really know what to do. And so they, they needed the equipping almost more than the client did. And so we came up with this idea to, to dive into that avenue of education. And we mapped out. What a potential schedule would look like, what a launch schedule would look like, realizing that for us, for our family, October into November tends to be our insanely busiest season, and then December almost slows down a little bit, which is intentional as. It's a mix of sports ending, right? And also knowing like we're settling into the holidays and so we try and intentionally slow things down a little bit. So I knew with the December launch I was gonna be making things a little bit busier than we usually did, but I also knew that there was zero way it would happen if I tried to pull off a launch in October going into November that I, it would not get off of it. Off of its feet. And so we used that time as the prep time where I was making sure that each week I was like just pouring into the email list and serving the email list. And so on the weeks where I had very little time to get anything done, I knew that as long as I got a really great email off, that just felt like a gift to my readers. But I was still moving the ball towards that. Towards that launch. And was so helpful to have the weekly calls to be able to show on weekly calls with questions, but then also to have the Slack channel going and know that I could, if I was working at crazy hours of the night, which I was really trying not to do but it happens that I could just brain dump things into Slack and that first of all, it wasn't gonna bug somebody'cause I'm not sending like. Text or whatever, like I can brain dump it into Slack. And then once, once you were up, once other people were up, the messages would start pouring back in and it was this. Was a really great sounding board. It was a, I really appreciated having that channel open. Yeah. I love that too. And that's, really that's the idea of a mastermind and it's not just the coach is coming and teaching. Which is valuable for sure. But the idea of the mastermind, and that's why I'm so protective of the space because it has to be like my mastermind clients are like. The people I spend like some, like a lot of my time with, right? And they spend time with each other. So this has to be a really supportive, beautiful space with people who I would feel, and they would feel a hundred percent comfortable hanging out. In a living room in their pajamas, like drinking, hot cocoa and talking about, their most embarrassing experiences as a teenager. Like that level of hearing all our birth stories, all the birth stories. Tell I will, I wanna hear every single one. I'm the person who is there for them. And I will dig in and mean, how are you feeling? Because that is the vibe in there. It is for moms, right? Like we have. The whole time because literally our lives and and I just love that so much. And also it's like people like why'd you launch in December? Because everything else is so crazy beforehand. And the fact that, you were a, we were able to narrow down on okay, so you're like, I'm gonna send one amazing newsletter every single week to my audience, right? And really just focus on quality over quantity. And I'm like, I am nurturing them so deeply so that they will be ready and I, they'll be prepared for this upcoming launch, which I remember at the beginning. You were like, maybe I'll do a challenge. Like we should do a good three day challenge. We'll do live streams and stuff. So tell me about that journey from the challenge to what we ended up doing. Yeah, I think, this was my first major launch ever. So I had, I. Watched a zillion launches, we've all seen a zillion launches happen. As soon as those emails start to come in, you can tell, oh, this is gonna be a challenge launch. This is, I know they're headed towards launching something, and so we've watched them all, and I had an idea in my head of okay, this seems to be what most people are doing. This seems to be what's working. Therefore, that means that this is what I must do in order for this to be. Successful and I got stuck back in that, like that cycle that I was talking about before, of being overwhelmed with all of the details and not being able to see how one thing would connect to the next and connect to the next, and just started freezing again. And so finally after going silent for a little too long. You sent a couple extra Slack messages with a Hey, are you gonna send over your launch plan? I really wanna put some eyes on it and so that we can talk through this. I know that this is what you're headed towards, so can I see it? And finally I sent it over and I was like I'm stuck. Like I don't. This is what I think I need to do, and I don't know how to get there. I don't know how to get there without feeling like my hand needs to be held more than, is maybe acceptable. And so I'm not sure what to do. And you read over it and we looked at like the weeks that it needed to fit into, or the two weeks that it needed to fit into and what the plan was, and realize that this was probably way more complicated than it needed to be, and that we could massively simplify it. Go with more of a, we took the challenge out entirely. We took the fact that the course needed to be done ahead of time out entirely, and turned it into more of a pre-launch with the concept of pulling in a beta group of people that I could almost live launch to and live release the course to so that I could get feedback as I was doing it and making make sure that it was being written for the audience, it was intended for. And just all of the, like the tiles started to fall into place and it clicked and it started to like actually make sense, which then becomes motivating and it is okay, I see the next step. I see the next step. I can do this. And. I realized that like a, it was gonna work. Like we had a plan in place that was going to work. Regardless of what the launch stat numbers ended up being at the end, regardless of what the, like the final launch numbers ended up being, I had a launch plan that I could see. See how it was gonna work. So that to me meant like, it doesn't matter how many people we're gonna get in this process is going to work, I'm gonna walk away from this with a course that's written, with a course that has launched and we'll see what happens. And then, every time I felt stuck after that. Because we had mapped things out so well. It was a lot easier to jump into Slack and be like, okay, here's where I'm stuck. Here's what I'm thinking, and just brain dump those things again. And I always got a response, which was so nice. And also there's. There's something really nice about the time difference. That meant that when I was sending out those crazy, like late night messages, I would get a response way sooner than I thought that I was going to. Because it would be like my morning oh, the baby's napping. I should answer Catherine right now. And it was, and I remember that. I remember getting on, I actually like, as I'm looking through the launch plan and I was like, I'm doing a loom review, and I was like, this, okay, this looks like a good challenge idea. This looks great. Okay. Okay. When are you planning on doing this? And maybe do you really need to do this? And like, how about if we just delete this. It was like boom. Okay, let's just take this out. Let's take this out. And you were like, that feels so much better. I can do that. I could feel your sigh of relief like through the internet. Like you were like that's doable. That feels like much simpler, right? Because it was a, it was like almost like a three step process where there was like the market, the initial, the like hand raiser market research stage of, with the incentivization of getting people to start buying early and get seats in, get buts in seats, like as early as possible. Welcome on Even market research and then a wait list. A wait list stage or getting people on the wait list and then opening it up to the wait list and then opening up to the public. Like you had those stages, but they were so like, they were very streamlined and they were like really like simple because it was just like email. This is what h email is gonna do. Let's just get them out. And then you, I know, I knew you sent them into, to me and to Jen, our copy coach. To look over quickly. And it was very, it was actually very much in real time. And that's actually what made me make the decision to switch instead of doing like week, one, one to per week to just unlimited audits, because I'm like, sometimes people just need more audits than the average and then they're in a heavy season. Yeah. So how that's, how did. Yeah, no, I was gonna say that was really nice to be able to. To see, like I'm in a season where I need lots of eyes on things and then next month I probably won't be. So the ability to have lots of help during a launch season and then feel like, okay, it backed off and maybe somebody else is in the middle of a launch now, as in it's almost like we're taking these natural turns that still leaves space for everyone to get the help and the community that they need and the support. But knowing that, if I need to. To submit a full like launch sequence of emails, to have somebody's eyes on it, those eyes are gonna end up on it. And that's, so helpful. Yeah, it was, and it was an amazing launch, right? So like just get, let's get into the actual yeah, the actual process. What the launch process looked like for you as you were implementing it, because I know like you said, it was December, it was a holiday, there were traditions, there was the kids were home. So what did that, what did it feel like before we even get into the results, like what did the launch process feel like for you? Because I think that, to me was almost more important than the results themselves, because the results obviously are important to know and get data, but it can't be done in a way that makes you wanna like jump, take a jump out your attic window because that is just, you, it's not sustainable to try to do things that aren't. Doable alongside your life as a mom, right? Yeah. The launch felt really good. It was busy. A launch is a launch is always gonna be busy and a lot, but because we took out the live aspect of it that relieved a lot of the time pressure in terms of when I needed to be able to show up. And so it was built around emails that were written ahead of time. Motivated to get them done ahead of time because I wanted somebody else's eyes on them and I knew that there, there were some times where I could drop an email in and get like immediate eyes on it, but the standard is assuming 24 to 48 hours to be able to get that feedback. And so I wanted to make sure that I had the time to do that. And so I built out a launch calendar of when those emails needed to go out so that I knew when they needed to be submitted by so that I could have feedback and then the time to tweak them and we it was built. It was built around what I knew the kids' schedule would look like over those two weeks. And when I knew school was getting out for Christmas break and what days I was in the classroom for end of the year parties and all of that, which being volunteering in the classroom during launch week was actually, I think it was actually really helpful because I couldn't, um. There's not really great internet access or ser phone service access within the kids' school. And also if I'm like in the classroom with my kids, I don't wanna keep pulling my phone out and looking at it. And so it was this like, nice reminder to take a deep breath and put my phone away, close my laptop, go show up for a couple hours and be present and get a good mental reset and then come back and work on the next email and get it out. But it was. The, we were able to fit the launch in with family life for those two weeks in a really beautiful way. Like I said, I was still in the classroom. We have some pretty strong family traditions around Christmas with an advent book that we read every night in the kids', advent calendars and just lots of little things like that our evenings in December are structured around and. When I tend to end up in really heavy seasons with work or when I have in the past, a lot of what disappears is that evening routine. I forget to start cooking dinner in time. I forget to start bedtime and time because my brain is in a million places at once, and so I. I had put up some pretty strict time boundaries with myself which wouldn't have been possible if we hadn't changed the launch structure, if you hadn't looked at the sheet and how long it took me to get it over to you and read the overwhelm between the lines and been like I think that we need to do something different. None of that December life would've been possible. And we still. We still had family dinner most nights. It was a hot dinner most nights. It was not reliant on takeout it. We still made it to sit down with Advent most nights. And felt like we were really present with the kids during that season, which is really important to me in December. It's important to me all year long, but there's something about about holding that like holiday charm, feeling tight that I didn't wanna let go of. And we had cart clothes on a Friday night and we always do pizza in a Friday night movie with our kids. And I. I was still scrambling to get the last email written to, to just hit, the heavy hitter, like cart's closing. This is your final chance. And I remember wrapping it up as we were about to start the movie, and then pouring a glass of wine, closing my laptop, and telling yourself like, this movie is on for the next hour and a half. You are not allowed to, you're not allowed to open your laptop. You're not allowed to check your email. You're not allowed to see if anybody, if any like last people have trickled in, you just have to leave it closed. And also, cart open, I think lined up with a Friday night as well, or maybe we were doing a Sunday night movie, something we had, like something planned as a family that evening. And so it turned into like cart open and then forcing myself to close it down and just walk away for a couple hours and be present, which was really nice. I am, that's one of the things that I'm most proud of with the launch was that like work. Work life balance that felt really healthy during that week, and it has not usually felt healthy in the past for me. Yeah. And I mean with the work that you do with that one, with the one-to-one aspect of the work that you do, it's, it is, it's very heavily time responsive, time. Yeah. Responsive to clients and like talking to them and dealing with them and stuff. And I love that you're able to just be like, okay, I sent my email. And almost that's like the best way to approach a launch. Almost like that. Like detached like energy of okay, I've done what I've done what I committed to do and now I am moving on and I'm gonna do the other stuff, the things that are really important to me with my family. And that was like when you came and told me that like that I was celebrating that almost like pretty much as the same as like the actual results. Yeah. Which were phenomenal by the way. They were, I am right. I'm still bored and very proud of it because I went into this launch with a very small email list. It was a highly targeted email list of a specific audience, but it was still a small email list in terms of numbers and looking at what. Friends were listing launch numbers at of, expecting to or hoping to convert somewhere around like 3% of your list. I was like just sitting there in a little bit fear, telling my husband like, I feel like I'm doing all of this work and maybe I'm guaranteed two people, three people like this. Just that almost feels overwhelming in and of itself, and I have to stop thinking about those numbers. Otherwise I'm not like. That's gonna force me to stop in my tracks and be like, oh, this is gonna be a failure before it starts, so we're just gonna stop. And the important thing was the val was the validation of the offer and making sure that it just at least hit benchmark, which was one to 3%, of your audience. And that was like the, and if it had hit benchmark, that would've been a celebration, but it went way beyond benchmark. It was. Benchmark is okay. One to 3% is like what we're looking for. 3% is great, 3% is a great conversion rate. Catherine had a five and a half percent almost 6% conversion rate from her email list. I wanna say less than 10 people. Less than 10 people unsubscribed during this launch, which is unusual because. Launches are usually very, like people are like, okay, I'm not interested in this anymore. Bye. And which is nothing to take like personally, but like people were engaged, your emails were fantastic, and you got 14 pe, 14 people in, right? 14 people, and one came completely cold from Instagram, like just found you on Instagram, was like checked out your story and bought the chorus within what, a couple hours, right? Literally that. Yeah. And so that is the most that's amazing. To add on, how much was it like cash wise? I think it was like in the 5K ish realm? In terms of total launch? Yeah. Yeah. It was just over 5K. And this was got this guy, this is a very, with a very like beta launch price. The value of this course far outstrips this investment and it is definitely gonna have to go up next time because it is so valuable. And now you validated it, you got the feedback you're making whatever changes, improvements, need to make it the best course of its kind, which I don't even know if there is another course of its kind, frankly. Right. Not that I've found, not that I've, I, and I looked,'cause I always do market research for my clients. I'm like, let's see what all other people are doing. So let's see, like what we're up against here. I have not found anything comparable. And now you have another income stream that does not require you showing up and working. It does to an extent when you launch it, but it it when you launch it. And it has been a massive amount of work for Q1 of this year because I'm like, I'm in the middle of actually writing the final module right now, which is releasing on Friday, I think. So the the final module will be released and then filling it in with the last couple bonuses that are going. Up into it and then collecting some feedback from this, like the launch round of students to make sure that it has everything in it that needs to be there to answer all of their questions. And then it'll get relaunched into hopefully a. A larger launch. We'll see. But yeah, I am, I'm very grateful for the core group of launch students who trusted something that hadn't been, that hadn't been written yet. That was just, that was an outline. And I'm, I love that you suggested that we do it that way, that we, that it gets written for and with a, like a very specific audience so that I can get that live real time feedback. And it's definitely an investment of time to create the initial course. But once you have, and you validated that, now it is an asset that you can sell again and again. You can turn, you can launch it again, you can create evergreen funnels towards it. Like it is an entirely new income stream that like you just built. While being a completely present mom, which is like not, is like, this is like the biggest and most amazing part of it. Think about everything that you did. You pre-sold it, you're like, great. You pre-sold it. Close. The close the cart was like, alright, now I'm gonna go into Christmas. And I'll think about it in the new year and then once the new year built it, and now you're here you know now, and now our next stage is really just honing it, relaunching building your, continuing to build your audience, getting, the new people in and then really just turning this into a repeatable, process to bring in. So what would you say is the biggest like mindset shift that you've experienced like working in this mastermind? That's a good question. One of them would definitely be, I don't, I would assume that this is a mindset shift. I that, I knew going into it that. My kids are, they are not a detriment to my ability to grow, but I feel like I have not lived with the assumption that they were, but lived with the assumption that I could not participate in high level business community with my kids around. And I think that has been a fre, a breath of fresh air. To experience to be able to sit in a room with like really amazing business owners and have my kids walk in to ask me a question in the middle of it. And no one bats an eye and no one gets frustrated. And no one questions it knowing that they can just like, it's okay, I'm just gonna go on mute for a second deal with this and then I'll come back. And that, that's been really beautiful. And then just. So much of my. Everything for me within the Mastermind culminated last year with the launch of the course. I feel like that was what I was working towards all year long, working towards getting there. And so seeing it all pull together and realizing okay, I can do this, and yeah, I need the guidance. I want the guidance. I crave the the community aspect to it, but I like. In this season with little kids and running all of the one-on-one client side of my business, I can still do this side too and grow in a totally different way. And I really love this and you're really good at it.'cause I just heads up I'm insider of course. Okay. And it is. So well done. It is beautifully done. Thank you. And as someone who has bought and taken a lot of courses, so like that, and so obviously this is a strength of yours that you is here before undiscovered, but there you are. You're like, oh wow, I didn't know I was so good at this. Oh, great. Another talent. But I think that's just really amazing and I'm just so happy about that because that is literally the entire message and. The message and mission, of this mastermind is right. Showing up as the CEO mom. The CEO and the mom are like, intertwined and one need not suffer because of the other. That is the goal, right? That it's all harmonized together and. That just makes me so happy. So what would you tell other moms who are maybe afraid they'd have to choose between the business growth in their family time, who are thinking about joining the Mastermind and being like, but this is, it's a big in invest. It's a big investment, right? Yeah. It is a big investment. I do not take in, investments lightly. But what would you say to moms who are considering this considering coming in. I would say first of all, absolutely do it. It's com completely worth it. You really want, you really wanna have yell on your side, on your team, as this little back pocket CEO buddy helper in your business. I don't even know what the right phrase is. Love that though. But also I think that, I think what holds. Mom's back so many times from moving forward with a big decision is the ability to see how it will all come together. I plan, if my kids wanna join a sports team, if I don't know what that schedule's gonna look like, I. I probably can't say yes very easily unless I know I have a backup driver to get them there. And if I, if we want to participate in something, if I don't, if I don't see the full picture of what it is gonna look like, it can be really hard to say yes. And so if you're in this season of not being able to you have all these dreams, but you can't see what the big. Picture looks like you don't know how to pull it all together. And so joining something else feels like a I don't know if this will be the right fit because I can't, I just, I'm struggling in the midst of all of these decisions. I feel like this isn't the thing that adds something to your plate. It's the thing that helps clarify it in the thing that helps simplify everything. And so join knowing that. That this will be what helps make everything else work versus the thing that you have to have all figured out before you can say yes to it. Gosh, okay. She got a lump in my throat when you were talking and I don't, I'm so not oh my gosh, I'm so emotional. But that really made me really emotional.'cause that is like the best, that is the best test. I, that is the best testimonial I've ever heard. Honestly, because the the whole thing, I think the thing that people are worried about right, is I just, I can't do another thing. I don't need another. How many courses have you probably bought? Anyone listening? How many courses have you probably already bought? A bajillion, I don't know. So many. I have many, right? I love courses and I love learning stuff. Have I implemented all of them? No what I've really, what I've really implemented has been when I leaned into my coach and been like, okay, what are my next steps? Here's what's, here's what's gonna happen. And that is what, that's the goal I aim to create for the CEO moms in our community. And so thank you so much for this Catherine. It has been truly a joy. Support you over the past year and I'm so looking forward to continuing to support you this year and for years to come. Please God, because I just see so much growth in store for you. Going forward. You have such an amazing like foundation and I feel like you really have the space and the mindset to grow, and I just thank you for allowing me to be part of that journey as well because I just love you so much and I. Love having you in my life as a client. So much above and beyond. It's not even like beyond the business part, but just again, as a friend and as as someone to partner with essentially in your business growth. I just love that so much and thank you for. For being that and bringing, like trusting me to do that with you. So thank you so much, Catherine. This was amazing. Thank you. Thank you for building this community. It has been, it's been a game changer and I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful for you. So if you're listening to this and Catherine's story resonates with you, and you are really ready to scale your business while being the fully present for your family, whatever your family looks like, five kids, one kid, siblings, parents, you're taking care of, whatever that looks like Visit, yell Bend to he.com/mastermind To learn more about the C on Mastermind, get your application in. It's a great place to just start a conversation. Let me see where you're at in your business and if this is the right fit for you, and I would love to see you in there if this does feel like the right fit. Thank you so much, Catherine again, and I'll see you in the next one.