103. What's ACTUALLY Selling Right Now? Lessons from Black Friday

Black Friday 2025 was... interesting. Some people crushed it. Others had their quietest year in ages. And if you're somewhere in between trying to figure out what just happened...this episode is for you.

I'm breaking down exactly what's selling right now, what people experienced from both sides of Black Friday this year, and why specificity and human connection are the only things cutting through the noise anymore. Because spoiler alert: more AI-generated content is NOT the answer.

If you're a mom entrepreneur building a business that doesn't require you 24/7, grab your coffee and let's dive into what actually matters heading into 2026.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Black Friday 2025 had such mixed results—and what that tells us about where the online business world is headed
• The specificity secret: How my client Katherine made $11K with less than 300 people on her list (and how you can do the same)
• The warm-up you can't skip: Why sales happen AFTER trust, and how to use Black Friday as a barometer (not a failure)
• Human touch is everything: Why people are craving real connection and how to bring more of yourself into your business without burning out
• What to focus on for the rest of December and 2026: The exact shifts you need to make to stand out in an increasingly automated world

Key Takeaways:

✅ Specificity wins every time. Your offer needs to be so clear that someone reads it and goes, "Oh my God, that's for me." Not "that sounds nice"--literally "I NEED this right now."

✅ You can't skip the relationship building. The people who did well on Black Friday had been nurturing their audiences for months. If you didn't pre-warm people, use this as data...not proof you're failing.

✅ People still want people. Don't automate yourself out of your business. AI can support you, but it can't replace your experience, your perspective, and your connection.

Resources Mentioned:

• Built to SCALE: CEO Mom Edition Workshop – Tuesday, December 9th at 1:30 PM EST | $47 (goes up to $97 after the workshop starts)
  Learn exactly how my client made $11K from two ultra-low-key launches and turned it into an evergreen funnel—working less than 4 hours a day with less than 300 people on her list.
  Grab your seat here - https://yaelbendahan.co/built-to-scale-workshop

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

💃 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

Welcome to the Raising Your Business Podcast. I'm your host, Al Behan, founder of CEO Mom Academy, mom of Six and Lifelong Reading addict. This podcast is here to empower moms to run their businesses and lives like the powerhouse CEO. They are. I want you to believe that you can have the business success you desire. And be present with your family and to give you my best tips and strategies for how to make that happen. I'll be sharing the honest reality of balancing business and motherhood biz models that work for you. Marketing simplicity, and the mindset of A CEO, mom. Now let's dive in. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm feeling much better voice wise, so I'm really excited to be back. And it is currently the week after Black Friday. So the first week of December and. If you're here, you're probably still recovering from Black Friday'cause it was just Cyber Monday a couple days ago. Or maybe you're trying to figure out what the heck happened with your sales. And either way I see you because here's what we're diving into today, what is actually selling right now, what people experience from both sides of Black Friday this year. And honestly, why specificity and consistent human connection are the only things that seem to be cutting through the noise anymore. Okay, and my goal for you is to walk away knowing exactly what to focus on for the rest of December and heading into 2026 because for their alert. More AI content is not gonna be the answer. So if you are a mom entrepreneur who's trying to build a business that actually works with your life and doesn't, contradict it or make you feel overwhelmed and burnt out, then you are in the right place. So let's dive in, but real quick before we get into it, I just want to remind you about. My workshop that I'm running on Tuesday, December 9th at 1:30 PM Eastern, it is called built the scale, CEO Mom edition. And it is a$47 workshop where I'm gonna be walking you through exactly how one of my clients made 11 K from two super low key launches, working less than four hours a day, three, three days a week, and then turned it into an evergreen funnel. She's actually in the middle of turning it into an evergreen funnel right now. So we are talking about a mom with. I think she had less than 300 people on her list altogether, and she had about 200 people on her launch list who were the ideal client for that course. And she went from, I had this idea to, I'm building a repeatable sales system around this, and I'm gonna show you the exact process that we use. How to create an audience led offer. The simple sales stack that we tested with how to turn in evergreen so you're not dependent on launches forever. Plus, you're gonna walk away with my scale system 2026 planning visual map, and a scalable offer suite worksheet. So you can build your own version of this. I want you to create something that is going to be scalable and sellable in 2026. Even with the, the industry burnout and people being like, I don't know, and things are, might not working the same way. I know things are not working the same way. But they are still working when done right. So if you are a CEO mom who is tired of treating time for every dollar, and you want a business that actually keeps running, even when you're feeling a little tapped out, this one is for you. Okay? So head to the Lincoln description and grab your spot. It's just$47 until the workshop starts, and then it's going up to$97. You're gonna get the live workshop, you'll get the replay. If you can't show up live on the day or even for the whole thing, you are gonna get the worksheets. And, but if you do show up live, you will get a chance to ask me anything during q and a session. Okay? So let's dive in. So I had a conversation this week with a few people in my world, okay? A lot of business owners that I really respect. My clients, my friends and we were all comparing notes on Black Friday. And let me tell you, it was all over the map. Some people crushed it, like really crushed it. All right. And I have friends who like, were like, yeah, I had like my best Black Friday ever. Or it was just as great as last year. Some people were like, yeah it happened, it was about the same. It wasn't much better. I hope to get, I hope to get more, but it wasn't really much better than last year. But a lot of people actually had their quietest Black Friday in years. Okay. And I'm not just talking about newbies, I'm talking about people with solid audiences, great content, beautiful offers. And I was just talking to my friend Lynette, and she had an amazing Black Friday, but she said when her clients, maybe half them did great, half them was a lot quieter. So I kept hearing people saying, I don't know, people are just not buying this year. Or like my Black Friday sales just not doing as well as it was doing last year at this point. And these were from people who have, again, have audiences, are experienced marketers, and I actually spoke to some friends of mine and. They didn't even buy a lot of stuff. They did not buy a lot of stuff on Black Friday. Like almost nothing. Not even like on Amazon. Not like the usual, even like the impulse stuff for like the stuff that like, I don't know, like I I always like to get on Black Friday. I like to get, things like, Kindle for my kids or whatever, I don't know, a new Fitbit or something upgraded and and people were not even buying that kind of stuff. And I actually saw someone say that they were they work for Amazon. I saw this on threads. I don't know if it's true or not, so I'm not going to confirm or deny this, but she said that she works for Amazon during peak buying times. And apparently they said they had to send them home early because they were not hitting the goals that they had intended to, that that they had historically done. Now here's what I think is happening. And this is important'cause it's not just about Black Friday, okay? It's about what's working right now in online business. And it's not even just online business, it's what's working now in business in general. I think people are a little bit burnt out. Okay? They're burnt out on noise, they're burnt out on vague offers, they're burnt out on overinflated coaching and people just screaming last chance. And they never even worn them up to begin with. And the people who did do well, I think they had two things in common. One is specificity and the other is relationships. So let me break that down for you. The first thing is specificity. When I say specificity, I don't just mean niching down. Okay. Your offering needs to be so clear that someone reads it and goes, oh my God, that is for me. Alright. Not okay. That sounds nice. Or that would be a cool thing to have. Or maybe I'll think about it. Literally, this is exactly what I need right now. And I saw my friend Lynette when she was, it was very smart because what she did is before her sale even started, she goes, these are things I'm gonna have on sale and. This is, and the sale was very thematic. She was like, I've noticed the gaps that people have in their business this year. And so everything that's on sale this Black Friday, is to fill those specific gaps. And she goes, if you have an audience gap, then here is this offer for you. If you're having a problem, selling your one-to-one coaching, here is an offer for you if you're having a problem. And she literally said, if this is your problem, here's the solution. If this is your problem, here's the solution. It was very specific. And and when I read that, I was like, wow, this is amazing. This is this, again, it, because it basically says if you notice yourself in this, then it's for you. That's it. End of story. You need this thing. And so I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was fantastic, and I and she did really well. And again, this is not even for people who have huge audiences. I don't know if Lana has a huge audience. I don't even know how big her audience is. I know it's pretty big. It's decent sized. I know she has a big audience in Instagram, 70,000 people, but I don't know what her email list looks like. But even if you have a small audience, my client, Catherine, who is going to be featured in the Built to Scale workshop, she launched her course last December with an email list of 200 people. Made over 5K during the holiday season, working very few hours. Then she relaunched it again in May, made over six K, same list. It barely grew. Okay. How her offer was creepily specific. Okay? It was for a very specific kind of person solving a very particular problem, and because of that, the people who needed it bought it, right? So if you compare that to the generic, grow your business or grow your Instagram stuff that was flooding inbox during Black Friday, people are tired of that. Another person who I saw did it really is my friend Marissa from Dirty Copy and her, again, her offers were very specific. And I personally feel that a lot of her audience was probably very fresh because she's very good at doing viral carousels and getting her carousels going seriously viral loads of new followers. People on her email list. And I have a feeling that I don't know, and again, I cannot confirm or deny, but I do think that people who are fresh coming into your world really impressed with what you're doing are the best people who are likely to buy. Whereas maybe you might become, people who have been in your email list for a long time. And I've heard this from another friend as well. People who've been on their list for a long time are just watching, opening their email, opening their emails, and just clicking and not really buying because they're just in the habit of. Of following you, but they're not necessarily in the habit of buying from you. So if you might be wondering, if your Black Friday launch didn't convert as well or your Black Friday sale didn't convert as well, ask yourselves were, was my offer specific enough that someone could see themselves in it immediately as a need to have, or do they have to do mental gymnastics to figure out if it was for them? Because if they have to think too hard, they're scrolling past. So what I wanna note is when you are thinking about, okay, what am I gonna be selling? What should I sell in December for next year? What should I be selling next year? What should my, what offers should I even have in my business? I would focus on huge levels of specificity, both when it comes to the target audience for your offer, but also when it comes to the exact goal transformation result of your offer, right? So a scale, just like a scale of your business. It's like cute and truth is my thing. It's called Build the Scale. So I'm not even, maybe I should change the name, I don't know. But it's not about just scaling your business, it's scale your business with a specific kind of offer working this amount of time, with this level of marketing, it should be very specific. And I'm actually thinking now, like looking, like thinking about how I do things and how I sell. I'm thinking of pulling out kinda these different pieces, very specific pieces of my programs to use as funnels to bring people into my, my core program. Because I think that is the best way to pull people in. You pull people in with specificity and then they want the full ecosystem. They upgrade to your more premium, containers or longer, longer term containers. I'll be thinking about what can I pull out that is very specific that addresses a very, this specific problem that is problem focused, right? Rather not problem focused as being a problem, but focus on solving a problem for someone rather than just something that's great for people to learn or know. But even that, that next level offer, your signature offer needs to be very specific as well. And I would not drop the ball on that because if you feel like, okay, maybe this is this too general, very overall could be for anyone, or it's addressing a huge like transformation that maybe doesn't feel possible to do in three months or six months or whatever. I would really think about how can I narrow down the results so it's very specific to the problem someone wants to solve. So that is personally what I would recommend When you're thinking about what you're selling next year and what you're thinking, okay, what is unique to me? What do I help people with? That is very specific to me. What do I help make my clients with that's very specific to them, and what problems do they have that I can very uniquely and specifically solve? I'm using word specific a lot, but that's what I'm talking about right now, specificity. So deal with it. Now the second part is you cannot skip the warmup. And this one is huge. And honestly, this, I think where a lot of people might have dropped the ball on Black Friday. Because you cannot just show up the week of Black Friday, even the week before Black Friday, and expect people to buy from you, right? If you're like, Hey, I'm just letting you know this is coming, it's gonna be great, and then the next week you're like, Hey, buy this. It's gonna be great. It's so great. Think about it like this, right? If I invited you to my house for Shabbat dinner, right? And you never met me before, never been to my house, never even heard my voice, they had no idea who I was. You probably would not come. You'd probably be like, that's creepy and weird. And like, why are you inviting me to your house with your six children? But if we've been chatting for months, if we've been, chatting in the dms, if I've been showing up in your inbox with helpful stuff, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you've already gotten value from me and trusted me, then yeah, you'd probably show up, right? And just. Little invitation here. If you are coming to Israel for any reason I would love to meet up with you. I don't see myself leaving anytime soon for various reasons. But I'm here and and you are always welcome. So sales work the same way. The people who did well during Black Friday had been nurturing their email their audience for months. They had been growing their audience for months. Okay? They'd been. Really consistent about it. They're not just dropping a sale link and hoping for the best. Okay? They'd already built trust. They'd already proven their value. So when they said, Hey, this thing is on sale, people were like, cool. I've been waiting for this. All right. Maybe people have seen this in the past and and they were like, oh, I'd love to get this, but maybe I can't, it's not the time. I'm not ready. And then they saw this opportunity and they jumped on it. And if people were thinking about, I'd love to work with them again. I've done this in the past. Black Friday is a great chance to get a good deal on coaching or on offers. And get a sense of what someone's like and how they coach or how they teach so. Here's something important that I want you to hear. If Black Friday did not necessarily go the way you wanted, do not make it mean too much about you and your business. But I would use it as a barometer. Okay, where's my audience actually at? What's the relationship like? What do they actually need from me right now? And this is actually a great opportunity to ask them, send an email, right? Jump to the dm. See, hey, I noticed you checked this out, or didn't grab this during the sale. What held you back, right? What would've made this no-brainer for you? Because most of the time it's not personal, okay? It is information. Maybe the offer wasn't clear. Maybe they didn't trust you yet. Maybe they just couldn't afford it. Maybe the timing was off, right? But you won't know unless you ask. And the truth is, black Friday was very loud and it was very noisy. And just because not as many people bought things maybe does not mean that your offer was not great and it just got lost in people's inboxes. So I wanna keep that in mind as well. Or people might have checked out and been like, okay, I like this, but there's just something else I want more right now and it's on sale, so I'm gonna get it. So don't. Take it super to heart. I do think that it is harder to get attention during Black Friday. It is, even though people are in a buying mode you really have to be able to stand out significantly in the inbox in order to make sales. And so again, that does come from, I, I do think it comes from pre. Kind of pre warming people up. And also, like letting them know halftime what's going to be on sale and how it's gonna work and everything. So they can mentally plan to buy your thing. But if you didn't do that as much as you would've liked, and you feel like your Black Friday sale did not do as well, you didn't get as many opens, didn't get as many clicks. You're not alone. People were just deleting like their entire, all their emails in their inbox because it was so overwhelming for them. So bear that in mind as well, and don't take it too much to heart. So moving forward, start really building that relationship Now, find ways and opportunities to have conversations with people. In the dms now. Okay? Don't wait until your next launch. Don't wait until you have something to sell. Start showing up, start being helpful, start being you. And use any flop moments. I'm putting that in quotes as data, right? Not as proof that you're failing because when it is time to sell, people buy from people they already know and trust. And here's the last thing, and this one probably will not surprise you. AI is everywhere right now. Chat. GPT is writing everyone's emails, people are automating everything. And honestly, it is starting to show, I've been in groups where someone responds to me with what is clearly a chat gt generated comment, and it's so obvious'cause I know, I see what chat GPT gives me and I can tell. And I would never ever put that stuff out now anymore. And what I'm seeing work right now is really is human touch. The programs that are selling people are the ones that people are actually investing in, are the ones that come with real support. Yes. With tools, right?'cause I love a good AI tool. Okay. But. They're not just looking for a course that they can binge, not just a vault of templates, but actual human beings who will answer their questions, who will show up on calls and help them implement. Okay? People are craving that right now. They're craving community. They're craving real community, right? They're craving someone who actually sees them. They're craving people who understand them. So if you're wondering how to stand out in 2026, this is it. Okay? Do not try to automate yourself outta the equation. Bring more of yourself in. Yes. Use AI to support you. Yes, use it to speed up your processes, but don't use it to replace you because at the end of the day. People are not gonna buy systems necessarily. They're gonna buy the transformations and the transformation comes from the connection that they have. And I just, I was checking out an ai, a ai okay. An AI coach that someone was selling. And I said, and they had a free trial, so I checked it out. And it was so generic. It was so generic. I was like, this is not what I would expect. Like she, this person was talking it up it is the best thing since sliced bread and this was going to change everything for you. And honestly, I feel I could have gotten better results from my own chat, BT that's already trained on me and my business and everything. It was unbelievably generic. It told me absolutely nothing that I did not know. And it's not, and not even from the point of view of somebody who's an experienced marketer. So I would've known this stuff two or three years into my business, even a year or two into my business, honestly. I was like, disappointed and I was like, if everyone's, if everyone's doing this the thing is people are still gonna buy that stuff because people have a good name. Like people have a name people have a reputation already. They have a, they have a name for what they do, right? Like they, people know them. Whatever. Amy Porterfield, Marie Folio. I don't even, I don't even know if Marie Folio is still selling. I haven't seen her stuff in ages. I'm not hundred email list. But now people who just have established names in the industry and I don't think they're ever gonna like completely fizzle out entirely because they just capitalize, continue to capitalize on their previous results, which they had a lot of. And so they just use that to bring new people in. And there's gonna be more churn that way for sure. But I do think that. Real human first connection that cannot be replaced with chat GPT and cannot be replaced with AI is going to sell. Okay? I really think it's gonna sell. You have to figure out what can I deliver that nobody else can, that AI cannot. And the truth is what you can deliver is your experience, your perspective chat. GPT does not have your perspective. Cha, GBT has everyone's perspective all mashed together, and that's not necessarily going to help. Okay, so if you take nothing else away from this episode, here's what I want you to remember going forward when you're running a sale, when you're launching a new offer, number one, specificity wins. Okay? Your offering needs to be so freaking clear that the right person immediately sees themselves in it. And if they have to think too hard, you've already lost them. Number two, you cannot skip the warmup, okay? Sales happen after trust. So if you want your next launch to go, start building that relationship with your audience now. Put out the content that's going to, address their questions and their thoughts and the thoughts that they're having that they're not really sharing. They're like, oh my God, how do you read my mind? That is the kind of stuff that builds the trust that helps people see, oh my gosh, yes, she gets me, she understands me. And number three is people still want people, okay? Do not automate yourself out, out of your business. The human touch is what's definitely gonna set you apart in 2026, because more and more people are automating things and coming away. Very unsatisfied. So if you're listening to this and you're like, okay, but yeah, I don't even have an offer yet, a scalable offer yet. And I, I wanna automate things, but I also don't wanna get burned out. How do I, if I can't automate everything, how am I going to build my business without bringing myself out? And I do think there's a lot of stuff you can automate. Just not there a lot there. There's certain pivotal things that I think you absolutely cannot. If you feel like you're still doing everything one-to-one, you're customizing every deliverable, and you're still not necessarily selling, this workshop is for you. Okay? Built a scale, CEO Mom edition. And we're covering audience led offer creation. We're co covering the simple three part launch path that we used to validate the offer, that relying on on huge audiences or perfect content or anything like that. I'm gonna be sharing the kind of content and emails that actually gets engagement in sales and how to turn this into a repeatable revenue stream. That show works whether you are showing up live or not. And you're also going to get the Scale System 2026 Planning Visual Map and the scalable Offer Suite worksheet and replay access because life with kids is not predictable, and This is going to be your step-by-step plan for launching and building your signature suite spot. I call it a signature sweet spot because your offer suite is gonna be built around a signature offer that is going to be very specific and is going to be exactly what your ideal client needs and. That is what I want for you in 2026. I want simplicity and I want scalability. So head to the link in description and grab your seat now$47 before it goes up. And if you got value from this episode, do me a favor, screenshot, share in your stories. Tag me at the Yale bend to hand and let me know what landed for you. Thank you so much for being here, for listening. I'll see you next week and I would love to hear if you wanna DM me on Instagram, how your Black Friday sale went, or how your Black Friday buying style was. I'm just so curious. Like the more information I have, the better. I love. Information. So if you wanna share with me, I would love, love, love to hear. So have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next week. I can't thank you enough for listening to raising your business. I hope this episode has inspired you to take another step towards building a business and life that you love, and growing your income in a way that works for you and your family. If you enjoy this episode, please take a second to rate and review and let's connect that on Instagram screenshot and share it on Instagram Stories so we can get the word out to more mom business owners like you. Tag me at the El Behan and share your biggest breakthrough from today. See you next week.