September 25, 2025 • 34 mins
Answer this week's question...
Check out Jonathan's NEW Podcast:
The Story Lab Podcast
https://thestorylabpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
___________________________________
Think you need to have your course or program perfect before you launch it? Nope.
That’s where beta testing comes in. It gives you a way to test, tweak, and learn—all while making sales.
Beta testing isn’t about giving away your offer for free or settling for less—it’s about creating alongside your audience, gathering real feedback, and making your offer stronger with every round.
In this episode of Coffee Social, Jonathan and I share how beta testing can help you:
💡 Build as you go (without waiting months to “be ready”)
🗣️ Get direct feedback on what’s working—and what’s not
📍 Learn where your community prefers to connect (FB group, email, etc.)
💸 Practice selling at a lower price point so you can gain confidence and later charge your full value
🎯 Adjust your content to play to your strengths while helping students get better results
The truth is: beta testing benefits you just as much as your audience. You’ll walk away with insights, momentum, and a stronger offer you know works.
Ready to stop waiting for perfect and start testing in real time?
Grab a cup and enjoy! ☕
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PS: Mimi loves stars
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm not even dancing that far away from the desk
today and I can, like I could,go dance in the other corner
today and you'd still be able tohear me.
Wait, go in the other corner.
You want me to go in the othercorner?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm in the other corner.
I'm going into the closet.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Now this is what happens my closet door is closed
.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is what happens when you try to film with
Jonathan Howard Heads up toanybody who wants him as a guest
on their podcast.
He goes and hides in the closet.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I know it's Coffee Social, the podcast, all about
social media and business.
And now here are your hosts,Jonathan Howard and Mimi Langley
.
Hi, everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hi Jonathan Howard, hello Mimi Langley langley.
Oh, my goodness, what?
What should we talk like?
What are we talking about?
I think it's we're both reallygiddy about this, this topic
talking about beta offers.
I think we're just reallyexcited.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh, we're really that excited about beta offers
because people don't think we'reweird oh, I, I don't think
people talk about beta enough,honestly.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So I think this is going to be a.
That's true, yeah, that's true.
You before, well, yeah, beforewe get into it, you wanted to
share your beautiful coffee withus.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So look how pretty.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
my coffee is today If you're on.
Youtube.
You can see it, okay.
So why?
Okay, first of all, what is it?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
What is this contraption that you're calling
coffee?
It's cold brew with coconutmilk, but I frothed my coconut
milk a little bit today.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Okay, so I'm like I want to know all the details.
First of all, what kind ofcoconut milk?
What brand do you trust?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I don't know the one that has coconut milk that they
send me when I order coconutmilk.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Where are you ordering your groceries from
Hannaford's?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
You have a Hannaford, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I love Hannaford.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I have two Hannafords One's over the bridge, which is
actually the one I use, andthen there's one down the road.
Now, what's up with yoursweatshirt?
Why are you yawning at me?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
No, it says yawn Um.
I'm just very tired, Jonathan,Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Fine then.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
You know that's part of my New Year's resolutions for
2025.
To yawn more Well, to get moresleep.
Oh, okay, actually, goodquality sleep.
Like I need to get one of thosethings that tell you you know
how your sleep was.
Just get an Apple Watch.
They're just so bulky, I can't.
They're not bulky.
It's not bulky, that's big.
(02:33):
No, it's not, it's annoying.
It's like you know you feelsomething on your wrist all the
time.
I just I've got that and likemy three bracelets on that wrist
.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Do you have a Cartier bracelet?
No, Magnetite blue.
This is blue tiger's eye and aregular tiger's eye.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh okay, you're going all like energy alignment.
Yo Phil would be proud.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I always wear these, though that's nice, because
they're like my fidget stick.
You know how people have thoselittle fidget toys and stuff.
That's what those are for me,like I can when I get nervous or
I yeah, um, okay, well, I thinkwe had enough to talk about the
beginning of it.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I know we had, we were you guys.
That's what 2025 is all aboutJust kind of going with the flow
, I mean he's just making it upas she goes along.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I'm making it up as I go.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Okay, jonathan, tell people let's do a quick intro
for any of the new listeners toCoffee Social and then we'll
dive into beta offers, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, my name is Jonathan Howard, I'm the owner
of Success on Social, and I helpsuccessful coaches reach their
ideal clients through developingtheir signature style so they
can show up and make some moneyonline.
Over to you, mimi.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's true, though, you've had a lot, when I was
looking back, like a couple ofmonths ago, back at your
reflection for 2024.
You had a few, like a lot ofclients that you shared their
success stories about makingmoney and all that, so making
money making a difference, allthe things.
Well, Jonathan, Hi everyone.
I'm Mimi Langley and my introis TBD to be determined.
(04:09):
That's how this year is going,so we'll see.
Typically, I teach people howto use social audio, aka audio
marketing, and then I also run.
You know, or I have run in thepast, I might bring this back a
community for femaleentrepreneurs.
So we'll see.
Like Jonathan said, I'm goingwith the flow this year.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Going with the flow this year.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay, so let's talk about beta offers.
Yeah, did you know that youcould beta offer pretty much
anything, right, jonathan?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean yeah, pretty muchanything.
You could put a beta offertogether for a run thinking
about anything.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, I was thinking like, definitely like for a
master class, you can do a betaround.
A beta round if you do bootcamps, beta round if you do a
membership.
I certainly did.
We can talk about what we didtoo.
To give examples, like can youthink of anything on the top of
your head?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
what you did for beta .
So for me the big one wascourses and I actually never ran
my course as a non-beta.
I kept changing it and it was abig ass course my full social
media like eight week success onsocial media course.
I ran as a beta three timesbecause I changed it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I didn't even think about, because I think every
time I've done a beta it's onlybeen a one, one round of beta.
So well then, that's not a goodbeta well, no, I mean, it was
enough for me to get to the Ifelt like for what I was
creating now for you, becauseyou created something really big
.
It makes sense.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You had a lot of different, uh yeah, but the goal
of the beta is that you canactually release it then as a
regular product or service oropportunity.
Yeah, yeah, okay, so you did itthree times I did um, I did it
(06:02):
one after another Um, and then Itook it and I formalized it and
I put it into my own platformand stuff like that.
And, after all the informationthat I got from everybody and
did everything, it didn't feelright, it didn't feel like mine
and I was like this isn'tworking.
Now I use that course likethere's so many parts of that
(06:24):
course that I use for otherpieces of content, other mini
courses and stuff like that so Igot a lot from it, but I never,
ever, launched the course as awhole.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, my question to you is did you we can talk about
this later too but did youraise the price?
I'm curious did you raise theprice the second time and the
third time for beta raise the?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
price, the second time and the third time for beta
.
First time it went it was $800beta.
Second time was $1,200 beta andthen third time was, I think,
$1,200 or $1,500.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Okay, okay, I was just curious how you did that,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And it's an eight-week course, so I was
planning on being about $35,000to $4,000.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Okay, I didn't know that you did that three times.
So I think that that isactually good to mention,
because when I'm thinking beta,I think, okay, I'm doing, and
again, it depends on what youwant to do and how big and large
your course or whatever you'retrying to put out is.
But like I was just thinking,oh, you do it one time, one time
only, and then you're ready togo, but clearly you could do it
as many times as you want, andthen you're ready to go, but
clearly you could do it as manytimes as you want, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I'm a crazy tester.
That's part of my downfall,because I could have taken it
and put it out as a regularcourse right after the first one
.
But I'm like what if I do these?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
three things here.
Will that make a difference?
And you know, sometimes that'sa little overthinking it, yeah,
but I mean I kind of like theidea of getting multiple.
It's kind of like beta groups,like they do, like a lot of
these big corporations will hiremultiple beta groups to give
different angles of feedback.
So I like that.
Okay, for me, two big oneswould be I had a five week boot
(08:02):
camp that you, you know I wasteaching people how to host
social audio rooms, so that wasbetaed, betaed betaed and you
released that one, though, as areal offer.
After that, afterwards, yeah,yeah, the second round it was it
was a for real offer and I didthat in like, and I don't even
know if there's a specific timeto recommend to do this, but I
(08:24):
did that one in the fall andthen when it was out of beta, I
really set in the beginning ofthe year, so just in case you
guys want a timeline.
And then the second one was Ibeta tested my membership.
I was thinking about doing amembership.
I wasn't sure if I really wouldbe into it, so I was like, let
me just do a three month beta ofthis membership for the female
(08:47):
entrepreneurs.
And yeah, so I did that.
So here we are.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And what did you discover doing that beta for the
female entrepreneurs that madeyou not go and launch that
program?
Continue on.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Thanks, jonathan.
Well, for me, do I I havecommitment issues?
I don't think so.
I'm a gemini.
If that tells anybody anything,um, and it's funny, like for me
it's like it's, it's almostlike I'm I don't know.
It's like I'm into somethingfor for a while.
Then I'm on to the next thing.
Like I don't know if anyoneelse is like this, um, which is
(09:24):
probably why I don't work in thecorporate world, because I just
couldn't, couldn't for 40 yearsand then retire.
I just couldn't.
Um, but yeah, I think after andit wasn't that the bad, the
beta was bad, the beta was a lotof fun, it was a lot of work,
um, but I think it was alsotiming.
I think it's important to we.
We talk about this all the time, like after you're done doing
(09:45):
it, reflect, and you know what Imean.
Like it's okay, I betaed it, sonow I have everything I need if
I want to launch it again.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
You know so yeah that's what that's the answer.
That's the answer.
That's fine.
I was just wondering becausethere's a lot of people out
there that will do betas andmaybe they will launch it, maybe
they won't, and you know,sometimes they feel guilty for
not launching things and youshouldn't.
It's part of the process.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
It is.
Actually, this is really goodto bring up, because, you're
right, I think we think, oh mygosh, ok, I've done the beta,
now I have to you know, this ishow it's supposed to go.
And no, it doesn't have to gothat way.
I mean, clearly, you took yoursand you broke it up and did
multiple things with thematerial.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And you know the reason we're betaing a program
is to see if it works.
And if it doesn't work if itdoesn't work for us, or it
doesn't work for the people init or all of that then it
doesn't work and that's OK.
Then you did the beta test andthey helped you and they're
going to help you withwhatever's next then in the
(10:48):
process, because thatinformation is never going to be
lost.
There's no mistakes.
There's no failures, it'sinformation.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And it depends to like if you're like, if it's a
time sensitive type of material,then okay, but you know, if
it's not time sensitive, yeah,three years from now, you could
you know exactly like I don'tknow.
No pressure, this is a nopressure podcast, oh my gosh.
Ok, let's jump into otherbenefits, because I know we kind
(11:17):
of I'm happy that we shared ourexperiences.
Yeah, the first thing we haveon our list is that your beta
testers will help you actuallybuild and create the finalized
product.
Do you want to expand more onthat, jonathan?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, I think it's, and it's great, because what it
really does help you do isunderstand what your audience is
looking for.
You know, we always tell youyou've got to know your audience
, you've got to figure out whatthey need, what their problems
are, how you solve thoseproblems in a unique way, and a
beta allows you to do that withthem, so you can say, here's,
you know, here's what I'm doing,here's what I'm working on,
(11:57):
here's the things I have for you, but is this enough?
Like, is this what you'relooking for?
What else would you like to seein here?
And then you can adjust thataccordingly.
The other thing that it allowsyou to do and this may jump into
the second one a little bit,but is it allows you to see what
you like to do out of it aswell?
Because sometimes, like I know,with my intensive next round,
(12:22):
I'm not promising a, a fullcontent review, because that's
30 page document that I got tocreate for each and every person
in my intensive, which takes alot of time.
I need to do that either inadvance of the of it, before
they get into the intensive, oryou know.
So there's things like thatthat you can discover when
(12:44):
you're doing a beta.
It's much easier than when youlaunch a product and now I've
got it out there and I've got tochange it.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, that's very true right there.
That last part, I mean all ofit I was thinking too, like I
love the build as you go.
I didn't think I was going todo that because of how my brain
is Normally, like when I'mlaunching something, like I like
everything to be done and I,like you, know what I mean.
But I will tell you both times.
I did the beta, like at leastfor the boot camp.
That was a five week boot campand I had week one done.
(13:14):
Like when we finally went live,I had week one done.
I mean, I kind of had anoverview of how all five weeks
would go, but nothing was built,nothing was built in slideshows
, nothing.
And it's funny, like after weekone you're right, like you
people tell you where they're at, like you have an idea as the
(13:35):
coach or the mentor or whatever,what they need.
But they will tell you like,yeah, what they need, yeah, they
will tell you what they needand they will let you know if
it's sufficient.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And the other thing is they know they you what they
need and they will let you knowif it's sufficient.
And the other thing is theyknow they're in a beta so they
understand that their feedbackis going to make a difference in
where the beta is going, eventhe next week, so you know that
can help them really be morewilling to talk about things.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Oh my gosh.
Yes, and another example ofthis building as you go, they
can also like for the membershipbeta.
I remember, like the girl, likeall the female entrepreneurs I
call them girls because it wasgirl, you've got this All the
beta testers, they theyrequested something.
They wanted like a spreadsheetwhere they could put kind of
(14:22):
like their goal.
You know, because a lot of whatthe membership was about was
hitting this specific goal, likewe would have co-working
sessions to hit this specificgoal, um, and they wanted a
spreadsheet where they could seelike the list of everybody's
goal and like cheer each otheron.
And I didn't think to do that.
So I you know what I mean.
So it's like, yeah, I don'tknow, I like it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, no, it is.
I do enjoy doing a beta becauseit does help you learn so much
and it's great market research.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
A couple more things on this.
Ok, other things that they canhelp you build.
You know where do they like tohave the community.
You know like if a lot of theseprograms or whatever you're
trying to create, sometimesyou'll have like a community
accountability group of somesort, whether it's on Facebook,
you know WhatsApp, your favoriteDiscord, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Do you want to?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
explain, tell people this wasn't beta, but you
learned from your group thatthey didn't like Discord.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
They hated Discord.
How did you learn that?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Because they hated it and they didn't like discord.
They hated discord.
How did you learn that?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
um, because they hated it and they wouldn't go
over there.
And they said they hated it.
They absolutely.
Well, mimi, do you like discord?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I I hate.
Well, I don't hate it, I thinkit's.
You know, I think visually it'sjust not my like.
I'm a visual jarring.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, um, so they hated it and they told me they
hated it, um, which makes, like,my life more difficult, because
what I could do in discord,which I can't do right now like
I have to create a new facebookgroup for my intensive, I can't
house it in the same facebookgroup.
So, like I could do that all indiscord without having to
manage multiple groups andremembering going back and forth
(16:00):
.
I could just go one place.
But, yeah, and now the peoplethat are members and they'll all
be members that are in theintensive also have to be in two
facebook groups until I closeone of them uh, okay, but.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
But?
But now you know people likeyour, people like to work with
facebook.
That's what they're comfortablewith, what they're you know,
and same thing for me.
I'm not really a huge fan ofFacebook groups, but that's
where we ended up too.
The other thing wascommunication.
Did you communicate well withthem?
(16:37):
Did you send the appropriateamount of emails to remind them
of a Zoom call that you'rehaving?
Did you know things like that?
What do you think, jonathan,about the whole communication
aspect of it?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, and I think that's partially from your beta,
but also from things thatyou've learned over time about
your audience.
Like I've learned that I needto email three times for a
meeting.
It needs to be the week before.
Three times for a meeting itneeds to be the week before.
Well, obviously, at thebeginning of the month they get
a schedule, but then the weekbefore and the week and then,
like the day of, they need tomake sure that they get reminder
(17:11):
emails and then an hour before,because if they don't get that
hour before, they don't show up,they forget.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think I did like five reminders, like I know I
did the morning of an hourbefore and 15 minutes before or
10 minutes before doors opened,like for the zoom call.
So like, yeah, you're right,though it's like, but you know
and you'll find out, you know,people will message you and say,
hey, I didn't get the link andit's like okay, we're having
(17:40):
some kind of there's some kindof mishap going on, right right,
right, and it's not necessarily.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
the other thing that you learn when you're doing beta
is to remind them to whitelistyour email.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Oh, oh.
So like you're not going in thejunk folder, in the junks, yeah
, okay.
Well, that's good to know.
Let me tell you too.
Another thing is I would I lovecommunication, so I try to be
super clear and and I probablyover communicate, um, but I will
email.
I think you do this too, butsometimes I would over
(18:12):
communicate, like I, and that'sfine, like that's just how I am,
like that's how I work, becauseI know from previous experience
that some people don't checktheir email.
So if you're just relying onemail, um, and that some people
don't check their email, so ifyou're just relying on email,
and then some people don't checkthe Facebook group, so if
you're just relying on theFacebook group, so these are
things that you do learn.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah, and even I mean for the intensive.
I'm looking at doing textmessaging as well, because I can
do text messaging through,because people don't look at
email or they don't see it.
So yeah, and the Facebook grouppost gets lost, gets lost
because it's a Facebook group,which is why I hate Facebook.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I like the text messaging idea.
We'll have to do an episode onhow should you communicate.
We should maybe go to acommercial break.
Do I have to hit the buttontoday?
Yes, do you remember where thebutton is?
We'll be right back.
All right, jonathanathan, we'regonna fly through the second
point, because we kind ofalready sort of talked about it,
um, and that is that it's abenefit for you too.
(19:07):
I'm gonna put my angle on this.
It's for the, it's a benefitfor you to beta test, because
you never know if you actuallylike something until you do it.
So that's why, like with themembership, I wasn't sure if it
was going to be a forever thingfor me.
Like, I like the idea of havinga membership, but will I
(19:27):
actually like running one?
And so that's why I beta testedit.
It really showed me kind of thebehind the scenes of like this
is really what it feels like toto run a membership.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So yeah, yeah, and I like that, but I also think it
helps you understand what it isabout the process that you like
and dislike, because you mighthave disliked running the
membership in that way, but youcould have discovered that you
could do it easier by doing itthis way.
Or maybe changing up how manytimes you're meeting all those
(20:01):
things that you can change,because you're doing a beta, and
your audience, your people inthat, will give you feedback and
say you know, you were emailingus five times a day and that
was ridiculous.
You know, whatever it might be,and then you can adjust.
Or they can say we really likedthis, but we didn't like this,
and that thing that they didn'tlike might be the thing that you
(20:21):
didn't like either.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And then you don't have to do that anymore and you
can have a membership that justdoesn't include that.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
You know what's so funny the way when you said that
I was like, ok, because I would, at least for the membership.
I would, because we would havemultiple meetings.
You know, and I already said, Ilike to over communicate but I
would email them.
I would also create a Facebookgroup event every single time
and I remember one of the betatesters was like Mimi, you don't
(20:50):
have to do all like you could,just we don't need to create a
Facebook event every time right,yeah so anyways but I like the
whole gates I like to overcommunicate.
Okay, I'm like, but, but you'reright, though that would have
saved me a lot of time to notyou know, because it was the
same thing every week.
It's like do they really need afacebook event?
Right, every week.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You can create repeating facebook events now of
course you can.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Oh, now it's a new thing.
I don't know if it's a newthing.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I didn't see it before since the last time I
quit facebook groups and then Icame back for the thing.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Then, no, I was there I probably had the option, and
I just didn't even notice itbecause I would literally create
a new one anyways, you're right, though okay, let's go on to
number three.
Uh, we have four, you guys, sothe number?
The third one is I think a lotof people feel like, if they do
a beta, that, yes, they'regoing're going to learn a lot,
(21:43):
but they're not going to makemoney, like I don't know.
I feel like that's just kind offloating around, so people skip
and they go right for the fullprice item to sell.
But what do you think, jonathan?
I mean, I've certainly mademoney.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I've made money on my betas.
Like I said, my first beta was$800 and I had 10 people in it.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Right Like, so it doesn't have to be like low
price, right you?
Speaker 1 (22:04):
know it can be, but it's lower than what you're
expecting $800 for a five-weekprogram, that's a good deal.
That's a really good deal, likemy current program is $2,000
for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So Right, well, my, my five-week bootcamp.
Oh my gosh, you're going toyell at me.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I will but don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
The five-week boot camp was $97.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
That was my beta price.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Never do that again because I would kill her, hey,
but it's fine.
But yeah, so you can make money, you determine what your
pricing is, and you were talkingabout this earlier when we were
writing this point down abouthow it can help you kind of well
.
One feel more confident inselling like you're selling
strategy, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, it will allow you to one see what points like
people actually jumped on thatwere powerful for your audience.
So, whatever you know, I wouldsay, if you're doing a beta, try
marketing in like fourdifferent ways and see which
ones take.
And then the other thing is itallows you to build the
confidence to ask for the moneythat you deserve for your
product, because you deserveprobably more than you're
(23:13):
thinking of charging.
We all probably do, unlesswe're one of those top tier
coaches that is asking for$40,000 for a five week program.
We're one of those top tiercoaches that is asking for forty
thousand dollars for afive-week program.
We could all probably and thereare coaches out there that get
forty thousand dollars for afive-week program I think about
that all the time.
Yes, so yeah, if you have to beconfident behind the selling
(23:35):
right we have an episode onselling.
I don't think we do I don'tthink we do, because we keep
wanting to get a sales we, weneed to get an expert.
Yeah, we'll find somebody,because neither of us are and
neither of us asked for what wedeserve.
It's true, and I don't say whatyou're worth, because human is
worth more than any amount ofmoney.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
No, gosh, where are we going with this?
So, yes, you can make money,even with the beta.
You can charge what you want tocharge.
There's no like it has to be 20bucks.
Okay, you guys, um, and it willhelp you feel more confident.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Um, selling it, yeah, and getting people in agreed,
agreed and, and you know it'slike mimi says, it doesn't have
to be 20 bucks, it can be 800,it can be whatever.
But almost make it a little bitpast your comfort zone so that
you have to build the confidencewhile you're selling.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
There's that push, Jonathan, that's your signature
style, you do?
No, no, no.
No, it's appreciated because,like for me, I'm just like OK,
go with you know where you'recomfortable.
No, you know, I'm just likeokay, go with you, know where
you're comfortable.
No, you know, and you're likejust a little over that.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
You're like the 1%, You're like what is that book
that's?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
amazing the Habits, atomic Habits.
Yes, it's like you know, you'rea little above your comfort
level.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Little above your comfort level.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I like that a lot actually.
Okay, the last point is makesure you do get a survey, Like
have them take the survey at theend of everything.
Let them know, Like I don'tknow, if you talk about this,
Like I feel like it's almostjust known as a beta tester,
you're going to get surveyed atsome point.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Again, I like to over-communicate but I usually
put that in my material, likewhen they're purchasing, like
not, it's, it's obligated, butyou know what I mean, like just
kind of what.
To it, at the end of that week,before they checked off that
week for their course ascompleted, it actually popped up
(25:43):
a survey for them to fill outfor that particular section,
which was great because I couldget feedback each week on what
was working and what wasn'twhich I could then use when I
was building out the next week.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
See, I just did one lump survey at the very end of
the five-week weekend.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yours wasn't a course , though more I know, but still
like that's actually what systemdid you use?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
do you remember?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
it was.
Well, it was on my own.
No, the first time I did it infacebook.
I just created a guide that hadthe survey in it that they had
to finish before they checked itoff.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Okay, okay okay, I like that.
That's good.
I like that a lot.
See, like my end of the, theend, the ending survey that's
where you could ask somequestions like would you pay, or
what would you pay if what?
Would you pay for this bootcamp again if you had a tear?
You know something like thewording like and so then you can
(26:36):
give them like three options ofpricing that you're thinking
you're going to charge for forthe, the finalized edition.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yep, yep, and you can get all sorts of feedback.
Oh yeah, and you also shouldalways ask for the review in
that survey.
Yep, always ask for the review.
Just if you want to give us aquick like what's your take on?
So my take on it is, honestly,when I tell people they're in a
beta, or if I give away a freeprogram for something, where
it's just like I make it known.
(27:03):
You know, if you enjoy this,please, I'm.
You know I'm not begging you.
No, I would greatly appreciatea Google review and I do use.
Google reviews, because thoseare on my.
You know, when you search yourwebsite, when you all SEO, all
of that, those reviews come up.
So that's probably, in myopinion, the strongest review
(27:24):
you can get.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Oh my gosh, jonathan, you're blowing my mind right
now.
I didn't even know that wecould have a Google review Like
for whatever reason I thoughtthat that was like restaurants
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
No, if you have your own business page, you can get a
Google review.
Oh, a Google business page?
Yeah, and you should.
If you have a own business page, you can get a Google review.
Oh, a Google business page?
Yeah, and you should if youhave a business.
I don't have a Google businesspage.
We'll work on that.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I guarantee you there are many people listening in
right now, Jonathan, that do nothave a Google business page.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, and sometimes it's because they work at a home
, but you can get a like forvery reasonable prices.
Now, one of those co-workingspaces will accept your mail as
a drop-off location, which meansyou can use them as an address
for your business, which makesit easy for you to get a Google
(28:15):
Business account.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay, can you use a PO box?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Because sometimes it's because not a PO box can't
be a.
Po box has to be a physicallocation, which is why the
co-working sites are great forthat.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Okay, well, anyways, that blew my mind.
Hopefully it blew yours.
That was a little extra bonusin there, Jonathan.
That's it.
I think we've broken down atleast the benefits of a beta.
We didn't tell them the cons.
What are the cons of a beta?
I think I don't know.
It's just part of the learningprocess.
It's a little scary.
(28:47):
There's definitely fear thereyeah you know, because you're
still trying to figure out whatto do and you don't want to kind
of let people down.
I know that was.
One of my anxieties was I don'twant to let people down because
they are paying money.
They do know it's a beta, but Istill want to show up and give
them 150.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You know right and you will like that's.
That's what we all kind of do,um, at least most people.
I've never been in a betaprogram that was terrible.
Same.
I've always been in good betaprograms.
And then when you're in theprogram like I hold on to great
pricing for my coaching yeah,because I've been there.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's very true, my gosh, Now I'm thinking.
Now I'm thinking about all the.
Is there anything?
Oh, another thing too, as faras a con, I guess it depends too
on how how you're getting betatesters.
But that's also a fear of willI mesh well with this person,
Right yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
That's a whole other episode but.
Yeah, and that boils down tolike, if you're talking to the
right people the people to getyou, and if you're just like for
me, I just offer it up to myintensives as a prize for
something, the people that I getmay not be my people, they may
not work for me, they may be thebest people ever, but they may
(30:07):
not be my people because they'rejust being offered a prize and
that's you know.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I know, and also like if you do have a bad experience
with somebody, it's goodbecause that's a learning
experience and if anything mightforce you to to do an
application type of um, I don'tthink you believe in those, but
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
They're like there's different ways.
My intensive is is not theymake the first payment and then,
if I don't know them, they getan interview before they are
accepted into the program ohokay, so many my gosh, you guys.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
We can have like 10 parts of beta offers.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, I know my intensive isn't even a beta, but
I'm doing a lot of beta thingswith it because it is the second
time I'm running it.
Okay, and you know I beta testthings three times.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
That's the Jonathan method.
The Jonathan Howard method.
Mine is one and go.
That's the jonathan method.
The jonathan howard method.
Mine is uh, one and go, one andgo.
So well, jonathan, um,hopefully you guys enjoyed that.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Uh, I know this wasn't a mini episode, at least
no, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Uh, good luck editing this, um, jonathan.
If you didn't know, jonathanedits every single one of our
episodes, so thank you, jonathanI edited out all our laughter
in one of them that was hard andI have to watch I have to watch
.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I watch it too, before I send it to you.
I watch it, but I miss thethings that I edited because I'm
like oh yeah, I did that well.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
No, don't worry, you know I'll catch everything.
I know I try to anyways.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Tell people if they want to review Speaking of
reviews.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, wherever you listen to your podcast, make
sure you give us a rating, areview, whatever you can do
there.
Mimi says five stars.
We're technically not allowedto tell you what to give us, but
Mimi says five stars.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Who says If you?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
could give her 10,.
The Federal Trade CommissionSelena Gomez.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Remember that song.
Who says Okay, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
You know, just the government, because you can't
encourage people to give falsereviews.
But anyway, if you loved whatyou listened to, give us five
stars.
If you hated it, you can giveus zero, but we don't want any
zeros.
So if you hate it, just don'tlisten anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, if you don't like it, just email us.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
We'd rather just don't listen anymore.
Goodbye, no um hit theunsubscribe button yeah, thank
you, though, for being here andenjoying our banter and our fun.
Um mimi, where can?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
they find us all over .
Okay, we're on instagram, we'reon youtube if you'd rather
watch the podcast.
We have a few people shout toadam he loves watching and he
loves listening.
He's like a double listener.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
There we go listener, watcher um, he's putting some
of this on spotify now soon.
Yeah, I think it's actually.
I hear it's easy.
Oh, I love easy.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, I know you guys , I do want to end this.
We want to end this with themost important question of them
all, which, jonathan, I don'teven know.
If you know the question, I do.
Oh, you do, that's right, I putit in the notes.
I wanted to surprise you.
Here's the question.
We'd love for you to answer you, the listener.
If you want to answer onYouTube, in the comments section
, or on Instagram, or you canjust message us, we would love
(33:26):
to know are you team build asyou go like?
Does that like make you feelgood?
Or are you team?
Have it already before you evenlaunch the beta?
Curious?
build as you go I never thoughtI would say that, but I like
that.
Again, you can have an overview.
Oh, overview but yeah, not,yeah, absolutely.
So let us know what it is foryou guys.
But thank you again, thank youfor listening and watching and
(33:47):
we appreciate your support andwe'll see you in the next
episode.
Bye everyone.
Bye, jonathan howard, bye mimilangley I can see it, I can see
it.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I can see it with my close, close eyes.
I can see it, I can see it.
I can see it with my close eyes.
I'm not even dancing that far away from the desk
today and I can, like I could,go dance in the other corner
today and you'd still be able tohear me.
Wait, go in the other corner.
You want me to go in the othercorner?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm in the other corner.
I'm going into the closet.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Now this is what happens my closet door is closed
.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This is what happens when you try to film with
Jonathan Howard Heads up toanybody who wants him as a guest
on their podcast.
He goes and hides in the closet.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I know it's Coffee Social, the podcast, all about
social media and business.
And now here are your hosts,Jonathan Howard and Mimi Langley
.
Hi, everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hi Jonathan Howard, hello Mimi Langley langley.
Oh, my goodness, what?
What should we talk like?
What are we talking about?
I think it's we're both reallygiddy about this, this topic
talking about beta offers.
I think we're just reallyexcited.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh, we're really that excited about beta offers
because people don't think we'reweird oh, I, I don't think
people talk about beta enough,honestly.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So I think this is going to be a.
That's true, yeah, that's true.
You before, well, yeah, beforewe get into it, you wanted to
share your beautiful coffee withus.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
So look how pretty.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
my coffee is today If you're on.
Youtube.
You can see it, okay.
So why?
Okay, first of all, what is it?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
What is this contraption that you're calling
coffee?
It's cold brew with coconutmilk, but I frothed my coconut
milk a little bit today.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Okay, so I'm like I want to know all the details.
First of all, what kind ofcoconut milk?
What brand do you trust?
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I don't know the one that has coconut milk that they
send me when I order coconutmilk.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Where are you ordering your groceries from
Hannaford's?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
You have a Hannaford, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I love Hannaford.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I have two Hannafords One's over the bridge, which is
actually the one I use, andthen there's one down the road.
Now, what's up with yoursweatshirt?
Why are you yawning at me?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
No, it says yawn Um.
I'm just very tired, Jonathan,Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Fine then.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
You know that's part of my New Year's resolutions for
2025.
To yawn more Well, to get moresleep.
Oh, okay, actually, goodquality sleep.
Like I need to get one of thosethings that tell you you know
how your sleep was.
Just get an Apple Watch.
They're just so bulky, I can't.
They're not bulky.
It's not bulky, that's big.
(02:33):
No, it's not, it's annoying.
It's like you know you feelsomething on your wrist all the
time.
I just I've got that and likemy three bracelets on that wrist
.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Do you have a Cartier bracelet?
No, Magnetite blue.
This is blue tiger's eye and aregular tiger's eye.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh okay, you're going all like energy alignment.
Yo Phil would be proud.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I always wear these, though that's nice, because
they're like my fidget stick.
You know how people have thoselittle fidget toys and stuff.
That's what those are for me,like I can when I get nervous or
I yeah, um, okay, well, I thinkwe had enough to talk about the
beginning of it.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I know we had, we were you guys.
That's what 2025 is all aboutJust kind of going with the flow
, I mean he's just making it upas she goes along.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I'm making it up as I go.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Okay, jonathan, tell people let's do a quick intro
for any of the new listeners toCoffee Social and then we'll
dive into beta offers, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, my name is Jonathan Howard, I'm the owner
of Success on Social, and I helpsuccessful coaches reach their
ideal clients through developingtheir signature style so they
can show up and make some moneyonline.
Over to you, mimi.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's true, though, you've had a lot, when I was
looking back, like a couple ofmonths ago, back at your
reflection for 2024.
You had a few, like a lot ofclients that you shared their
success stories about makingmoney and all that, so making
money making a difference, allthe things.
Well, Jonathan, Hi everyone.
I'm Mimi Langley and my introis TBD to be determined.
(04:09):
That's how this year is going,so we'll see.
Typically, I teach people howto use social audio, aka audio
marketing, and then I also run.
You know, or I have run in thepast, I might bring this back a
community for femaleentrepreneurs.
So we'll see.
Like Jonathan said, I'm goingwith the flow this year.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Going with the flow this year.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay, so let's talk about beta offers.
Yeah, did you know that youcould beta offer pretty much
anything, right, jonathan?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean yeah, pretty muchanything.
You could put a beta offertogether for a run thinking
about anything.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, I was thinking like, definitely like for a
master class, you can do a betaround.
A beta round if you do bootcamps, beta round if you do a
membership.
I certainly did.
We can talk about what we didtoo.
To give examples, like can youthink of anything on the top of
your head?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
what you did for beta .
So for me the big one wascourses and I actually never ran
my course as a non-beta.
I kept changing it and it was abig ass course my full social
media like eight week success onsocial media course.
I ran as a beta three timesbecause I changed it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I didn't even think about, because I think every
time I've done a beta it's onlybeen a one, one round of beta.
So well then, that's not a goodbeta well, no, I mean, it was
enough for me to get to the Ifelt like for what I was
creating now for you, becauseyou created something really big
.
It makes sense.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You had a lot of different, uh yeah, but the goal
of the beta is that you canactually release it then as a
regular product or service oropportunity.
Yeah, yeah, okay, so you did itthree times I did um, I did it
(06:02):
one after another Um, and then Itook it and I formalized it and
I put it into my own platformand stuff like that.
And, after all the informationthat I got from everybody and
did everything, it didn't feelright, it didn't feel like mine
and I was like this isn'tworking.
Now I use that course likethere's so many parts of that
(06:24):
course that I use for otherpieces of content, other mini
courses and stuff like that so Igot a lot from it, but I never,
ever, launched the course as awhole.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, my question to you is did you we can talk about
this later too but did youraise the price?
I'm curious did you raise theprice the second time and the
third time for beta raise the?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
price, the second time and the third time for beta
.
First time it went it was $800beta.
Second time was $1,200 beta andthen third time was, I think,
$1,200 or $1,500.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Okay, okay, I was just curious how you did that,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And it's an eight-week course, so I was
planning on being about $35,000to $4,000.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Okay, I didn't know that you did that three times.
So I think that that isactually good to mention,
because when I'm thinking beta,I think, okay, I'm doing, and
again, it depends on what youwant to do and how big and large
your course or whatever you'retrying to put out is.
But like I was just thinking,oh, you do it one time, one time
only, and then you're ready togo, but clearly you could do it
as many times as you want, andthen you're ready to go, but
clearly you could do it as manytimes as you want, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I'm a crazy tester.
That's part of my downfall,because I could have taken it
and put it out as a regularcourse right after the first one
.
But I'm like what if I do these?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
three things here.
Will that make a difference?
And you know, sometimes that'sa little overthinking it, yeah,
but I mean I kind of like theidea of getting multiple.
It's kind of like beta groups,like they do, like a lot of
these big corporations will hiremultiple beta groups to give
different angles of feedback.
So I like that.
Okay, for me, two big oneswould be I had a five week boot
(08:02):
camp that you, you know I wasteaching people how to host
social audio rooms, so that wasbetaed, betaed betaed and you
released that one, though, as areal offer.
After that, afterwards, yeah,yeah, the second round it was it
was a for real offer and I didthat in like, and I don't even
know if there's a specific timeto recommend to do this, but I
(08:24):
did that one in the fall andthen when it was out of beta, I
really set in the beginning ofthe year, so just in case you
guys want a timeline.
And then the second one was Ibeta tested my membership.
I was thinking about doing amembership.
I wasn't sure if I really wouldbe into it, so I was like, let
me just do a three month beta ofthis membership for the female
(08:47):
entrepreneurs.
And yeah, so I did that.
So here we are.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And what did you discover doing that beta for the
female entrepreneurs that madeyou not go and launch that
program?
Continue on.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Thanks, jonathan.
Well, for me, do I I havecommitment issues?
I don't think so.
I'm a gemini.
If that tells anybody anything,um, and it's funny, like for me
it's like it's, it's almostlike I'm I don't know.
It's like I'm into somethingfor for a while.
Then I'm on to the next thing.
Like I don't know if anyoneelse is like this, um, which is
(09:24):
probably why I don't work in thecorporate world, because I just
couldn't, couldn't for 40 yearsand then retire.
I just couldn't.
Um, but yeah, I think after andit wasn't that the bad, the
beta was bad, the beta was a lotof fun, it was a lot of work,
um, but I think it was alsotiming.
I think it's important to we.
We talk about this all the time, like after you're done doing
(09:45):
it, reflect, and you know what Imean.
Like it's okay, I betaed it, sonow I have everything I need if
I want to launch it again.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
You know so yeah that's what that's the answer.
That's the answer.
That's fine.
I was just wondering becausethere's a lot of people out
there that will do betas andmaybe they will launch it, maybe
they won't, and you know,sometimes they feel guilty for
not launching things and youshouldn't.
It's part of the process.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
It is.
Actually, this is really goodto bring up, because, you're
right, I think we think, oh mygosh, ok, I've done the beta,
now I have to you know, this ishow it's supposed to go.
And no, it doesn't have to gothat way.
I mean, clearly, you took yoursand you broke it up and did
multiple things with thematerial.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And you know the reason we're betaing a program
is to see if it works.
And if it doesn't work if itdoesn't work for us, or it
doesn't work for the people init or all of that then it
doesn't work and that's OK.
Then you did the beta test andthey helped you and they're
going to help you withwhatever's next then in the
(10:48):
process, because thatinformation is never going to be
lost.
There's no mistakes.
There's no failures, it'sinformation.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
And it depends to like if you're like, if it's a
time sensitive type of material,then okay, but you know, if
it's not time sensitive, yeah,three years from now, you could
you know exactly like I don'tknow.
No pressure, this is a nopressure podcast, oh my gosh.
Ok, let's jump into otherbenefits, because I know we kind
(11:17):
of I'm happy that we shared ourexperiences.
Yeah, the first thing we haveon our list is that your beta
testers will help you actuallybuild and create the finalized
product.
Do you want to expand more onthat, jonathan?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, I think it's, and it's great, because what it
really does help you do isunderstand what your audience is
looking for.
You know, we always tell youyou've got to know your audience
, you've got to figure out whatthey need, what their problems
are, how you solve thoseproblems in a unique way, and a
beta allows you to do that withthem, so you can say, here's,
you know, here's what I'm doing,here's what I'm working on,
(11:57):
here's the things I have for you, but is this enough?
Like, is this what you'relooking for?
What else would you like to seein here?
And then you can adjust thataccordingly.
The other thing that it allowsyou to do and this may jump into
the second one a little bit,but is it allows you to see what
you like to do out of it aswell?
Because sometimes, like I know,with my intensive next round,
(12:22):
I'm not promising a, a fullcontent review, because that's
30 page document that I got tocreate for each and every person
in my intensive, which takes alot of time.
I need to do that either inadvance of the of it, before
they get into the intensive, oryou know.
So there's things like thatthat you can discover when
(12:44):
you're doing a beta.
It's much easier than when youlaunch a product and now I've
got it out there and I've got tochange it.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, that's very true right there.
That last part, I mean all ofit I was thinking too, like I
love the build as you go.
I didn't think I was going todo that because of how my brain
is Normally, like when I'mlaunching something, like I like
everything to be done and I,like you, know what I mean.
But I will tell you both times.
I did the beta, like at leastfor the boot camp.
That was a five week boot campand I had week one done.
(13:14):
Like when we finally went live,I had week one done.
I mean, I kind of had anoverview of how all five weeks
would go, but nothing was built,nothing was built in slideshows
, nothing.
And it's funny, like after weekone you're right, like you
people tell you where they're at, like you have an idea as the
(13:35):
coach or the mentor or whatever,what they need.
But they will tell you like,yeah, what they need, yeah, they
will tell you what they needand they will let you know if
it's sufficient.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And the other thing is they know they you what they
need and they will let you knowif it's sufficient.
And the other thing is theyknow they're in a beta so they
understand that their feedbackis going to make a difference in
where the beta is going, eventhe next week, so you know that
can help them really be morewilling to talk about things.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Oh my gosh.
Yes, and another example ofthis building as you go, they
can also like for the membershipbeta.
I remember, like the girl, likeall the female entrepreneurs I
call them girls because it wasgirl, you've got this All the
beta testers, they theyrequested something.
They wanted like a spreadsheetwhere they could put kind of
(14:22):
like their goal.
You know, because a lot of whatthe membership was about was
hitting this specific goal, likewe would have co-working
sessions to hit this specificgoal, um, and they wanted a
spreadsheet where they could seelike the list of everybody's
goal and like cheer each otheron.
And I didn't think to do that.
So I you know what I mean.
So it's like, yeah, I don'tknow, I like it.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, no, it is.
I do enjoy doing a beta becauseit does help you learn so much
and it's great market research.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
A couple more things on this.
Ok, other things that they canhelp you build.
You know where do they like tohave the community.
You know like if a lot of theseprograms or whatever you're
trying to create, sometimesyou'll have like a community
accountability group of somesort, whether it's on Facebook,
you know WhatsApp, your favoriteDiscord, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Do you want to?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
explain, tell people this wasn't beta, but you
learned from your group thatthey didn't like Discord.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
They hated Discord.
How did you learn that?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Because they hated it and they didn't like discord.
They hated discord.
How did you learn that?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
um, because they hated it and they wouldn't go
over there.
And they said they hated it.
They absolutely.
Well, mimi, do you like discord?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I I hate.
Well, I don't hate it, I thinkit's.
You know, I think visually it'sjust not my like.
I'm a visual jarring.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, um, so they hated it and they told me they
hated it, um, which makes, like,my life more difficult, because
what I could do in discord,which I can't do right now like
I have to create a new facebookgroup for my intensive, I can't
house it in the same facebookgroup.
So, like I could do that all indiscord without having to
manage multiple groups andremembering going back and forth
(16:00):
.
I could just go one place.
But, yeah, and now the peoplethat are members and they'll all
be members that are in theintensive also have to be in two
facebook groups until I closeone of them uh, okay, but.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
But?
But now you know people likeyour, people like to work with
facebook.
That's what they're comfortablewith, what they're you know,
and same thing for me.
I'm not really a huge fan ofFacebook groups, but that's
where we ended up too.
The other thing wascommunication.
Did you communicate well withthem?
(16:37):
Did you send the appropriateamount of emails to remind them
of a Zoom call that you'rehaving?
Did you know things like that?
What do you think, jonathan,about the whole communication
aspect of it?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, and I think that's partially from your beta,
but also from things thatyou've learned over time about
your audience.
Like I've learned that I needto email three times for a
meeting.
It needs to be the week before.
Three times for a meeting itneeds to be the week before.
Well, obviously, at thebeginning of the month they get
a schedule, but then the weekbefore and the week and then,
like the day of, they need tomake sure that they get reminder
(17:11):
emails and then an hour before,because if they don't get that
hour before, they don't show up,they forget.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I think I did like five reminders, like I know I
did the morning of an hourbefore and 15 minutes before or
10 minutes before doors opened,like for the zoom call.
So like, yeah, you're right,though it's like, but you know
and you'll find out, you know,people will message you and say,
hey, I didn't get the link andit's like okay, we're having
(17:40):
some kind of there's some kindof mishap going on, right right,
right, and it's not necessarily.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
the other thing that you learn when you're doing beta
is to remind them to whitelistyour email.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Oh, oh.
So like you're not going in thejunk folder, in the junks, yeah
, okay.
Well, that's good to know.
Let me tell you too.
Another thing is I would I lovecommunication, so I try to be
super clear and and I probablyover communicate, um, but I will
email.
I think you do this too, butsometimes I would over
(18:12):
communicate, like I, and that'sfine, like that's just how I am,
like that's how I work, becauseI know from previous experience
that some people don't checktheir email.
So if you're just relying onemail, um, and that some people
don't check their email, so ifyou're just relying on email,
and then some people don't checkthe Facebook group, so if
you're just relying on theFacebook group, so these are
things that you do learn.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah, and even I mean for the intensive.
I'm looking at doing textmessaging as well, because I can
do text messaging through,because people don't look at
email or they don't see it.
So yeah, and the Facebook grouppost gets lost, gets lost
because it's a Facebook group,which is why I hate Facebook.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I like the text messaging idea.
We'll have to do an episode onhow should you communicate.
We should maybe go to acommercial break.
Do I have to hit the buttontoday?
Yes, do you remember where thebutton is?
We'll be right back.
All right, jonathanathan, we'regonna fly through the second
point, because we kind ofalready sort of talked about it,
um, and that is that it's abenefit for you too.
(19:07):
I'm gonna put my angle on this.
It's for the, it's a benefitfor you to beta test, because
you never know if you actuallylike something until you do it.
So that's why, like with themembership, I wasn't sure if it
was going to be a forever thingfor me.
Like, I like the idea of havinga membership, but will I
(19:27):
actually like running one?
And so that's why I beta testedit.
It really showed me kind of thebehind the scenes of like this
is really what it feels like toto run a membership.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
So yeah, yeah, and I like that, but I also think it
helps you understand what it isabout the process that you like
and dislike, because you mighthave disliked running the
membership in that way, but youcould have discovered that you
could do it easier by doing itthis way.
Or maybe changing up how manytimes you're meeting all those
(20:01):
things that you can change,because you're doing a beta, and
your audience, your people inthat, will give you feedback and
say you know, you were emailingus five times a day and that
was ridiculous.
You know, whatever it might be,and then you can adjust.
Or they can say we really likedthis, but we didn't like this,
and that thing that they didn'tlike might be the thing that you
(20:21):
didn't like either.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And then you don't have to do that anymore and you
can have a membership that justdoesn't include that.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
You know what's so funny the way when you said that
I was like, ok, because I would, at least for the membership.
I would, because we would havemultiple meetings.
You know, and I already said, Ilike to over communicate but I
would email them.
I would also create a Facebookgroup event every single time
and I remember one of the betatesters was like Mimi, you don't
(20:50):
have to do all like you could,just we don't need to create a
Facebook event every time right,yeah so anyways but I like the
whole gates I like to overcommunicate.
Okay, I'm like, but, but you'reright, though that would have
saved me a lot of time to notyou know, because it was the
same thing every week.
It's like do they really need afacebook event?
Right, every week.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You can create repeating facebook events now of
course you can.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Oh, now it's a new thing.
I don't know if it's a newthing.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I didn't see it before since the last time I
quit facebook groups and then Icame back for the thing.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Then, no, I was there I probably had the option, and
I just didn't even notice itbecause I would literally create
a new one anyways, you're right, though okay, let's go on to
number three.
Uh, we have four, you guys, sothe number?
The third one is I think a lotof people feel like, if they do
a beta, that, yes, they'regoing're going to learn a lot,
(21:43):
but they're not going to makemoney, like I don't know.
I feel like that's just kind offloating around, so people skip
and they go right for the fullprice item to sell.
But what do you think, jonathan?
I mean, I've certainly mademoney.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I've made money on my betas.
Like I said, my first beta was$800 and I had 10 people in it.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Right Like, so it doesn't have to be like low
price, right you?
Speaker 1 (22:04):
know it can be, but it's lower than what you're
expecting $800 for a five-weekprogram, that's a good deal.
That's a really good deal, likemy current program is $2,000
for three weeks.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So Right, well, my, my five-week bootcamp.
Oh my gosh, you're going toyell at me.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I will but don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
The five-week boot camp was $97.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
That was my beta price.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Never do that again because I would kill her, hey,
but it's fine.
But yeah, so you can make money, you determine what your
pricing is, and you were talkingabout this earlier when we were
writing this point down abouthow it can help you kind of well
.
One feel more confident inselling like you're selling
strategy, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Yeah, it will allow you to one see what points like
people actually jumped on thatwere powerful for your audience.
So, whatever you know, I wouldsay, if you're doing a beta, try
marketing in like fourdifferent ways and see which
ones take.
And then the other thing is itallows you to build the
confidence to ask for the moneythat you deserve for your
product, because you deserveprobably more than you're
(23:13):
thinking of charging.
We all probably do, unlesswe're one of those top tier
coaches that is asking for$40,000 for a five week program.
We're one of those top tiercoaches that is asking for forty
thousand dollars for afive-week program.
We could all probably and thereare coaches out there that get
forty thousand dollars for afive-week program I think about
that all the time.
Yes, so yeah, if you have to beconfident behind the selling
(23:35):
right we have an episode onselling.
I don't think we do I don'tthink we do, because we keep
wanting to get a sales we, weneed to get an expert.
Yeah, we'll find somebody,because neither of us are and
neither of us asked for what wedeserve.
It's true, and I don't say whatyou're worth, because human is
worth more than any amount ofmoney.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
No, gosh, where are we going with this?
So, yes, you can make money,even with the beta.
You can charge what you want tocharge.
There's no like it has to be 20bucks.
Okay, you guys, um, and it willhelp you feel more confident.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Um, selling it, yeah, and getting people in agreed,
agreed and, and you know it'slike mimi says, it doesn't have
to be 20 bucks, it can be 800,it can be whatever.
But almost make it a little bitpast your comfort zone so that
you have to build the confidencewhile you're selling.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
There's that push, Jonathan, that's your signature
style, you do?
No, no, no.
No, it's appreciated because,like for me, I'm just like OK,
go with you know where you'recomfortable.
No, you know, I'm just likeokay, go with you, know where
you're comfortable.
No, you know, and you're likejust a little over that.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
You're like the 1%, You're like what is that book
that's?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
amazing the Habits, atomic Habits.
Yes, it's like you know, you'rea little above your comfort
level.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Little above your comfort level.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
I like that a lot actually.
Okay, the last point is makesure you do get a survey, Like
have them take the survey at theend of everything.
Let them know, Like I don'tknow, if you talk about this,
Like I feel like it's almostjust known as a beta tester,
you're going to get surveyed atsome point.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Again, I like to over-communicate but I usually
put that in my material, likewhen they're purchasing, like
not, it's, it's obligated, butyou know what I mean, like just
kind of what.
To it, at the end of that week,before they checked off that
week for their course ascompleted, it actually popped up
(25:43):
a survey for them to fill outfor that particular section,
which was great because I couldget feedback each week on what
was working and what wasn'twhich I could then use when I
was building out the next week.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
See, I just did one lump survey at the very end of
the five-week weekend.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yours wasn't a course , though more I know, but still
like that's actually what systemdid you use?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
do you remember?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
it was.
Well, it was on my own.
No, the first time I did it infacebook.
I just created a guide that hadthe survey in it that they had
to finish before they checked itoff.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Okay, okay okay, I like that.
That's good.
I like that a lot.
See, like my end of the, theend, the ending survey that's
where you could ask somequestions like would you pay, or
what would you pay if what?
Would you pay for this bootcamp again if you had a tear?
You know something like thewording like and so then you can
(26:36):
give them like three options ofpricing that you're thinking
you're going to charge for forthe, the finalized edition.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yep, yep, and you can get all sorts of feedback.
Oh yeah, and you also shouldalways ask for the review in
that survey.
Yep, always ask for the review.
Just if you want to give us aquick like what's your take on?
So my take on it is, honestly,when I tell people they're in a
beta, or if I give away a freeprogram for something, where
it's just like I make it known.
(27:03):
You know, if you enjoy this,please, I'm.
You know I'm not begging you.
No, I would greatly appreciatea Google review and I do use.
Google reviews, because thoseare on my.
You know, when you search yourwebsite, when you all SEO, all
of that, those reviews come up.
So that's probably, in myopinion, the strongest review
(27:24):
you can get.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Oh my gosh, jonathan, you're blowing my mind right
now.
I didn't even know that wecould have a Google review Like
for whatever reason I thoughtthat that was like restaurants
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
No, if you have your own business page, you can get a
Google review.
Oh, a Google business page?
Yeah, and you should.
If you have a own business page, you can get a Google review.
Oh, a Google business page?
Yeah, and you should if youhave a business.
I don't have a Google businesspage.
We'll work on that.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I guarantee you there are many people listening in
right now, Jonathan, that do nothave a Google business page.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, and sometimes it's because they work at a home
, but you can get a like forvery reasonable prices.
Now, one of those co-workingspaces will accept your mail as
a drop-off location, which meansyou can use them as an address
for your business, which makesit easy for you to get a Google
(28:15):
Business account.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay, can you use a PO box?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Because sometimes it's because not a PO box can't
be a.
Po box has to be a physicallocation, which is why the
co-working sites are great forthat.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Okay, well, anyways, that blew my mind.
Hopefully it blew yours.
That was a little extra bonusin there, Jonathan.
That's it.
I think we've broken down atleast the benefits of a beta.
We didn't tell them the cons.
What are the cons of a beta?
I think I don't know.
It's just part of the learningprocess.
It's a little scary.
(28:47):
There's definitely fear thereyeah you know, because you're
still trying to figure out whatto do and you don't want to kind
of let people down.
I know that was.
One of my anxieties was I don'twant to let people down because
they are paying money.
They do know it's a beta, but Istill want to show up and give
them 150.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You know right and you will like that's.
That's what we all kind of do,um, at least most people.
I've never been in a betaprogram that was terrible.
Same.
I've always been in good betaprograms.
And then when you're in theprogram like I hold on to great
pricing for my coaching yeah,because I've been there.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's very true, my gosh, Now I'm thinking.
Now I'm thinking about all the.
Is there anything?
Oh, another thing too, as faras a con, I guess it depends too
on how how you're getting betatesters.
But that's also a fear of willI mesh well with this person,
Right yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
That's a whole other episode but.
Yeah, and that boils down tolike, if you're talking to the
right people the people to getyou, and if you're just like for
me, I just offer it up to myintensives as a prize for
something, the people that I getmay not be my people, they may
not work for me, they may be thebest people ever, but they may
(30:07):
not be my people because they'rejust being offered a prize and
that's you know.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I know, and also like if you do have a bad experience
with somebody, it's goodbecause that's a learning
experience and if anything mightforce you to to do an
application type of um, I don'tthink you believe in those, but
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
They're like there's different ways.
My intensive is is not theymake the first payment and then,
if I don't know them, they getan interview before they are
accepted into the program ohokay, so many my gosh, you guys.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
We can have like 10 parts of beta offers.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, I know my intensive isn't even a beta, but
I'm doing a lot of beta thingswith it because it is the second
time I'm running it.
Okay, and you know I beta testthings three times.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
That's the Jonathan method.
The Jonathan Howard method.
Mine is one and go.
That's the jonathan method.
The jonathan howard method.
Mine is uh, one and go, one andgo.
So well, jonathan, um,hopefully you guys enjoyed that.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Uh, I know this wasn't a mini episode, at least
no, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Uh, good luck editing this, um, jonathan.
If you didn't know, jonathanedits every single one of our
episodes, so thank you, jonathanI edited out all our laughter
in one of them that was hard andI have to watch I have to watch
.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I watch it too, before I send it to you.
I watch it, but I miss thethings that I edited because I'm
like oh yeah, I did that well.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
No, don't worry, you know I'll catch everything.
I know I try to anyways.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Tell people if they want to review Speaking of
reviews.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yes, wherever you listen to your podcast, make
sure you give us a rating, areview, whatever you can do
there.
Mimi says five stars.
We're technically not allowedto tell you what to give us, but
Mimi says five stars.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Who says If you?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
could give her 10,.
The Federal Trade CommissionSelena Gomez.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Remember that song.
Who says Okay, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
You know, just the government, because you can't
encourage people to give falsereviews.
But anyway, if you loved whatyou listened to, give us five
stars.
If you hated it, you can giveus zero, but we don't want any
zeros.
So if you hate it, just don'tlisten anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, if you don't like it, just email us.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
We'd rather just don't listen anymore.
Goodbye, no um hit theunsubscribe button yeah, thank
you, though, for being here andenjoying our banter and our fun.
Um mimi, where can?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
they find us all over .
Okay, we're on instagram, we'reon youtube if you'd rather
watch the podcast.
We have a few people shout toadam he loves watching and he
loves listening.
He's like a double listener.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
There we go listener, watcher um, he's putting some
of this on spotify now soon.
Yeah, I think it's actually.
I hear it's easy.
Oh, I love easy.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, I know you guys , I do want to end this.
We want to end this with themost important question of them
all, which, jonathan, I don'teven know.
If you know the question, I do.
Oh, you do, that's right, I putit in the notes.
I wanted to surprise you.
Here's the question.
We'd love for you to answer you, the listener.
If you want to answer onYouTube, in the comments section
, or on Instagram, or you canjust message us, we would love
(33:26):
to know are you team build asyou go like?
Does that like make you feelgood?
Or are you team?
Have it already before you evenlaunch the beta?
Curious?
build as you go I never thoughtI would say that, but I like
that.
Again, you can have an overview.
Oh, overview but yeah, not,yeah, absolutely.
So let us know what it is foryou guys.
But thank you again, thank youfor listening and watching and
(33:47):
we appreciate your support andwe'll see you in the next
episode.
Bye everyone.
Bye, jonathan howard, bye mimilangley I can see it, I can see
it.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I can see it with my close, close eyes.
I can see it, I can see it.
I can see it with my close eyes.
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