Drive Your Book Sales With Courses And Affiliate Programs
An entrepreneur opens up multiple opportunities by becoming a published author.
Laura Sprinkle, an affiliate partnerships strategist, discusses partnerships and affiliate opportunities for entrepreneur-authors on this episode of the Published Author Podcast with host Josh Steimle.
Laura explains that it’s simple for newly published authors to take the first steps in setting up an affiliate program to increase book sales.
TOP TAKEAWAY: HOW TO USE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM TO DRIVE BOOK SALES
For a new author, developing an affiliate program or a course are great tactics to boost book sales, as long as the tactics are well-executed. If an author is doing this on their own without the help of a consultant, the first step is to create the affiliate links and invite those members of your network you think will be interested.
““Get started with a really simple training,” says Laura. “You could just host it on Zoom, and, and ask people what their goals are for how many sales they want to make, ask people what assets they would like you to create, so you don't create things that they're not going to use.
During the Zoom session, it’s important to find out what would make participation in your affiliate program streamlined. Ask questions like:
What would make participation easy for you?
What visual or social media assets would you like?
How can I help you make those initial referral sales?
Laura uses her work with entrepreneur Todd Herman, author of "The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life" as a case study. Working with Todd, she created a promo guide on how to sell. They also had templates of how people could share the book, as well as bulk purchases. There were different levels of prizes, as well as a private Facebook group for the supporters of the book.
“We were cheering them on and telling them behind the scenes of how the launch was going,” explains Laura. They shared Todd’s “Run to getting on the Wall Street Journal, bestselling list.”
She notes that authors don’t necessarily have to go to this expense, and that “You can do a lot with a book launch, for sure.”
Laura, who notes that she only works with clients who align with her values, says that she takes each client through four phases: attract, activate, amplify, and appreciate.
“It goes in a circle because the more that you can appreciate the easier it is going to be to attract people back into the cycle of partnership,” she explains, adding that the four phases can be used for any kind of launch, be it a book, podcast, course - anything that requires leads.
Laura details the four phases, giving examples of each, in this episode. She also explores the benefits of launching a course after a book launch, and the importance of communication with partners, so that they are frequently updated on progress and upcoming stages of an affiliate program.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steimle. Today, our guest is Laura Sprinkle. Laura is an affiliate partnerships strategist who specializes in working with digital course creators. She's helped clients, including Amy Porterfield, Todd Herman, and Selena Soo generate more than $15 million in partner revenues. She's the host of her own podcast, the Laura Sprinkle Show, and the co-author of a best-selling, best-selling anthology, so she understands the author-side of things, too. Laura, welcome to the show.
Laura Sprinkle
Thank you so much for having me. So we're excited to be here.
Josh Steimle
I'm excited to talk to you. I was telling Laura, before the show started. I've got so many questions just for myself about this. And when we talk about partnership opportunities and affiliate opportunities, this is something that's exciting for me, because I don't really like selling all that much. I enjoy writing content. But when it comes to like actually going out and getting the sales and doing the sales, I'm like, I know I need to do this, but I don't like doing it. And so I'm excited about this, because this is a way that we can enlist other people to help us out with that. And I'm sure some of our listeners are not that comfortable with selling or marketing. And I would love to be able to recruit a team of people who can help them do that. So I'm excited to dive into that. But before we get into the meat of things, and talk about partnership opportunities, and affiliate programs, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Laura, who are you? Where are you from? And how did you get to where you are today?
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, thank you so much, Josh. So I live in Maine, right outside of Portland, Maine. It is an amazing place to be everybody should come I my goal is to get everybody to move to Maine. I mean, not really, because then it wouldn't be so great. They wouldn't
Josh Steimle
be Maine anymore. Exactly. But they should at least visit right?
Laura Sprinkle
At least visit totally. And I feel like even just the fact that I just said that really speaks to my personality, which I love making friends. And I love gathering with my friends and having a good time. And that is kind of how I got started on. On the affiliate marketing side of things. I was really focused on product launches. So helping course creators launch for the first five figure launches. So you know, bare bones basics. And then I started working with Selena doing her first seven figure launch. And it was like, wow, this is such an amazing world. She had a few partners on board. And then they asked me to come run the affiliate program. I didn't know that it was an industry. I didn't know what that meant. But I loved launching, I love marketing. So I said sure. And then I just fell in love with it because it is about gathering this group of people that all believes in something and getting to share that with the world and not do it alone. Right. Like you said, like you don't want to seem salesy or take your product or your book out into the world and tell everybody, you should buy this thing. But if a group of people are saying, I got like, I had a transformation by reading this, and you need to read it to like, I feel so much better already. And then at the end of 2019, after Amy Porterfield digital course Academy launch, through her launch, I was the affiliate manager. But I was so inspired by every single webinar, I was on every one that she did, and I was like, I have to turn this into a course myself. And so that's how I created a record affiliate program to really serve the people that aren't doing seven figure launches, but can use partnerships to get there.
Josh Steimle
So I'm a big fan of Amy Porterfield. I'm always recommending her stuff to everybody. I'm like, you got to listen to this podcast. You got to read her stuff, her resources. This is so good. You should join her courses. How did you get connected with her in the first place?
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, so I had, you know, listened to her podcast, and I had signed up for one of her courses many years ago on webinars. But how I got connected with her a I remember this was the summer of 2019. And I looked on my calendar and it was like, Oh, I have a zoom meeting with Amy Porterfield. Later today, this feels so surreal. But that happened because when I was doing an affiliate program, I was in front of a lot of affiliates. And so one of Selena's affiliates connected me with Amy when she was looking for someone so once you start you know, getting into partnerships and thinking about your business through the lens of partnerships and relationships, you can just go so much further so much faster,
Josh Steimle
all about who you know, hmm. So I want you to answer one question for me real quick, which is Partnership Program versus a program? Is this just two different names for the same thing? Or is there a difference between these two?
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, that's such a great question. And when I've been really diving into recently, because a lot of people say, Well, I don't have a course I can't create an affiliate program. And that's not true for me partner program is more of an all encompassing word, like you could have a business partner where, you know, you're, you're literally co founded the business together, and you're partners, and you're sharing profits that way. And but you could also have a partner program that is based on referrals. So it's really amplifying word of mouth and creating a system around there around that. So, you know, if you had a copywriting business, for every person that referred someone to you, maybe you it could be as simple as you take them to lunch or write in COVID world, maybe you send them a gift certificate for lunch or something, send them some Uber Eats, and and then an affiliate program is just one aspect of that. So you could say joint venture, you could say affiliate, but to me an affiliate program is really based around doing a product launch. And so there's a lot of partners promoting the same product at the same time, or is a joint venture, and you did not select joint venture, but I'm gonna say it anyway, a joint venture is often either used interchangeably with affiliate, or it could mean just two people promoting one webinar, for example, and then sharing the leads from that webinar.
Josh Steimle
So walk us through your process when a new client comes along. How do you analyze the opportunity to even know if it's worth getting involved with? Or if there's something there? And then how do you go through structuring the program.
Laura Sprinkle
So I would say that for the work that we do, the biggest factors are, if they're aligned with my values, and that includes making sure that they're getting results with it, whatever it is that they're selling. I think that in, you know, the start of the online world and the start of online courses and memberships, it was kind of a wild west where you could just launch something and put it out there and kind of have a subpar product. And it would be fine, because there wasn't that much out there. But nowadays, you really need to have something that is truly transformational, or gets people the results that they that they're purchasing. So number one is is it really getting people results. Number two, are people already referring and using word of mouth to share what you've got going on. Like if you have people asking me some some of my clients or students come and they say we've had 10 people already asked to be an affiliate, but I don't even know how to set it up. So can you help me set it up? So that's happening then for sure. And you've got a winner there? And if you know that your product is really getting people results, and they're telling people about it, then that's a pretty sure sign that it's a good? It's a good one.
Josh Steimle
There's some potential there then
Laura Sprinkle
yeah, exactly.
Josh Steimle
So for an author now, who doesn't have a course yet, but they've got a book? How would you handle that? Would you say, hey, let's set up a partnership program for your book? Or would you push them to launch a course that's related to the book? Or where is the biggest opportunity for authors who have a book or are about to write a book?
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, I would say, and it depends on on what your goals are with the book, I mean, looking through all the all the things that you do, right, it's like the foundation of where you're going with this, if you ultimately do want to have a course. And then you can use your book to actually attract the right partners, who would be perfect to promote your course with you. Right? Because you can give them the book, actually, someone just sent me a book who wants me to promote his course. And so I can read the book and say, yes, this is aligned, or Yes, this is what I would want to teach my audience or not, so you could use your book in that way. But if you are going to launch or publish a book, I would use partnerships to actually promote your book launch. So you may not set it up as an affiliate program like where they're getting commissions based on your book launch, but you can still use our four phases to create an amazing book launch with partners.
Josh Steimle
Okay. so you mentioned these four phases. Tell us more about those.
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, so the four phases could be for anything we specifically talk about it with of course a membership launches, but it could be for your book it could be for for getting more leads onto your onto your list for growing your podcast, anything really but so the four phases are attract, activate, amplify and appreciate. And so it goes in a circle because the more that you can appreciate the easier it is going to be to attract people back into the cycle of partnership. So the the main keys when it comes to attracting the right partners are defining what your values are. Because I will tell you from being behind the scenes of so many partner programs, that an opportunity, like you said, that word is going to come around, and you're going to get excited because person is going to want to partner with you or say that they'll share. And maybe they've got, you know, hundreds of 1000s of YouTube followers, for example, or subscribers, or they've got hundreds of 1000s of people on their email list, and you're gonna get excited. And you're gonna think, well, they're like, a little bit out of line, what we with what we do, but we could make it work, or I don't really know them that well, but it's so exciting when you have so many people. And it's tough, it's happened to me, and all of my clients, and we'll get excited, and we'll, you know, go out of our way to create a partnership. But if, if that person promotes, we find that either it doesn't perform at all, they don't make any sales, or if they do make sales, they're not the right people, for your programs, or, you know, or they're not the right readers of your, of your book, because they're out of alignment. So number one of attraction is making sure that it's aligned with your values, and your audience. And, and, and really, yeah, attracting the right partners. And
Josh Steimle
I've been through that myself, I did a joint venture JV type thing where somebody had a webinar and they said, Hey, you promote my webinar, I'll promote your webinar. And they had a much larger list than I had. So I thought, Oh, this is going to be great, right, because they've got so many more people on their list than I have. And when we actually did it, and ran the numbers, I drove a lot more people to their webinar than they drove to my webinar. And so I grew their lists a lot more than they grew my list, even though they started, they had a list that was several times as large as mine. But it just wasn't as engaged or it wasn't as much of a match for what my specific niche was. So that alignment is key, I've been through that. And then it's not that it costs you money necessarily to run it. But it does take a lot of time and effort to set up these webinars and do a JV partnership and go through all that. And then if the alignment isn't there, then you're like, why did I just spend all that time doing this thing? And it didn't really benefit either of us, perhaps, or maybe it only benefited them, which is great, but still, like, I need to get something out of this right?
Laura Sprinkle
Totally. And that's where I my personal favorite partners to work with are your students and clients, or like the mid level range. And people that you know, like and trust, who know like and trust you and who are super fans of your work, because those people will go to bat for you. And they will hop on the phone. They will private message people not in a spammy way. But just like I believe in this and I think that it would be perfect for you kind of a way. And so I found that when it comes to attraction, most people get really like starstruck. But if you can start with who you already know, you will do much better.
Josh Steimle
It's interesting, because as you're talking about that, I'm thinking like, Who would I turn to like, who's in my tribe, or my group that matches what you're talking about? And immediately a few names jump out? And I think, yeah, these aren't big name people with big lists. But yeah, these are the people who would go to bat for me, and who would tell everybody they know about it. And in a very enthusiastic way, they'd be like, you've got to come listen to this or something. And so as you're talking about that, I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, I know who those people are,
Laura Sprinkle
Totally. And that it's going to be such a more fruitful partnership, it's going to be a more fun partnership. And you really are going to get better results to with it and get the right people, the right people in. We had a client who partnered with somebody who is religious, actually, it was in the author space. And so it was an author who was religious and sent a lot of students through her program. And she calls her student it's not even, I mean, it's not a derogatory term. And I don't really want to say specifically what it was, I don't want to call these people out. But she says something like, I think the word nerd and a lot of her emails, and this author, his audience was super offended by it. But that's she says the word nerd and every single email so that was not going to be a right fit. So it could be something as specific as that.
Josh Steimle
Alright, I'm complimented if somebody calls me a nerd, I'm like, right? I love it. Not insulting my intelligence, at least. Yeah. Okay, so the four phases. So you talked about attraction, that's the first one right?
Laura Sprinkle
Mm hmm.
Josh Steimle
Did we already go into the second one?
Laura Sprinkle
No, we did not yet. So attraction is you know, getting the partner having them say yes, I will support you. Yes, I will promote this. From the yes until when they start promoting is what we call activate. And this is a place that a lot of people skip a lot people All cannons say I've created an affiliate link. And I've got a few people that are on board. So I'm good. I don't need what you're doing.
Josh Steimle
That's it. That's pretty much what I've done with my most recent program. I gave him the link. I'm like, Alright, go do your thing.
Laura Sprinkle
Have fun. Yeah. And so you do technically have an affiliate program. That's the case. And there's a lot of things that you could do to to boost that up. And so activate is yet between when they say yes, and when they start promoting, once someone says yes, or your partner program, I'm sure that you've seen that, that does not mean that they are going to promote,
Josh Steimle
right? I mean, you'd lucky if they even get the link, but then the link? And do they actually send it out to everybody? I mean, they might send one email or post it on social media, and then they're like, Well, that didn't work. I'm done.
Laura Sprinkle
Right?
Josh Steimle
I suspect you would say there's a little bit more to it than that.
Laura Sprinkle
Exactly. So so in this activation phase, but you know, a great activation, you can take someone from saying like, yes, sure, I'll promote, I love what you're doing to I am going all in because I really, really believe in this. And so we do two things during this time. So number one is we're actually training our partners on exactly how to sell for us. because not a lot of people are great salespeople, you don't have to say, Oh, I'm training you to be a salesperson, I think a lot of people would be turned off by that. But I would host a group training as a this is like baseline, step one host a group training before your promotion, and, and share the details, share the dates, get them excited, if you've got any prizes that they can win during your launch or during your book promotion. And, and, and strategize with them on different messaging ideas. And when they see everybody in a group also getting excited, you know, they're gonna feed off of that as well. So you're training them. And then you're also providing them with really amazing assets to make it really easy for them to promote. So if you want them to send email, make sure you've got an email template for them. If you want them to post on social media and make sure you've got social media swipe graphics videos, I would think through from the perspective of a dream partner. Again, this could be for anything, it could be for a free thing that you're launching, it could be for your book, it could be for a course. But think through like if I were going to go to the wall is for motion as a partner, what would I do, and make sure that you've got all of those assets right at their fingertips.
Josh Steimle
I like that you said dream partner, because it's easy for some . . . I'm just thinking about myself here. So with publish author, we I set up an affiliate program through Kajabi, meaning I set up the link, and I told the people who are already members of the program, hey, you can go sign up here. And if you refer people, you can get this commission. I mean, that's all I've done. And I know that there's so much more, but that's all I've had time to do so far. So, but when you said think of the dream partner, what I love about that is that it is so easy to say Well, most people aren't going to have a lot of time, and they won't be able to do that much. So I'm just going to send a little bit out that makes it really easy for everybody to participate. But what I'm missing out on is what if there's one person in the group who is willing to go crazy and send tons of stuff out and post a ton on social media and email their list and do all that stuff, that one person might be more valuable to my program than all the other people. But I'm trying to make it easy for all the other people instead of giving that one ideal person everything that they need to be really successful. And that would be a mistake, right?
Laura Sprinkle
Totally, and through your through your training through people seeing that one person, you know, go go all out and get really good results that could be inspired by that person. And and most people I find who aren't actually sending emails or aren't actually promoting, they just want you to give them exactly what they should send, and they will copy and paste it. So if you send them five emails, they'll send five if you send them 10 emails they will send ten.
Josh Steimle
Now I was kind of on the other end of a partner program. I guess you could call it a partner program. This past week or so my friend Ben Hardy, he just published a book called Who Not How and he sent out an email saying, "Hey, we're going to discount the book to 99 cents, the Kindle version". And so just spread the word. And so I sent out an email, I spread the word. But that's all I did. I didn't even buy a copy. I had already bought a physical copies like I don't need a Kindle version. I've already got the book. But then he sent out a second email and he said, "By the way, you can buy the Kindle version for other people and you can do it in bulk". And I thought This is only a buck apiece, that's pretty cheap to buy a book and give a book to somebody. But when somebody receives a book, and it's normally a $20 - $25 book, they don't even know that I only paid $1 for it. So if somebody gets a book that I sent them, that's a pretty big payoff for 99 cents. So I thought, I'm gonna buy some of these, I'll buy them for everybody in my company. And then I thought, well, I'll buy them for all my partners. And then I thought all by him for all my students and my clients. And then I was like, I'm just gonna send a bunch of these to a bunch of other random people. And then I did a giveaway on LinkedIn, I ended up buying, like 300 copies of his book, because he made it so easy for me to participate in that program. And I'm not even signed up as an affiliate or anything, it was just, but he made that easy. And it's kind of like you say, with, give them what they need to copy and paste into an email or something like that? Well, once he showed me how to do what he wanted me to do, and he made it super, super easy, I did it. And I bought 300 copies. I don't know how many other people did that. But if a couple of other people did that, then he's going to be on the New York Times bestseller list next week.
Laura Sprinkle
Amazing. Yeah. And you sent me one, I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Josh Steimle
There you go.
Laura Sprinkle
I love that. And it also is a mistake to think that, like, if you are dealing with people that are good at marketing, like you are good at marketing, Josh, and yet you were like, I don't really know what I'm gonna do with this promotion. So I think the other thing is, think about your dream partner. And think about how to remind them of what they already know, like, you know how to make book sales. But don't be afraid of putting, like, "Buy this for everyone you know", or whatever you want them to do, specifically, because I've been on strategy calls with partners that they will generate a million dollars for themselves in commission through their partner program. And they're like, wait, what's an affiliate bonus? Like? Don't be afraid of going back to basics with what you're training.
Josh Steimle
Yeah. And it's not that the partners are stupid or anything busy, though, and it's like Seth Godin, has that book, Don't Make Me Think, like, yeah, if, if you make me think, then I'm not gonna do it, because I'm just too busy. I'm running from one thing to the next. But if you say, here's something you can do, and it's super easy, and super cheap, or free, and you can do this and get this outsized result, and just copy and paste this thing and stick it in an email and send it out. Okay, sure. Yeah, I'll do it. But it's I think, sometimes we as the creators of these partner programs, we underestimate how easy we need to make it to make the difference between people doing it and not doing it. And it has to be really, really easy. So I'm really glad that you're emphasizing this.
Laura Sprinkle
For sure. I think that oftentimes, we don't do that because we have this mindset block around what number one asking for help in general, right? We have this like independent, I have to do it myself mindset. And then number two, we think that it's people doing us a favor. And in reality, you are also doing your partner's a favor by allowing them to either create deeper relationships with their customers and partners like you did when you get to the book to everybody, or make more revenue for their companies through offering a proven product, which you have. I was on a mastermind session last week, my mentor Kate Northrup, she turned to me and she was like, what you do is so important, because she was like, I didn't have a product to sell for 10 years, and I was able to, like, quickly make more money than I ever thought was possible through promoting Marie Forleo B school, just like I would never have the business that I have today. And she started crying thinking about that impact that Marie, let her create income through promoting B school. So I want you to remember if you're like oh, but like people, you know, I don't want to bug people with the promoting my stuff, like you're giving them a gift. And they're giving you a gift in return. Like we call it the quadruple the quadruple win because you when your partners when your audience is going to learn or their audience is going to learn about something they would not have otherwise, you know, you have a transformational book or product. So it needs to get in the hands of more people. And then when you're able to do that everybody has more money, more time, more love, whatever it is that you're helping people do and that is going to change the world. So I always talk about how partnerships change the world,
Josh Steimle
right? It's not a zero sum game, we can all win, everybody can leave this transaction benefiting from it. So does that finish up phase two, or is there more to phase two before we go to phase three?
Laura Sprinkle
No, I think the only thing other thing I want to say about phase two that's important is in the assets. It's also important to remember that you're making it easy for them and you're helping them really frame your product idea and reminding them of what's included and what's not. Because I don't know if you've ever gotten a, you know, a referral for a coaching client or something that it was just framed incorrectly. I remember talking with Todd and he said that sometimes people will text him intros to people who are looking for high level coaching with him. But they haven't told those intros. Now working with Todd cost $80,000. So these people are expecting something to be like, really cheap or free. So the assets can also help your partner surely frame your offer. Gotcha. Yeah, the next phase is amplify. So that's actually during your promotion. And there are so many tactics that you can that you can use in here, you can have a Facebook group to pump people up, you can, you know, boxer message, you can create prizes, and contests and, and how a lot of fun and all of those are super valid, awesome, I do all of them. And the biggest thing I found that you need to remember is that there's a lot of mindset blocks that happen in a promotion. I don't know if you have ever had a mindset block when you're making sales of your own product Josh?
Josh Steimle
Maybe once or twice. Or every one of those two.
Laura Sprinkle
like am launching can be a rollercoaster. If you're using a launch model, like, you know, I, I sent a boxer that I'll play often for my students, you know, I think it was like on day two of the launch back in May. And I was just you can tell I was like I'm in despair, like we're not hitting our numbers. And the next day I was on top of the world. That's what happens during launches, for our own stuff. And so we have to remember that our partners are also going to run into mindset blocks. And the way that I find this comes up is they're going to ask a lot of questions, or they're going to ghost, or they're going to say, Oh, I don't want to bother people with emails. So it's really helping them through their mindset blocks as well. Cool. And then the final phase is appreciate. And you would be surprised at how many issues can come up with making payouts on time. So that's, like base level appreciation. But there's so many things that you can do to to nurture and love up on your partner's in between promotions, or if they've promoted your book. And now you, you know, want them to get on board to promote your course that you're going to be releasing after your book launch. And just keeping that going on, I would say the number one thing is to have some kind of a celebration or closing ceremony after your promotion. Like if you've got a ton of people that are supporting your book, and then your book launches, it can feel like all this energy and all this excitement and and you know, they're connecting with you. And they're and they're selling and, and you know, making referrals. And then it's just over and it's like, well, you know what's going on? So give them updates, like how is the book doing right? I would, I would hope that your friend is going to tell you if you know the results of the launch.
Josh Steimle
Exactly. Because it's fun to be a part of that it's fun to he actually did send out a note from his publisher who is saying, Wow, you've blown past our expectations and all this. And it's fun to see that email. And I know that's going out to 50,000 other people. But it's fun to see that and say I had a part in that. Like I wasn't part of that I made. I didn't make all that happen. But I made a tiny part of that happen. And that is funnily Exactly, yeah. Cool. So appreciation. So with some thought leader, course creator, author type people like Amy Porterfield and Steve McClaren, they do a launch once a year, they open enrollment, everybody can sign up for a week or two, and then they close it, and then they don't open it for another year, which allows them to build a lot of anticipation. And plus, you know, I've got to sign up right now because it's going to close and then I'm gonna have to wait a whole year to sign up, which is exactly what happened to me with Stu McLaren and Amy Porterfield. And I got into Amy Porterfield this year, but I wanted to get in last year and I just missed it because I didn't make up my mind and then still McLaren's, I decided, like, two days after he closed enrollment, I was like, You know what, I need to do this. Oh, dang it, it's closed. That's why I have to wait till next year. So they do it that way. But a lot of other people have open enrollment year round. So they don't have perhaps that same urgency. But do you feel like these partner programs launch programs work equally well with whether its annual enrollment or quarterly or open enrollment? Is that a huge factor? Or can this type of stuff work with anybody?
Laura Sprinkle
So the four phases can work with any with any type of sales cycle, I'd say that the traditional affiliate launch that we've been talking about with, you've got one training where everybody He's on. And then there's this promotional period where you can have a Facebook group and have all this excitement around it, like Amy and Stu do so well. Those are definitely more geared toward, you know, a one time a year or a couple times a year open enrollment period. But there are definitely ways that you can use a partner program with an ongoing membership, or a software membership event, we have a student right now that has, you know, a done for you it security membership. And so he's going to kick it off with a launch. And I would recommend that anybody do that just so that you're honestly so that you're kind of forced to create your assets and do a training and like, do the whole process and see it from start to finish. And then you can, you know, see how you can weave it in on a on a more evergreen basis, right? Like they say, don't put something of course on evergreen until you've launched it. So I would say like kick it off with a partner program or kick a partner program off with a launch can be really fun, right? It's like you don't just write a book and then publish it and then expect you know, a number of sales to come in, you want to kick start it with with a grand entrance into the world. And then once you have that, there's definitely ways that you can work in like one off partnerships, that would be more of a JV experience, or like you did with the person that you mentioned, where you need to promoted each other's webinars, you don't have to each, you don't have to have it be reciprocal, it could be one off promotions with different people. You could also do cool things. So like Chris, our student who has the it membership, that is such a great thing to get on the onboarding sequence for an OBM for example. So anytime an OBM is going to work with a client, so an online business manager is onboarding a new client, they can say, oh, and you should sign up for Chris's it membership because he's going to take care of the security of your computer. So things like that. Amy Porterfield is a, I think the number one or number two partner for Kajabi. Because she's using kajabi, for her platforms constantly talking about Kajabi. Kajabi, of course, does not have a launch that you can sign up for Kajabi at anytime.
Josh Steimle
Right, right. So of course there are things we can do. I mean, we can do a launch anytime. But then we can add urgency by offering discounts or other things like that as well. What are some of the tips or tricks that you've seen that can accompany a launch event that do help it to really thrive? Like I mean, creating urgency? What are some of the ways that you've seen that people create urgency that are creative or that have worked really well? Or what are some other tips and tricks that you can pass along to us?
Laura Sprinkle
Definitely so much. So and I will say to back to the other question about launches versus evergreen options, that the the excitement and bigness of what you see when like everybody's promoting B school, although she's shutting down her affiliate program, but or everybody's promoting digital course Academy, you can't really replicate that with a non launch, like, you know, it could be a trickle, if you've got one on one clients, you could, you know, fill up your waitlist every month with a smaller promotions, but that kind of big promotion is not going to happen. Like I know, even Amy herself, I was working with her partnerships manager, who I trained in, it's not like she's our full time person. And she was trying to get list builder society, which is on evergreen, you know, up and running with that partner program. And it really wasn't working. Because if something is available all the time, as we know, it's gonna fall to the bottom of the priorities for for partners in particular. So if you do want to create a launch event with partners, I would host a group training so that they really know Okay, we're kicking this off together, I would create a creative partner Facebook group, so they have a place to gather, it can be a pop up group, during your launch, you can do behind the scenes updates, or everybody loves to get behind the scenes of the launch and see what's really going on. You can definitely do contests for leads, contests for sales. I also really love having ladder prizes so that it's not just who's on the leaderboard, but it's like a competition with yourself. So you could say, Okay, if you make five sales, you're going to unlock this prize. If you make 10 sales, you're gonna unlock this prize.
Josh Steimle
So you kind of gamify it a little bit.
Laura Sprinkle
Totally. Yeah. And we'll send we'll send champagne to the people that have the most leads at different points in the launch. For Selena's next launch, we've scheduled a champagne toast right before cart open, the partners celebration afterward, and just things to keep people engaged and make it fun. There's also like for Salinas is All out. There's trainings right up through the lunch on mindset on bonus packages on storytelling on personal outreach on Instagram, like, it's like a whole course in and of itself.
Josh Steimle
I'm sure there are a lot of people listening to this. And they're thinking, like, I'm kind of thinking, this sounds great, I want to do this. This is awesome. But this sounds like a lot of work. And I'm already busy. And I don't have that much time. But I can't afford to hire somebody full time, like Amy Porterfield does. So what do I do? I mean, I assume people can work with you. And you can come in and do this as a program as a consultant. But tell us a bit more about how you work with clients, and what other options people might have.
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, I would say that, you can definitely hire somebody to, to to just work your launch. And so manage that part of your partner program. And in that case, I would be really looking for somebody, you know, it's like a, like a seasonal student support, you know, so if you only run your your course, and it's 12 weeks long, you're going to hire someone to really support those students for those 12 weeks, and you could do the same thing, they're going to be supporting your partner. So I would look for someone with a very similar skill set. So they're empathetic, they can answer questions quickly, great customer support and service, except for later, maybe part partner support and service, they're going to be able to cheerlead them on pull reports, and do all that. So you could hire a part time VA, most definitely for that aspect of your launch. That person is a different skill set than the attraction and like going out and finding all the partners for you. So I have found that clients in the past, when we would do it for people would really want somebody that it's just gonna get partners for them. And I would recommend that if you're just getting started, start with who you already know, and you need to reach out and individually ask them, because those people are going to go to bat for you. And then as you scale and grow. And if you are looking for people to support you, and was attracting the right partners, then you could hire someone with more of a sales.
Josh Steimle
So what are the first steps that somebody could take on their own, I mean, setting up the affiliate program like I did, and giving people the link, that's a first step that people can do on their own. But what might be the next two or three steps that somebody would need to take perhaps on their own, in order to then get to the point where, okay, now we're generating revenue from this partnership program, which then justifies me to go out and invest in actually bringing somebody on whether it's a consultant or somebody full time or somebody part time to help out with it. What are those first steps?
Laura Sprinkle
The first steps, I would say, so if you've, you know, created the links, and already invited people that I would get started with a really simple training, you could just host it on Zoom, and, and ask people what their goals are for how many sales they want to make, ask people what assets they would like you to create, so you don't create things that they're not going to use. So you could literally just say, hey, Josh, like, if you're gonna, you're gonna send an email to your audience about my program, you know, what would you love to have? What would make this really easy for you, and you would tell me, and I can create that for you. So I don't think that that's going to add a ton of work to your plate, but is going to allow you to make those initial referral sales.
Josh Steimle
Great. Now, again, with somebody who's an author listening to this, and they might say, I don't really want to launch a course, I've just got my book, but I want to get my book out there in a big way and spread it as far as I can. What are some specific ways that they might be able to do that? Do you have any stories of authors who have done partnership programs, without having all this other stuff that they could sell? But just the book? Do you have any stories you can tell us about successful partner programs that authors have implemented?
Laura Sprinkle
Totally. So Todd Herman, actually, that was when I was the first project I worked with him on was the launch of his Alter Ego Effect book. And so we created a promo guide. Well, I guess I didn't mention that as part of activation. So we not only create a swipe, but we also have, it's just a little marketing guide on like, how to sell this essentially. So it's like the training but in a PDF, or not a PDF in a Google Doc form. So we created a guide, we had templates of how people could share the book. We also suggested that people do just like your friend dead, you know, do bulk purchases, and you'll win these different you'll unlock these different prizes, and really generated a lot of buzz around it. We also had a private Facebook group, for they were just supporters of the book. And so we were cheering them on and telling them behind the scenes. of how the launch was going. Because that's so fun to know, like you said that you're a part of, you know, his run to getting on the Wall Street Journal, bestselling list and, and getting those updates behind the scene. So I think that it doesn't have to be with all the bells and whistles, but you can do a lot with with a book launch for sure.
Josh Steimle
Cool. Awesome. Well, this time is flown by. Thank you so much, Laura, for being on the show with us today. Where's the best place for people to learn about you and what you do?
Laura Sprinkle
Yeah, so we can go to Laurasprinkle.com. And then we have a partnerships bootcamp so we can teach you how to create referrals, and start getting partnerships into your business model.
Josh Steimle
Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Laura. And of course, we'll include links to Laura's site and her social media profiles and everything else in the show notes. Thank you so much, Laura. Have a great day.
