Why successful January's are made in Q4 (and exactly what I would be doing to get ready)

Oct 15

What's this episode of the lionhearted ceo podcast about?

Ready to kick off 2025 with a bang that'll have your ideal clients queueing up faster than for the Boxing Day sales? Well, pop the kettle on and grab your favourite biscuits, because in this episode, Sophie shares what SHE would do if she was planning a sell out January launch as well how she helps her clients do exactly that.

Here's what we're diving into today:

Why October is the perfect time to start prepping your January launch (and no, we haven't lost the plot!)
How to identify and attract your 'hell yes' clients before the festive season kicks in
Clever ways to use Black Friday and the holiday season to your advantage (without feeling like a pushy salesperson)
The art of creating irresistible early bird offers that'll have people signing up faster than you can say "mince pie"
Tips for building momentum and confidence in your launch before you've even rung in the New Year

Whether you're planning to release a new course, kick off a group program, or launch a must-have product, this episode will give you the confidence to create a January launch that's as warm and inviting as a cosy fireside chat.

Ready to turn your January launch from 'meh' to marvellous? Let's get cracking!

READY TO LEAP INTO A

LionHearted CEO Mastermind:

How would it feel going into January knowing you had already secured 6 figures for 2025? THAT is what we're going to be creating in the Mastermind.

You've already got your core offers and some scalable offers (maybe too many...!). You might have a podcast or have written a book (or both!). But you know if you truly want to create a business where your revenue isn't tied to your time and energy, you need to be a hell of a lot more intentional about how you're growing your business.

You know you need to probably streamline your offers, invest in team support and actually start leveraging ads... but left doing it on your own, you know it won't happen (well, not fast enough!).

Sound perfect?

The LionHearted CEO is for you!

Click HERE for a video where I spill the tea on the Mastermind and HERE for all the info & how to sign up.

INEVITABLE Minimind:

You're not new to running your own business. You love running your business. But you are ready to take it up a level and start really seeing yourself as a business owner with secure, predictable revenue.

You're probably aiming for around £3-5k/m, you have a core offer but want to start to introduce additional revenue streams, ads, systems maybe some team support.

You know you want to scale and you want to prioritise getting the right foundations in place so that once you are ready, you can dial up the revenue, without burning out.

Sound perfect?

The INEVITABLE Mini Mind is for you!

Click HERE for a video where I spill the tea on the mini mind and HERE for all the info & how to sign up.

Hi! I’m your host Sophie Griffiths, a Meta ads expert and business growth strategist.

The LionHearted CEO podcast is designed for impatiently ambitious women who are ready to scale and often juggling motherhood alongside their thriving online businesses in coaching, course creation, or service-based business.

If you enjoy the podcast, here are some ways you can continue the conversation:

Social:

Love Instagram? Click here to watch a video I made on the Warm audience trap (hint, it's something almost every client struggles with!)More of a LinkedIn fan? I'm there too! Come and follow me here: Sophie Griffiths

Free Resource:

Ready to grow an audience of people who WANT you to sell to them? Radical idea I know, but it shouldn’t be! Click here to get access to my step by step guide to using simple, effective ads to build & nurture a community of superfans,

Work together:

Ready to build an audience of superfans who are excited and ready to buy from you?
Whether you are just starting with Meta (Facebook & Instagram) Ads, you have dabbled but want to build your confidence with your first funnel, or you're already killing it and you're ready for fast growth - I can help! Click here to choose the best option for you

Got questions?

DM me on Insta or LinkedIn
Email me here: hello@sophiegriffiths.co

Thank You for Listening!

If you found value in this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and mention this episode. It would mean the world to us!

Subscribe to the lionhearted cEO podcast

Episodes release every Thursday & Tuesday. Make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing on your favourite app:

Apple podcasts

Spotify

Read the transcript:

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.

[00:00:00] Hello and a big welcome to Lionhearted CEO, the podcast for unapologetically, impatiently ambitious women who know they want to stop being the bottleneck in their business and become the Lionhearted CEO they know they are meant to be. I'm Sophie Griffiths, a tea enthusiast, marketing and Metis ad specialist and firm believer.

The chocolate should never be kept in the fridge. Join me every Tuesday and Thursday for bold, imperfect, fun approach to marketing and scaling your business without burning out every few months. We'll dive into practical strategies and have inspirational conversations that will support you to create a thriving, sustainable business that brings you joy as well as financial freedom.

Okay, let's jump in. 

Hello. And welcome to this week's episode. So this week I'm talking all about. How to create a successful launch in January now, I'm went away that it is October. This isn't a mistake. Now the reason why I'm talking about [00:01:00] launching a January in October, Is because in my experience, you need to give yourself a little bit of a runway into it a little bit, like big September launches. January also suffers from the same kind of challenge in that the month before. Typically a lot of people want to switch off. 

So August and December. So from a business perspective, you probably want to switch off and you don't want to be kind of really ramping up to a big launch. But also consumers as well, probably your ideal clients, especially if you work with women with young children, I find August and December are really challenging. 

Yes. People do still buy in August and December and yes, they're still around. I actually find. Lead gens actually audience growth can be incredibly good, especially in December. That bear between Christmas and new year can actually be incredibly cheap in terms of getting leads and getting people on your list. 

However, in my experience, they're less likely to commit to things in December. Especially if you're starting before January. Also, there's just that perspective of a money challenge. Isn't there, [00:02:00] yeah, they might have the money in the business, but when you're spending a lot on Christmas and presents and you just feel like there's a lot of money going out. From, your house and the bills and the presence. 

And then also from your business as well. It can feel quite challenging for people to invest the money, even if they have it in December. And so often they'll be like, I'm just gonna wait till January. And I'm just gonna see how I feel. I'm going to see how much money I've gotten to see how December goes they're not sure how their business is going to go in December as well. 

So it's often a low revenue month for businesses as well. If you sell to other businesses. So that's why it can make a little bit challenging. And it's why I'm talking about this in October, because I have suffered. With that challenge for many years. In September and January where you sort of then get to January. I think, right. 

I'm kind of starting from a standstill. I've got people in my audience, but everybody's warming themselves back up and getting back into it. How do I do this without burning myself out without actually having to hit things like really hard. And I'm not necessarily talking about. [00:03:00] Huge big launches here. 

I'm not talking about you having to do a big launch. But even with any level of this level of Lord, like any type of launch, whether you're going in for a big challenge or whether you're just going to be promoting something organically, but really specifically, or whether you're going to be. Running a course life or whatever it is that you're doing that level of focus can take a lot of energy and a lot of momentum and to be your most magnetic and energetically, bring people towards you. And help them see like how you can help them. 

Like where do you attract those? Like, hell yes, clients. You need to be in that space where you're , feeling like this is exciting and expansive and like this offers amazing. And like, you guys are gonna love it. When you are trying to build something from scratch in January, and you're trying to pull new people into your world. 

So you're like, okay, I need lots of new people. My audience hasn't grown as much as I wanted it to. I'm going to have to spend more on ads. I'm gonna have to try and nurture these people really quickly. I'm going to have to. Trying to explain who I am, my family use my office. [00:04:00] We, you know, how does this fit in the context of the rest of the business and who is this for? 

And who is it right for? It's really, really challenging. It's really challenging. So actually what I do myself and. I worked with clients on is that we start prepping big January launches. Around now around like the end of October. Now, the reason we do that is because actually the time of year It gives us some really great options to allow us to kind of build our launch. 

So today, I'm going to talk you through what I would be doing if I was launching in January and what I'm doing with my clients at the moment. Now the first thing I would do once I'd got my mindset past this idea of waiting until January and seeing how I feel and deciding if I'm going to launch and what kind of event I might do. 

And whether is really the time to launch the course. We're going to commit to it. We're going to get ahead, run this mindset of I'm going to be launching in January. I'm going to commit to it and we're going to go for it. So once we've done that. We're then going to think about audience. Because audience growth is the number one thing you need to be thinking about right now. 

You always, always need to be growing your audience in [00:05:00] my opinion. It doesn't necessarily mean you always have to be running ads, although I would advocate for. But it does mean you always need to be growing your audience and specifically growing your audience with the right people. And to be able to grow your audience with the right people, 

you need to know who they are. So really take a second to look at the offer. When you're designing this offer. Think about who is the person that is going to see that offer and go. Hell. Yes, that is for me. Sign me up. Who is that person? Where were they in there? Business or life right now. 

What challenges are they experiencing? This could be for anything I keeps saying course, but it could be course membership. It could even be for one-to-one or high ticket group program. It doesn't have to be high volume. But I'm just talking about here promoting like one specific offer in January. 

I'm really going all in on that. So who is this? Hell yes, client. Who is this one? That's going, yes. Oh my God. That is for me. And what is going on for them right now? So we don't necessarily have to start talking about. Your offer right now, we don't have [00:06:00] to be talking about outcomes and transformations and huge things. Actually, what we need to do is just start really solidifying that trust and that nurture process and priming them so that they are ready for the offer in January. So if they know us as the person who is likely to be able to solve that problem, who understands where they are, who sees them, who makes them feel at home? 

When they come onto their Instagram, he looks forward to opening her emails. Who is excited when they see that our podcast is live, cause it's a Tuesday morning. Those are the people that were like, right. How am I going to talk to you over the next few months? Now this doesn't mean you only have to talk to them over the next few months. 

You might be selling other things before January and that's okay. We don't have to solely be prepping for the January launch now, that is quite a long time. You can be, if you're not selling anything else in the meantime, you could be priming people all the way through. And that's absolutely fine. You don't have to be , if you've got something else selling, if you want to do something else in the meantime, that's fine. 

But just make sure that this thread. It's going to run. All the way through, into January. There's [00:07:00] always going to be every week. Create at least one piece of content. That's going to speak to your January. Hell yes. People and that might be just identifying where they are. 

Like, where are they going to be in January? Are they going to be feeling burnt out from Christmas? Are they going to be feeling motivated for the new year? Are they going to be looking for a new job? Are they going to be scaling their business or are they going to be launching a podcast? Like, what are they going to be doing in January? 

And then we're pack was , where are they now? Then? Are they. Fed up in their job. I'll have a desperate to start a podcast, but don't know how are they wanting to scale their business, but struggling. With sales or struggling with that offer creation, like where are they right now? 

And how can you talk to them? So thinking like social media, email list. Then we're going to have a look at your lead like that. Does that lead magnet talk to those clients. Often we can create lead magnet either for a certain offer. And then we can kind of run with that, but actually if we're then going to be focusing on another offer, we can have a different lead magnet that leads to different offers. Or we can make our lead bank that's really general by accident. 

Stay me [00:08:00] type in types of people that I help. Like I just want to make sure this kind of captures all of my potential audience. And the reality is if you want a really successful launch, you need those really, really specific people. General people are not going to buy from you. 

People who have your specific problem that you're going to solve are going to be the ones that buy from you. So have a look at your lead magnet, how could you get it more specific related to the problem that your hell yes, client. For your January launch has how can you make it super, super specific? And ideally tweak that welcome sequence as well, make it so that they feel like, oh my gosh. 

Yes. So you have the answer. This is how I've been looking for. So that's the first thing you're going to make sure your audience growth is coming in. Now, if you have a podcast, if you have a YouTube channel, if you have LinkedIn, if you have anything else. Just make sure that everything that is priming people. 

You're telling them that you see them. Like I see you, this is the kind of problem you have right now and suggest a few solutions, suggest , if you're worried about, And I podcast tack. It's that sort of stopping you from starting a [00:09:00] podcast, then how can you give them like a small step forward right now? 

Your course might be to help them set up their podcast in 90 days, exactly what they need to do step by step. You know, that that's really, in-depth, you know, there's a lot of detail there, there's a lot behind that. But you know, right now, could you help them pick the right microphone? Could you help them? Choose a platform what is it that you could do right now? 

That would be really helpful for them. And show them. Oh, actually she understands why I'm struggling with this. Then the next thing we're going to do. Once we've got our audience grades sorted, so we've got ads running to a lead magnet, speaking to our ideal client. We've got a welcome sequence going out. 

We've got content, that's speaking to these people and we're really clear on who these people are. These are our hell. Yes, people. For our January launch the offer that we're going to be talking about all through January. 

So the next thing we're going to do is we're going to really think about how we can take advantage of the time of year. And how people are primed to buy at this time of year. But also going to think about our amazing audience. 

All those people are already in our world. That are all [00:10:00] ready? Hell yes. For that offering January. You're creating this offer because you see there's a demand. You see there's a need, you know, people what, what you're going to create. The reality is you've probably got people in your audience who would already say, So, especially, you start bringing people in now, you know, you've got three months. 

To prime them, warm them up. And really bring them in and get them into this offer early. You do not have to wait until January to start launching your offer. To start getting people, buying your offer. And you might be like, what. He talking about, I don't want people to start before January safety because I'm not ready. I'm not talking about them, starting and talking about them, signing up, committing, paying. Earlier. So normally there'd be some kind of incentive. I'm going to talk you through some of the ways that my clients and I have utilized this time of year. And incentives to get people to commit to this offer. Earlier than it actually starts earlier than the launch, so that when you go into the launch and quickly, before I go into the nitty gritty of it, all the reason why this is so important. It's [00:11:00] because a, it gives you confidence. 

Gives you confidence that people are there that interested. This is resonating. People are buying it. Be you go into that launch in January and you know, you already have five people signed up suddenly that just takes the pressure off a little bit. You're like, actually I've already got five people signed up. 

This is going ahead. There's an energy around that. People have bought into it. I know this is needed. This is wanted. And then when you then go into the launch, suddenly it's like, this is just about adding extra people. This isn't about, is anyone going to buy, this feels, like really sticky. 

Like I'm not getting the response they wanted, you kind of go into it with the momentum. That's why it's so important. And then, just because of black Friday, because of this time of year, they're actually really primed to buy with discounts and. They're actually really primed to look for value and offers. 

When we're thinking about this, first of all, let's start with black Friday. Now, I know that black Friday isn't everybody's cup of tea. Like I [00:12:00] get it. I do., and you don't have to do black Friday. You could call it something else. 

I think that's also colorful Friday. I think maybe Holly Taka does that. You could also do like an anti black Friday whichever way you look at it, people are prime to look for discounts around that period. They're also prime to buy so what I've done before and what clients have done is you almost start the launch on black Friday. 

So last year when I was launching the audience builder course. I put an offer out as a black Friday offer. And said I'm going to do this course. I didn't have a sales page. I didn't have an outline of what was going to be included. I didn't have any modules. I literally had zero information. It was literally a very basic outline of I'm going to do this course. 

It's going to be called the audience builder calls. It's going to teach you how to grow your audience using ads. With email or social media, pretty much what it said. It's going to be 1 9, 7. But black Friday is going to be 97. I think I limited it to 10 potentially. I can't remember now, but yes, essentially think about, do you want to add scarcity to that as well as the discount? So that was the [00:13:00] first time I'd even talked to my audience about the offer. 

Black Friday gave me a great hook, a great way of talking to them, doing that limited discount. Then, what I did was once black Friday was over, I think I increased it to 1 47 for December. So the whole of December, it was 1, 4, 7. The fact that it was December, once it hit the 1st of January, it then went up to the 1 9, 7. Which was still a discount on the current price because it included online support as well. 

It included then six weeks of support. So that's another thing I layered on only time this year I have done my live support was all during that launch. So for six weeks, After the course launched. I did live, I had a slack group. I had live calls. I did Q and A's. I gave people feedback. So all of that kind of went on. 

So that was another incentive in terms of buying the course. Before I launched it, before anyone knew what the content was, because that's another thing you're trying to build trust and. I do have a really warm, engaged audience, which really helps. But. There was no testimonials. 

There was no one saying this course is [00:14:00] amazing. It's helped me do this. So to allow me to kind of get past that, I. Added in extra incentives. And then the other kind of incentive that you could use would be to bundle it up with enough offer. So if you have anything else, whether it's like a course that you already are running or it's available already, or access to some kind of resource or. Something that they could get now and start using. 

So let's say for example, you're running a like a podcast course where you are taking people in 90 days or how to set up their podcast and all the technical sides you're taking them through literally step by step, everything to create a successful podcast. Maybe you already have a. 27 pound bundle that gives them some of that information. 

Actually, you could add that in for free and help them get started now. And then obviously once they join the course, they'll be kind of prepped and ready to go. So anything that you wear that you can like bundle up, add something in. I haven't ever added in like one to ones. That is something you could do. 

To be fair for my mastermind [00:15:00] I called it a trailblazer offer because Cause it's on brand and early bird just didn't sound right with , well, my lion. Branding. So I did a trailblazer offer. This was in July. And the actual mastermind started in early October. 

It was like a good two months out. I offered them an additional, one-to-one call to be used. Between the time they signed up. And when we actually started, I offered them access to group coaching sessions. I was running already. I offered them an extended payment plan I might also offer them access to my audience builder course, straight away. 

Oh, and they also got a complimentary ticket to an in-person mastermind day that was running in September as well. So they got access to that entire bundle. Before they even started the mastermind for trusting me buying in, being the first people to buy in all that time ahead. That's the sign of incentives that you can run. 

Obviously, those incentives were for a really high ticket offer. If I was running like a 1 97 offer, then obviously the incentives would need to be in proportion. So it wouldn't be adding like [00:16:00] one-to-one call and all those kinds of bonuses for 1 9 7 offer generally. Unless you massively limited it, but you're kind of going for more volume here. 

So that's the second thing I would do. I would be looking at. Early bird incentives. Black Friday using the momentum of Christmas. Structure your pricing and make it really, really appealing to anybody in your audience. 

That is they're ready, excited. They don't necessarily want to do the work straight away. You know, we're going into Christmas. It's the end of November. Going into Christmas. They don't necessarily want to get started. However, they do want to take advantage. I have the bonuses, the incentives, the lower cost. 

So that then they're ready to go in January. And it gives you the benefit of the fact that you already know people have bought, gives you a bit of a cash injection and going into that launch, you already know people have that. So the last thing I would do is commit and prepare. Even with people sort of signing up and buying, I still really, really divid about. Committing to how I was [00:17:00] going to launch the audience builder course. 

And in the end it took my coach kind of having a conversation with me well, we had one at the beginning of December and then one likes with the middle of January,. What if you could just let go of how many people are going to sign up. And just really enjoy the process and just deliver something that you know, will be of incredible value to your audience. I found it really challenging. 

I don't do a huge amount of launches. I don't love the energy and the pressure, but sometimes with these kinds of low cost offers or even the mastermind, I've just done the launch for, with something new. If you want it to kind of kickstart it and build that momentum and get people in, you do have to have a little bit of that push energy behind it. And I was really resisting energy, really resisting it. I didn't want to commit to, should I do a master clause or I don't know. 

I think in my head, I was thinking like, well, people even come like. Will it be worth it? Will I actually get anybody buying after I do it? Like maybe I'll just promote it organically and hope that people sign up. And it [00:18:00] was only really when I could let go of. What, if nobody buys am, I could really lean into what would make this fun for me. 

What would make this feel? Farmer? What would make me feel excited to promote like the Han, but what would make it feel like the energy of like this offer is so good. Like why would you not buy it? So in the end, what I did was it was called build your ads in 30 minutes, something along those lines. 

And basically what I did was I had people on a call on a zoom, so kind of like a master class, but instead of having a load of slides, I literally built an ad campaign. So we were on for an hour, but I had 30 minutes on the clock. To build this ad campaign because I wanted to show people that it doesn't have to take hours. 

It doesn't have to take days. It doesn't have to be hard. You can actually set ads up really, really quickly. And I wanted to really break down those barriers. That's what felt really exciting and fun for me. Not a masterclass full of PowerPoint presentation, you know, trying to show people. All the theory and all that sort of stuff. 

That's what I did in the end, [00:19:00] but I highly recommend. Setting a date. Deciding what you're going to do. And then having the landing page, the automated emails that got this quite a lot of admin and attack and stuff around an online event. Deciding where you're going to host the community. If you're going to have a community. Deciding if it's going to be one master class or is it going to be over a few days? 

Are you going to give them any challenges to do. There's a lot of stuff that sits behind it. So I would be thinking about that, ideally in like late November, early December. If you can share it, like you don't have to be working, but after boxing day, and definitely new. 

Yeah. I'd be promoting that and getting people on it. It might be slow to start with until everyone's back and actually working, but I would really have it all ready to go. So you can just start promoting it straight away. Rather than when you get back in January after Christmas thinking. Oh, when am I going to do it? 

When I can fit it in around client calls, like, oh, it needs to be in two weeks. Cause that's the only time I can do it, but like, I'm not going to have long now to promote and get people on. So that's what I'd be thinking as well. And potentially you could run [00:20:00] ads to that online event and to that masterclass, it really depends where you're at with your budget. How many people you want on it, but I would absolutely look at running ads. 

There is actually an episode. Where you can have a look at which I talk in more, a lot more depth around masterclass ads. It says for September launch, but actually it's for any time launch. It's just masterclass ads. If I was launching in January, those are the things I would be doing. And those are the things I'm helping clients doing it both in my mastermind, my mini mine, my one-to-one clients. That's what we're really focusing on. 

Like, yes, we're focusing on Q4. And making sure we have a really sorted key for making sure that in December. We have revenue coming in, even if we're not working, but all say that 20, 25 is set up and we're ready to go. Everything is set. We've primed people. We've already got sales. 

We already know. They've got that momentum. Really? No. That sales are coming in and then that launch doesn't feel quite so scary and big. And , if this works, it works. If it doesn't, oh my God, like, what am I going to do? [00:21:00] Because you know that you've already put so much into it beforehand, the right people are there. You've already got people bought into it. 

You know what you're doing? And it's just a case of bringing yourself and allowing yourself to get really excited about it. So. It is the end of today's episode. I hope that was useful. I hope it's given you some food for thought things to kind of mull over. If you've got any questions or you want to share whether you were going to be launching in January or not, do you come over to Instagram and say, hi I will put all the links to everything. In the show notes below. I will see you next week.

Thank you so much for listening today. Before you go, if this episode struck record with you, I'd be over the moon. If you could take a moment to rate, subscribe, and leave a review, your words not only brighten up my day, but they are also the magic that helps others discover this lion hearted community.

Again, thank you so much and I will see you next week.