EPISODE 59 OF WHAT WOULD THEY DO? THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE PODCAST FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
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Is there a way to sell that doesn’t exhaust you or your audience?
In this guest episode, I am joined by launch strategist Kelsey McCormick, founder of Coming Up Roses, to unpack what sustainable selling actually looks like for creative business owners.
If you feel like you’re redesigning your course or service launch from scratch every time, if you open cart and hope for the best, and if you’re chasing new followers instead of nurturing the ones you already have… this conversation is your reset.
Together, we explore repeatable sales systems, campaign thinking, trust-building before a launch, and why you don’t need a massive audience to sell out your offers.
What we cover:
The concept of “campaign thinking” and why monthly revenue chasing keeps you stuck
How to create launches that work with your energy, not against it
The power of waitlists and warm-up sequences
Why follower count is overrated (and warmth is everything)
The mindset work behind hitting bigger launch milestones
Why community and in-person connection may be the future of launches
The growing tension between being a service provider vs. being a creator in the AI era
Soundbites:
“What makes a sales system repeatable?”
“It’s twofold: It’s having an offer that you can spotlight again and again. I think often people feel like they’re reinventing the wheel because they think that they have to come up with something new every time they promote and launch something. It’s also in the approach, the things that you do within a launch. Obviously you might want to experiment with some new strategies, but all in all, the structure is very much repeatable and can just be copied each time that you launch.”
“I work with so many people that have 50,000 followers and more who cannot sell. And that’s because they’re not nurturing them into a sale. I do think that is a big issue where people almost over-index for more followers, but they don’t actually do the important sales system work that needs to exist before, before they blow up.”
More about my guest, Kelsey McCormick:
Kelsey McCormick is a launch strategist, podcaster, and founder of Coming Up Roses. She helps creative business owners turn followers into loyal buyers by building trust first and selling second. Through her program Launch Your Own Way, she teaches you how to create a repeatable sales system around your offers that work with your energy.
Website: https://cominguproses.co/
The Warm Waitlist Week: cominguproses.co/www
Podcast: cominguproses.co/warmup
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Episode Transcript:
Nadine Nethery (00:01)
Hello, hello and welcome back to the podcast. This week’s episode I am very excited about because we’re talking to someone who I came across by chance, Instagram, love it sometimes. So today’s guest was running an in-person workshop in Sydney, which doesn’t happen very often. Sydney, unfortunately, doesn’t have many in-person events and I would have loved to attend, but we were on holidays. So I thought let’s just get her
on the podcast so I could still connect with her, chat, things, customer experience and the bigger picture. So today’s question that forms the foundation to what we’re going to talk about is this one. Is there a way to sell that doesn’t exhaust me or my audience? And I feel like I designe from scratch every time I launched, which I feel resonates with so many of my listeners. So
Without further ado, to answer this question, I am joined by Kelsey McCormick, who is a launch strategist and the founder of Coming Up Roses. And Kelsey helps creative business owners turn followers into loyal buyers by building trust first, starting with the trust and then selling down the track. And in her various programs, she teaches how to create repeatable sales systems that actually work with your energy and your audience’s energy.
instead of against it. So welcome to the show Kelsey!
Kelsey McCormick (01:21)
Thank you. And thank you so much for that intro. I feel like I want to copy and paste it into my bio. And like when I’m pitching people, it was so like lovely and concise. Thank you.
Nadine Nethery (01:29)
I’ll send it to you after you’re welcome.
Well, I feel like I’ve given a bit of an overview of who you are and how amazing the things are that you do, but I’m always intrigued with my guest’s backstory. So I would love you to give us a bit of an overview. How you got to where you are today, you know, the various detours that probably came along the way.
Kelsey McCormick (01:51)
Sure, I’ll try to give as brief of a like synopsis as I can. But basically, I went to college in LA and I from college kind of worked in the music industry, worked in music marketing. I worked in basically, it was my job to sell tickets to concerts and festivals. I worked on the marketing side of things. Such a dream job. But as I approached my 30s and I was going to have a baby, I was like,
this is probably not a sustainable career. It was a lot of late nights, a lot of weekends, a lot of traveling. And I just really, really did not see myself doing that long-term when I wanted to be a present mom. So I kind of had this like weird come to Jesus moment going into my 30s being like, okay, what am I gonna do? And that’s when I just started really toying with the idea of my own business. I took a course with iLove Creatives. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them.
Nadine Nethery (02:41)
No
Kelsey McCormick (02:41)
but they’re really great. call themselves like the trade school for creatives. They basically have like learn a skill. So I learned web design on Squarespace. I started, you know, showing up on social selling that. And it wasn’t until I started applying the same launch principles that I learned at my corporate job selling concert tickets to my services that I started booking out. And then a lot of other people were curious, like, how are you always booked in advance? And I was like, well, I’m
Nadine Nethery (02:58)
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (03:08)
launching my services and they’re like, how do you do that? And I was like, okay, I think there’s something here. Let me teach this blue out. And then eventually it’s now like my whole business is teaching people launch strategy and working with creatives on launching not only their courses and digital products, but also their, you know, services, their one-on-one services.
Nadine Nethery (03:19)
Mmm.
That is so cool because yeah, most service providers go, well, my service is out there all the time. It’s on my website. People are going to just book it, right? So yeah, such a cool approach. Also, how cool is it that everything we do in life, in our careers, ultimately just fits into the bigger picture? It is so cool. Like even when I look back at my corporate career, so I had a similar situation, realisation moment back in my corporate days. did
Kelsey McCormick (03:36)
Yeah.
Full circle, totally.
Nadine Nethery (03:57)
Automotive PR for one of the global car brands. know, again, dream job, right? Like wining and dining, journalists like at Paris Motor Show, designey hotels, fancy restaurants, lots of travel, dream job. And then somehow said company took care of my decision for me and they made me redundant on mat leave with baby number three, three months old. I know, right? After 10 years. But again, in the long run, all for the better because it triggered me too.
Kelsey McCormick (04:02)
super cool.
⁓ lovely.
Nadine Nethery (04:22)
similar to you go, know, this wasn’t sustainable anyway, with kid number two on the way. And yeah, just made me realize that these bigger things and you know, more ways for me to apply my background in PR, communications, sales. So it’s just so good.
Kelsey McCormick (04:35)
I feel like PR
in particular is a career that so many entrepreneurs started out in. Like we just talked about our friend Jess Rufus, who also started in PR and is just like such an epic entrepreneur. think the ability to kind of reach out to people, market things, come up with good messaging and angles, like PR is like the best foundation for entrepreneurship.
Nadine Nethery (04:41)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mmm. Yeah.
Absolutely. And I think it teaches you as well that the importance of relationships, know, while we’re a solo, like I’m anyway, you know, solo one woman show, like without connections and, you know, supporting people will then ultimately end up supporting you. Like this whole thing wouldn’t be sustainable. Plus it makes it so much more enjoyable, right? Yeah. ⁓ so good. So good. Anyway, let’s get.
Kelsey McCormick (05:02)
Totally.
100%.
Yeah, 100%, we’re so aligned.
Nadine Nethery (05:23)
to the good stuff, talking about your approach to launching courses and all the things, but also services. So I know you said, developing repeatable systems is your jam. So helping people establish what works for them without having to reinvent it every time. So what makes a system, a sales system repeatable?
Kelsey McCormick (05:43)
Yeah, I think it’s twofold. I think it’s having an offer that you can spotlight again and again. I think often people feel like they’re reinventing the wheel because they think that they have to come up with something new every time they promote and launch something. It does not. I have launched my program, Launch Your Own Way, 10, 15 times. I don’t know, I’ve lost count how many times.
Nadine Nethery (05:56)
Mm.
Yeah.
Kelsey McCormick (06:08)
And you can do that with any of your services. I also think it’s in the approach, like the things that you do within a launch, you can have, you know, a timeline that you follow, you can have a certain messaging that you use, the sales page, all the things that go into it can be pretty turnkey. Obviously you might want to like experiment with some new strategies. You might want to like play around with some new messaging based on the season.
Nadine Nethery (06:27)
Mmm.
Kelsey McCormick (06:32)
But all in all, the structure is very much repeatable and can just be copied each time that you launch. So I do two big campaigns a year around my course, my program, Long-Term Way. I mean, there’s some different things. There’s some different strategies that I throw in, but pretty much turnkey in its structure. And each time, it just becomes easier and easier as a result.
Nadine Nethery (06:54)
How good’s that? Yeah, and I love how you’re saying, you you’re tweaking things as you go along. You probably learn things with every launch. Yeah. Now, what do you do, I know, looking at the world and, you know, society, there’s always something that gets sprung on you, feel, out of nowhere, interest rates, politics, things. How do you incorporate, the environment changing into that process?
Kelsey McCormick (06:55)
Yeah.
Exactly. That’s a big part of my process. Definitely.
Nadine Nethery (07:22)
Does that make sense?
Kelsey McCormick (07:22)
totally. I think that
that does make sense. I think that I try not to let too many external things, affect my results because at the end of the day, there’s always going to be a town on fire or a country bombing another country or like Trump doing something insane. You know what I mean? And obviously like you want to have enough cultural awareness that you are aware of what’s happening. You are.
Nadine Nethery (07:32)
Mm. Mm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Kelsey McCormick (07:51)
empathetic and understanding of what’s happening. But at the end of the day, you do run a business and you don’t see Target or any other corporation closing sales for the day because something tragic is going on in the world. I think you have to keep moving as a business owner. In my time as a business owner, there’s been so many crazy things that have happened in the last five years. Think about it, COVID.
Nadine Nethery (08:03)
Mm. Mm.
I know, right?
Kelsey McCormick (08:16)
Yeah, there’s just been so many things. And I think I’m pretty socially aware. I’m not like someone that’s like, I’m apolitical. I’m not going to talk about things. I do. very much like in the discourse. But I still think at the end of the day, if there’s more people like us mothers who are raising really great kids and who, you know, want to make a good impact in the world and, you know, support other small businesses as well. ⁓ We it’s better if we have money to do all of that.
Nadine Nethery (08:22)
Mmm.
Mm.
Yeah,
absolutely. And it can be tempting to go into panic mode. I’m with you, you know, like we need to keep selling because small business, I have bills to pay and the world is just never the perfect environment to, nothing’s ever.
Kelsey McCormick (08:50)
Yeah.
you can’t live,
you can’t base your business on what’s going on in the world, or you would just have to stop all the time. there are times when maybe you slow things down or when it does become overwhelming. And I just leave that with you. If that’s something that, that you need to do, there’s definitely times when I’ve been overwhelmed or I mean, I’ve had things just happen in my personal life that have been overwhelming to me, whether it’s pregnancy loss, or I just had a baby in July, like, and I guess the whole thing is like having a business that can run independently of.
Nadine Nethery (08:59)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Kelsey McCormick (09:24)
personal or external factors. And I do think launching actually really helps with that because it brings in steady sales, consistent income, recurring revenue, so that it buys you the freedom to take a pause if that’s what you need.
Nadine Nethery (09:35)
Hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. And then your repeatable system makes that even easier. How good’s that? Yeah, I’m a big fan of automating, setting things up once and then tweaking, refining always, but having it in place. It’s always that first time’s the hardest. And then.
Kelsey McCormick (09:40)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Totally. The
first time you’re, I always say that to people, like your first launch is going to be the hardest. It’s like the first pancake. You’re building everything from scratch. You’re testing things out. You’re selling in a new way. You’re trying, you’re doing stretchy skills, like showing up and talking about your offers all the time. Like that’s going to be difficult, but the more you do it, the more easy and turnkey it becomes. Totally.
Nadine Nethery (09:53)
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah.
And it pays off in the long run, as you said, you you
build it once, put the effort in and then just refine and it becomes second nature. I did a bit of website stalking before the episode, of course, because I do like to be across my guests. So one expression that popped up a lot on your website is campaign thinking, which I’m super intrigued with. Obviously it comes into the whole launch model.
Kelsey McCormick (10:29)
Yeah.
Nadine Nethery (10:34)
But can you tell us a little bit more about campaign thinking and what that means specifically to the creative space?
Kelsey McCormick (10:40)
Yeah, I love that you picked up on that. It’s something that I, it’s a term I kind of have coined around, I find it, I find a big problem with creatives and, and service providers, online service providers in particular is that you’re just thinking month to month, right? Like, oh, can I make whatever arbitrary number that you have in your mind? Maybe it’s 10K a month, maybe it’s 30K a month, maybe it’s 100K a month.
Nadine Nethery (10:56)
Hmm.
Kelsey McCormick (11:04)
And you try to that number and either you do or you don’t. And then you just start again the next month. And it keeps you on this hamster wheel where you’re just chasing arbitrary numbers and not really hitting any necessary, like specific goals. So campaign thinking is really shifting your thinking from that month to month to campaigns that have a beginning, middle, and an end. Right? So it could be something like an offer that you want to sell this year, but it could also be the house that you’re saving for.
It could also be, you know, I’m doing a visibility tour this year. So I really want to be on as many podcasts as possible. I’m doing some events. It’s, I’m calling it my year of visibility. So that’s a, I’m treating that like a campaign where I have goals set to it. I have certain things I’m doing throughout the campaign to make sure I’m hitting those goals.
and I’m tracking it and therefore I’m more likely to do it. So it’s just this like shift in thinking and the shift in how you’re moving in business that I think is a lot more effective and tends to not burn out as much because you’re not just constantly on a hamster wheel. Instead, you’re treating everything like almost these sprints, but some are longer than others, obviously. Like saving for a house is gonna be longer than like marketing a low ticket offer or something.
Nadine Nethery (11:57)
Hmm.
Yep.
Yeah, so good. And I feel like you can totally apply it to everything in your business. it makes it measurable
Kelsey McCormick (12:21)
And to me, like the spirit behind this idea of a campaign is that you’re really rallying behind it and getting your energy behind it. You are celebrating it. Maybe it has like milestones that you go to, or maybe it even has a theme around it. Maybe you’re also sharing it in public in some ways. So I think that
Nadine Nethery (12:28)
Mmm.
Kelsey McCormick (12:39)
this energy that you bring to it really suits the word campaign.
Nadine Nethery (12:43)
And it’s almost like you’re building your cheer squad, right? To cheer you on with your campaign efforts and especially if you put it out there in public, so good. And all of a sudden, so good. And then you’re not on this journey on your own. Other people are emotionally invested. Obviously creating repeatable sales systems is much kinder on your…
Kelsey McCormick (12:47)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I’m a big advocate of sharing in progress in public.
Yeah.
Nadine Nethery (13:05)
energy levels, which works for me. I wonder what your take is on the customer experience that obviously comes into the picture with that. I reckon and totally believe that your audience can pick up your vibes if you’re not in your launch, if you’re burnt out, if you’re not showing up as that full self and the best version of you, they’re totally picking up on it. So what’s your take on
how customer experience plays into that whole bigger picture of repeatable systems.
Kelsey McCormick (13:33)
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. Like your energy sells your offers. I always say that to my students and launch your own way. So it’s really essential for you as the leader of your launch to make sure you feel fully supported, to make sure you’re doing the like cup filling things during a live launch that make sure you’re in good energy and doing a lot of mindset work, I think beforehand. So one of my biggest launches, I didn’t work so much on strategy. Like that was pretty turnkey. It was mostly…
Nadine Nethery (13:47)
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (13:59)
my, I guess it was a strategy and that it was like a mindset strategy. I tried to journal every single day around like, cause a hundred K launch was like a big milestone for me personally, but I hadn’t hit it yet. And I was like, why haven’t I hit it yet? What is the problem here? And I, just all came down to energies and belief. And I just journaled through it. I worked through it. I did a lot of mantras. did a lot of just like self work and I hit it and that launch from that. So I, I really do think like,
Nadine Nethery (14:07)
Hmm.
Mmm, awesome.
Kelsey McCormick (14:26)
Having some sort of an energetic strategy is just as important as all the things you’re like, quote unquote, doing to sell your services.
Nadine Nethery (14:34)
Yeah, so true. And being kinder to ourselves, because so many of my clients go, my last launch was terrible. I’m going to throw it all away because the offer’s rubbish. This doesn’t work. I’m like, you know, you’re learning from it. It’s like, as much as just.
Kelsey McCormick (14:44)
my God, this is
another thing I say all the time. If you’re my student, know, I always say launching is never a failure because you always learn. And if you, you know, you get so much good data, you have to do like a post-mortem to look at all the data, but that can be just as valuable as whatever money that you get from a launch, you know, like actually learning from it and getting that data that you would have not gotten if you hadn’t have launched. And maybe the offer does need tweaking.
Nadine Nethery (15:02)
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (15:12)
Or maybe you don’t warm people up enough. That’s usually the issue. Or maybe it was a bunch of different things. Maybe you didn’t bring enough traffic to your website. Maybe you didn’t send enough emails. Whatever it is, the data will tell you, and then you can just launch better next time. It’s not that serious. You don’t need to be so emotionally invested in every single launch. Each one just gets you further to the information that you need to do better next time.
Nadine Nethery (15:15)
Yeah, yeah.
Bye.
Yep,
absolutely. And people who weren’t ready to buy this time as well, for whatever reason, they came along for the ride. They, trust you even more now. They enjoyed your content. they have paid attention. Totally. Yeah, I love the process of actually digesting what went wrong, the lessons learned. And ⁓ I do that for my members every time I run like an out of the box event because
Kelsey McCormick (15:47)
Exactly. be in next time. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Nadine Nethery (16:02)
people, like the listeners would know, I do things somewhat differently. So come at it from a different angle. in December last year, I ran an escape room challenge, you know, inside my membership. So people had to join the membership to be part of it. And in March, I debriefed the whole concept. Again, lessons learned, what I did, what I’m going to do differently next time. And it’s just so valuable. could it have gone better? Yes. did I launch it at a completely wacky time right off the back of Black Friday?
Kelsey McCormick (16:10)
Cool.
You
Nadine Nethery (16:27)
Yes, am I gonna do that again? No, so, but it’s learning, right? ⁓ And you just go, that was fun, the members loved it, and I’m totally gonna do it again, slightly different, but it’s a lesson learned.
Kelsey McCormick (16:31)
Totally.
Mm hmm. And how fun to have a business where you can just like experiment,
play, have fun, like come up with the whole concept of an escape room and launch it, see what happens. To me, that’s like the most fun that I have in business and the most creative that I feel. And I guess that goes back to campaign thinking and another reason that I use that word campaign, because I don’t know if you grew up, you probably grew up about the same time as me. We had magazines that had campaigns.
Nadine Nethery (16:45)
Yeah.
Mm.
yes.
Yes!
Kelsey McCormick (17:03)
And they were always
these like beautiful campaigns that like they all had a theme and a vibe and a spread. I really like, they were so creative and you, wanted to work at a magazine. You were like, that’s my dream. And now I’m like, this is my version of that. Like creating a whole like vibe and feeling and having a creative campaign built around my launch. It just feels really fun. And yeah, it’s a nice way to approach it. And it takes a lot of the seriousness out of it.
Nadine Nethery (17:08)
Hmm.
Mm.
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. my favourite part in business is coming up with fresh ideas and then, experiments. literally call them experience. Let’s see what happens. Yeah. It’s, it’s pretty cool. And the members loved it. So I’m already working on the next, version of the escape room, but it’s so cool. Yeah. I’m with you. That’s why we’re running our own businesses.
Kelsey McCormick (17:37)
Yeah, the escape room is so cool experiment. Like I haven’t heard of something like that before. So I love that.
Yeah.
version of it.
Super cool.
Exactly.
Nadine Nethery (17:54)
Yeah, you touched on something that I want to pick up on. So building trust and how launches sometimes just don’t go to plan because we skipped that important trust building phase. I talked to Brenna McGowan, don’t know whether you’re aware of Brenna, so pre-selling strategist, a few episodes ago, so if you haven’t listened, listen. So she talked about pre-selling and how you can’t just open a cart and expect people to buy. So I’m interested to hear.
Kelsey McCormick (18:09)
Mmm.
Nadine Nethery (18:22)
how you define trust building and what that looks like, particularly for creative businesses.
Kelsey McCormick (18:27)
Yeah, we’re probably pretty similar in that basically, yeah, you can start selling the day doors open. And I think that that’s a mistake a lot of creatives, creative businesses make because they think, okay, I have five spots available to my service. I’m just going to start posting that they’re available, but you haven’t done all that, like prep to purchase work that happens before. And I call that the warmup. it’s all the time, all the like activities you do before a launch that make people ready to make an empowered decision.
Nadine Nethery (18:32)
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (18:55)
once doors open, because I want to like really emphasize empowered decision, because it’s not about convincing them that they have to buy this. It’s giving them the information that they need to decide if it’s right for them or not. So a strategy that I love in that period is weight listing or interest listing. I just think with the way that the algorithm is right now, there’s probably so many lurkers in your audience that you’re just not even aware of, and you don’t even know exist, that are seeing like 1 16th of the stuff that you post.
Nadine Nethery (19:00)
Mm.
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (19:23)
but
they could be interested in your offers, but they just don’t know what you even offer. They don’t know if you have anything going for them. So a launch really like puts it in front of them and then gets them onto a list or the pre-launch, the warmup gets them onto a list where you can directly correspond with them, you know, algorithm independently. And so it’s a great way to gather your hottest leads and then send a series of emails again, before doors open to nurture them into that sale.
Nadine Nethery (19:45)
Mm. Mm.
Yeah, so good. I’ve heard other people say wait lists don’t work and I agree with you. think if you’re strategic about wait listing and don’t just have a little form, get them on your list and then basically just add them to your cart open email, ⁓ it can totally work. But of course, again, it takes a little bit of extra effort to nurture and look after them.
Kelsey McCormick (20:02)
Yeah.
Yeah, I know it totally works. I have people in my program that
converted, you know, 50%, 60%, 70%, but it’s all about the strategy. Same with people say launches don’t work, but I like run my entire business launching. I’ve helped people make hundreds of thousands of dollars launching in their businesses. So it does work, but maybe the strategy or the approach that you’re taking isn’t working and that’s fixable. Like we can look at that and decide what’s happening and why it might not be working.
Nadine Nethery (20:13)
Mmm. Yeah. Mmm. Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,
Kelsey McCormick (20:34)
But yeah, the trust
Nadine Nethery (20:34)
absolutely.
Kelsey McCormick (20:35)
building process I think is the most important thing is really showing up consistently, talking directly to your IDO clients and customers, being really generous with the way that you’re showing up ⁓ and trying to start a dialogue. That’s the kind of word that I use in conjunction with the warmup the most is like, it’s starting a conversation with them about what they need and why you’re the person to provide that solution for them.
Nadine Nethery (20:46)
Mm.
Dialogue, such a good word to look at it, Because we’re not just sending emails and communicating at them. It should be opening up a conversation and inviting them to come to the table.
Kelsey McCormick (21:10)
Exactly. Exactly. And there’s so many strategies
to do that, obviously, but some of my favorite ones are, you know, getting people in your DMs in some way. So it could be offering some sort of a free audit or asking questions in your stories or many chat is also a great way to get people in your DMs. There’s also working in public. So just like, again, sharing your goals that people can rally around.
Nadine Nethery (21:22)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Kelsey McCormick (21:34)
There’s the wait list, there’s emails, there’s just so many things. There’s potlight going on a visibility tour, podcasting, there’s so many things that you can do to open up that dialogue. But I’d say the sooner that you do that, like months before your launch, the better.
Nadine Nethery (21:46)
Hmm.
Yeah, so true. And working out what works for you as well and within your energy levels, Because I mean, you can piggyback on other people’s advice, but if it’s just not aligned with your way of launching or showing up. But yeah, so good.
Kelsey McCormick (21:53)
yeah.
Literally why I call my program Launch Your Own Way. There’s so many ways to do it. like I have so many people in my program who only use threads and email or only have a podcast and an email. Like there’s, you do not have to be on all the platforms all the time. You don’t need to be making, you know, a million TikToks or trying to like go on trial reels. Like most people in my program have less than a thousand followers, but such a warm audience that they sell out their launch.
Nadine Nethery (22:04)
⁓ see. ⁓
Mmm. ⁓
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (22:28)
So
it’s really not about follower count either. Some people are like, I actually had a DM yesterday from someone that was like, my audience isn’t big enough to launch. And I’m like, you have 1,400 people in your audience and you’re trying to sell a one-on-one offer. Like you have plenty of people in your audience to launch to, but that’s a mindset thing and that’s like a weird belief system. It’s not about size, it’s really about warmth.
Nadine Nethery (22:32)
Yeah.
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah, I actually had a conversation with someone else for the podcast this morning about the same topic, like just chasing fresh audiences and growing your list at all costs, but totally forgetting the people who already said yes to you and who already put their hand up to hear from you and who possibly are just waiting for that perfect moment to start working with you. what’s your take on?
Kelsey McCormick (23:03)
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Nadine Nethery (23:15)
list growth and acquisition versus retention. As we said before, not everyone is in a position to buy your offer when you’re launching. So how do you see that long-term relationship with your audience, your potential customers beyond that first launch?
Kelsey McCormick (23:31)
Yeah, that’s such a good question. I think it looks different for everyone, but obviously the two go hand in hand, right? You need a visibility strategy of some sort. You need people to be able to discover you somewhere. You get to choose what that looks like. It could be a podcast. It could be threads. It could be TikTok, but choose a visibility platform where strangers can discover you and have a strategy for that to happen. But what I see as an issue a lot is once people get all these followers, they’re not leading them anywhere.
Nadine Nethery (23:36)
Mm. Mm.
Yeah.
Kelsey McCormick (23:58)
So you need to make sure there’s always somewhere that you’re leading them, whether it is your launch or if you’re not in a launch, is there a freebie? Is there a podcast episode? Is there a blog? Like something that they can read to access your knowledge further. Maybe it’s just your weekly newsletter, but there should be like a first step for people to learn. There’s so many people who’ve been in my audience. I just had to talk with someone in Lawn Trow Way like two days ago who said they took a year to convert.
because they just weren’t ready, they just weren’t in the right position. They’re so glad they did end up joining, but for that year, they said they learned so much from just my content alone and the things that I put in stories and the things I was putting on my freebies and the free workshops that I did. So just make sure there’s other things to warm up the people who might not quite be ready, but you get to choose what that looks like for you.
Nadine Nethery (24:24)
Hmm.
Yep.
Mm.
How I look at it and what I’ve more recently been practicing in my business as well, I stop saying yes to every single opportunity because you can waste so much energy bringing in new people without sense checking
Kelsey McCormick (24:58)
Mm-hmm.
Nadine Nethery (25:00)
So really being discerning with your visibility strategy and how you get people in and who you get in and then investing just as much energy in what comes after it’s so important and so often overlooked.
Kelsey McCormick (25:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I think it’s important to like nail your launch strategy and that repeatable sale system before you try to bring more people into your ecosystem. Because at some point, like I work with so many people that have like 50,000 followers and more who cannot sell because that’s why they join Launch Your Own Way or work with me one-on-one because they’re like, I have all these followers, like, I have a community, but like they’re not buying what I have. And I’m like, yeah, that’s because you’re not like nurturing them into a sale. They’re not used to that.
Nadine Nethery (25:18)
Mmm. Yeah.
Hmm.
Kelsey McCormick (25:42)
relationship with you. So you need to build that relationship with them. And that looks different from like, you know, the creator influencer content you’ve been creating. So I do think that is a big issue where people almost over index for more followers, but they don’t actually do the important sales system work that needs to exist before, before they blow up.
Nadine Nethery (26:02)
Absolutely. And it’s that dopamine hit, isn’t it? Getting a new subscriber or a new follower. That often feels a lot more intriguing than getting. Yeah.
Kelsey McCormick (26:08)
Yeah.
Well, it’s outwardly, you know, validating, isn’t it? When you get
a bunch of new followers and it’s a shiny, sexy thing. But I think the people I admire so much in this space aren’t the ones with the most followers, but they’re the ones with like the strongest point of view. They have like a style that they create and they have like a certain, you know, idea and IP that they’ve developed around what they teach. They show up as authentically themselves. And I see them having a lot more longevity than the people who are like, you know,
Nadine Nethery (26:24)
Mmm.
Kelsey McCormick (26:38)
hooking and hacking their way to bigger numbers.
Nadine Nethery (26:42)
Mm, totally.
I think we could talk for hours. It’s like, there’s so many facets to it and, so many more things.
Kelsey McCormick (26:45)
I know I’m a chatty Cathy too, you gotta…
launching is a big topic. I do find that in my program sometimes
where it’s like there is a lot to cover. There is a lot of steps. Yeah.
Nadine Nethery (26:57)
So many aspects, like pre-launching,
the actual launch after launch. it fascinates me. What I’ve taken away from our chat though is that while you can set up a repeatable system, which makes your life easier, it can totally work within your energy It doesn’t have to look like a system that is copycat for everyone else. It’s a matter of working out what works for you, what works for your audience, and then coming up with a structure that is sustainable.
and makes your life so much easier.
Kelsey McCormick (27:23)
Yeah, totally. I think that could
be applicable to your entire business as well. Like, you’ve got to do it in your own way or it’s never going to feel good.
Nadine Nethery (27:27)
Mmm.
Yeah. ⁓ And then before we wrap up, what are you excited about in the launch space at the moment?
Kelsey McCormick (27:38)
Ooh.
excited about community events and collaborations. I just think with the age of AI, people, I’m already seeing the pattern of people just being more and more disenchanted with being online all the time. And there’s just going to be so much value in just human-to-human interaction. So I’m really optimizing for.
Nadine Nethery (27:42)
Mmm.
Yup.
Kelsey McCormick (28:01)
more events, more community. I’ve been pitching brands to partner. I’ve been, you know, planning some events with other brands. And that is what makes me excited. I just did an event in January and just having that face to face with so many people in my community, who I felt like I knew, but like we hadn’t ever met. It was just so like life giving and just felt so good. And I want to do so much more of it. And I could really sense in the room that everyone’s really craving that the moment.
Nadine Nethery (28:02)
Mm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, funny. My word for 2026 is community. So I’m totally on the same page, which is why I really was hoping I could go to your event in January. I went to an in-person workshop in Sydney last week, week before I’m losing track. But yeah, it’s just on my vision board. I feel like the person is more and more removed from the online space, like the actual human. So I’m just…
Kelsey McCormick (28:33)
There you go.
Cool.
Exactly.
Nadine Nethery (28:52)
craving and which is not necessarily usual for me as an introvert. Like I have to usually hype myself up before going into the outside world. But it is.
Kelsey McCormick (28:59)
It is a whole different thing, but I think it’s like,
so important to get out there and do the exposure therapy of it because if we don’t, then we are just going to become weird. like, I think after COVID, I was so socially awkward and I’m still feeling like the repercussions of that. And I, I’m almost like forcing myself to like go out and like expose myself to social interactions again, because it’s just between COVID and pregnancy and postpartum and moving countries. It’s just been a lot.
Nadine Nethery (29:08)
Mm. Yeah.
Hmm. Yeah.
Uh,
Hmm. But yeah, it’s, it’s been really energizing, So yeah, I’m looking for more events out there. So if there’s any listener in Sydney, let me know. Um, yeah.
Kelsey McCormick (29:35)
We’ll be doing a lot more
like with the ACE and a bunch of other collaborations coming up. So watch the space as well.
Nadine Nethery (29:39)
Mmm.
Awesome. Well, I’m
on your newsletter, which is beautiful, by the way. So listeners go and subscribe. It’s like the most pretty newsletter ever. I always have. Yeah. I love good design. yours is always a must open.
Kelsey McCormick (29:50)
thank you, that’s so nice!
People always say that it works
on dark mode and they’re very impressed by that because apparently that’s a very rare situation.
Nadine Nethery (30:01)
Yes,
it’s beautiful. The content is amazing too. So make sure you join Kelsey’s list. I ask every guest this one question what’s one thing that is on your mind at the moment when it comes to the customer experience in your business?
Kelsey McCormick (30:05)
Thank you.
Yeah, I feel like I’m wondering if people are wanting more. It kind of goes back to the last point. Like if people are wondering or wanting more face-to-face, more like one-on-one, more community, I think it’s going to be really hard in the future to just do like a self-paced course. I think that that touch point with the creator is a really big part of it. So that’s one thing I’m wondering. And I guess the second thing I’m wondering is…
Nadine Nethery (30:36)
Hmm.
Kelsey McCormick (30:45)
just like the few, don’t know if this is really customer experience, but the way that people are like creating content, I think there’s a real chasm in our space right now between people who just want to be like service providers and provide a service and people who are having to be like creators and show up on social, almost like influencers and like what that means for the way that we create and the offers that we create and the way that people experience us.
Nadine Nethery (30:57)
Mm.
Kelsey McCormick (31:10)
I’m not sure if that’s like that relevant, but that’s something that’s been on my mind really a lot lately is like, I’m, feel like I’m more of a creator than like a online business these days. And like, what does that actually mean for the way that I’m showing up in the way that I monetize in the future? And I don’t know if that resonates at all.
Nadine Nethery (31:10)
Mm.
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
yeah, there is a shift happening in the online space, in content, in how we show up It’s such an interesting time.
Kelsey McCormick (31:31)
Yeah.
And I wonder with AI, like if it’s going to be more important to like grow this personal brand personality, create, create your online business and not just be someone that provides a skill, right? Cause how many of those skills are going to be able to be replicated with AI in the future? So, I mean, I think that is related to customer experience because it’s like how much of what we do is going to even be able to be replicated late. Like, I don’t know, have you tried?
Nadine Nethery (31:42)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Kelsey McCormick (32:03)
Claude Cowork. Yeah, a lot of people are leaving chat GPT, think, but Claude just released Cowork and it’s just this really robust, they could just do tasks for you the way that you would pay someone really. It’s incredible. And since playing around with that, it’s made me really, really, really think about customer experience, the way that we’re providing services.
Nadine Nethery (32:05)
No, I haven’t yet. I need to play more with Claude because I’m over chat GPT. I need to. Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, wow.
Mmm.
Kelsey McCormick (32:29)
the future of online business. It’s had me contemplating a lot of that.
Nadine Nethery (32:33)
Yeah,
it’s funny. saw a report recently from Braze, one of the platforms out there that is specifically geared towards some customer experience, but more for corporates. And they released a report that I can’t quite remember the exact percentage, but it was like a really big divide where 95 odd percent of businesses or corporates that is, were convinced that AI was really beneficial.
Kelsey McCormick (32:46)
Mmm.
Nadine Nethery (33:01)
in supporting the customer experience and how they serve their customers. But then only 40 or 50 % of customers actually agreed that they wanted more interactions with AI and thought AI was beneficial in the process. So there’s clearly still that divide where customers just are so hesitant to deal with an AI bot and have that person removed. obviously for companies, it makes things so much easier, so much more efficient, especially at scale.
Kelsey McCormick (33:26)
Yeah.
Nadine Nethery (33:31)
Such, yeah, such interesting times,
Kelsey McCormick (33:33)
It is interesting times. Yeah, it’s interesting to pay attention to. And it’s interesting to start seeing what sectors are getting kind of taken down first. like, I read something like computer science, which was always supposed to be like the go-to like safe job, isn’t like so much of that can be done by AI now. And yeah, it’s just, I think it’s gonna be an interesting next few years to say the least. Yeah. Who
Nadine Nethery (33:40)
Hmm.
Mm.
Absolutely. Who knows? Who knows what’s to come? But
all we can do is just stick with it. Be curious, I think. Question things.
Kelsey McCormick (34:03)
Yeah, definitely. And build our own community and really bring that
humanity to everything we do. I think that’s kind of the takeaway that I’m going with, at least.
Nadine Nethery (34:12)
That was so good. Before we wrap up, I already said people should sign up to your newsletter. Where else can people find you online and connect with you?
Kelsey McCormick (34:23)
Yeah, thank you so much. @ cominguproses.co is my Instagram. You can also listen to my private podcast called The Warm Up. There’s a couple of free episodes available on my websites. And yeah, sign up for the squig. That’s my newsletter that I send out every single week that has kind of amusing about the online space and then like a deep dive around a campaign or a launch or something that you can learn from.
Nadine Nethery (34:46)
Yeah, I love opening it because you sort of never know what’s in there, which is probably the whole point, right? So yeah, well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Kelsey. I had a blast connecting with you and exploring your repeatable sales systems.
Kelsey McCormick (34:49)
Yeah.
thank you.
Yeah.
Nadine Nethery (35:01)
For you listeners,
if you have not subscribed to the show yet, I would love, love, love you to hit follow, subscribe in all the places And yeah, thank you so much for tuning in. I will be back in your AirPods next week.
Kelsey McCormick (35:14)
Thank you so much for having me and I’ll see you in Sydney, I hope.
