This episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS is about how to blow up online with Facebook ads expert, membership site owner, and mastermind creator Kamila Gornia. They get into some tactics for building your online community and Kamila shares her story of how she entered the online education field. She also shares expert tips on marketing with Facebook ads, and how you should incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
Kamila has built a strong brand online. She has many courses online, she owns a membership site, and she puts on mastermind programs to help other entrepreneurs who are looking to build an audience to gain authority or to grow that authority through lots of different methods.
Kamila focuses primarily on the marketing side of business online. But when she works on marketing with some clients they begin to ask questions about pricing and creating offers, so she has also taken on the role of a business coach in many of the projects she has worked on. She values the creative process and being able to support her clients in projecting income so they can impact the world with their creativity.
In order to utilize the full power of your creativity in business, you need to have the freedom in your space. Meaning that taking the focus off of making money may be necessary to be yourself when creating your product. This will ultimately increase your profits, because being genuine in your course presentation and material will help make your course feel more authentic. Kamila shares how she learned to channel her core values in order to make her course material genuine and engaging.
Many people in business say that you have to separate business from pleasure, or that in order to succeed in business you have to take the emotion out of it. But integrating the business mind and the artist mind can help to create entertaining and engaging content. Chris and Kamila discuss this concept in depth. Kamila’s focus on empowering the creative side in the entrepreneurs she works with and her authenticity are some of the key factors to her success with her online ventures.
A lot of first-time course creators online have difficulties creating and launching their online content, because they have doubts in their minds about weather or not they will succeed. Many of them also question their authority in the space, and don’t end up launching their course because someone in their industry already has a course. Kamila shares the five levels of online course creation and the points along the way where most people get stuck.
To learn more about Kamila Gornia check out KamilaGornia.com. You can also find her on Facebook.
You can post comments and subscribe to our newsletter for updates, developments, and future episodes of LMScast. Thank you for joining us.
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name is Chris Badgett, and in this episode we have a special guest, Kamila Gornia. How you doing, Kamila?
Kamila Gornia: I am great. Thanks for having me, Chris.
Chris Badgett: Kamila is a really interesting case study and somebody who’s built a strong brand online. She’s a course creator herself, trainer of people. She puts on masterminds and helps other entrepreneurs who are looking to build an audience to gain authority or if they already have that, to grow even further through lots of different methods. We’re going to get into some tactics, but also dig into Kamila’s story and just learn from her and really dig into her brand. She’s got a wonderful brand. Can you tell us just a little bit just kind of the short synopsis of who you are and what you do?
Kamila Gornia: Yeah. I’m Kamila Gornia. I’m known as the Blow Up, Scale Up marketing strategist, and I guess I’m also kind of a business coach, which is funny because I’ve always been more focused on the marketing side, but then my clients are like, “Kamila, but you’re also a business coach.” I’m like, “Okay,” so sure. What I tend to focus on is supporting amazing entrepreneurs who want to be seen as authorities and thought leaders to blow up online and really make a difference in the world through their marketing, so whether it’s launching new programs that are leverage-based like courses, masterminds, group programs or stepping out in a different way and then really making a difference with writing books or whatever.
I mean it’s really about getting the word out about what you’re passionate about and then making that difference with your message. That’s a little bit about what I do.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I think that’s an interesting point. Sometimes when we’re doing something our clients or our customers or our tribe ask us like, “While you’re here, can you also help me with this other thing?” What do you mean by you’re more in the marketing side when people ask you for business coaching advice? Help delineate the difference there.
Kamila Gornia: Yeah. For me I’ve always been a very strongly marketing minded person. I’ve been doing marketing since the age 12. It’s always been what I’ve led with. Now when I started working with clients, obviously we focus on the marketing side and then somehow we would start talking about pricing and creating offers. For me the biggest thing that I kind of realize is the fact that I just love to be creative when it comes to marketing. A lot of times creating offers actually is a very creative process and I really enjoy doing that. Another thing that really makes me excited is being able to support my clients in projecting income so that they can have the leverage and have the creativity to then impact the world.
In order to have that creativity in that space, you need to have the freedom and the space to do that. Now if you’re desperately trying to make money, you’re not going to be able to be in that mental space of having more creativity in your mind, right? Money is a big important aspect in like projecting income and like who you’re working with, how is that all structured on your business so that you can increase your profits and just get more people to … I mean just get more sales so that you can then create these other things that you want to be creating. It’s kind of come hand in hand and that’s a lot of what my clients actually ask me for is like how do I actually structure my entire business, what my business model is.
I look at it as the creative activity, creative kind of process that we go through. I guess it’s a business coaching thing because it has to do with pricing and offers and business structures and stuff, but because I look at it through the lens of marketing and through the lens of let’s impact the world, let’s change the world with whatever it is that you’re passionate about, I kind of look at it a little bit differently I guess.
Chris Badgett: I love that. One of my favorite words is just the word integration. To integrate the business mind and the artist mind, sometimes those things are seen as, “Oh, you can’t be both,” but really the true power comes from combining both. Like you said, a starving artist actually needs a little money and elbow room to be creative. They work hand in hand. I really like that point that you make about that. Well, I’d encourage everybody listening or if you’re watching this on YouTube to head on over to KamilaGornia.com. Because when I go there, I see a really strong brand, very clear messaging, somebody who’s not trying to be something they aren’t, somebody who’s just very comfortable in their own skin and helping other people do the same.
How did that authenticity or whatever you want to call it, how did that kind of evolve and become one of your strengths?
Kamila Gornia: That’s a really good question. It’s funny because I’ve always struggled with that even when I was younger. I’ve always wanted to be liked and I’ve always wanted to just be accepted. I’m an immigrant. I actually moved to America when I was 13. That was a big part of what supported me in not being myself because you need to assimilate and you need to make friends. In order to make friends in middle school, you have to be a very certain … Like you have to act a very certain way. You have to speak a very certain way. I worked really hard to get rid of my accent and I worked really hard to get rid of the things that I was interested in which where it could be considered a little dorky. I’m like, “Okay. Well, this is not going to support me in making friends.
This is not going to support me in like having a social life.” I decided to strategically create a persona of myself of a person that is more likely to be liked. I kind of got into not the best crowd I would say. I started partying pretty early. I did it because it didn’t necessarily feel right. I just wanted to be accepted. I did that for several years actually up until I was 21. When I was 21, I actually got in a car accident and it was on my 21st birthday which was crazy. I got in that car accident. I was sitting in the passenger seat. My friend was driving. We got hit by a drunk driver. It was after my night of partying. My head had hit the windshield.
I didn’t go to the ER, but the doctors or whoever those people are that come and tend to you when you’ve been in an accident they’re like, “Do you want to come to the ER? If you had something happen in your head because you hit your head, you could die.” I’m just like, “Oh my god. What is going on? I could die.” That was terrifying to me. I basically started kind of evaluating my life and seeing okay, well, there were certain things that were happening in my life that were making me question if I’m on the right path even prior to that moment. It all kind of culminated in that event where I really needed to start looking at my life and seeing why am I going about my life in this way. What am I giving up?
If I was to die right now, would I actually feel like I’ve lived the way that I am meant to live? The question was no, right? I didn’t feel like I had any deep relationships with people. I felt like I was always putting up walls and I felt like I was always showing up as somebody that is not actually me. All the time I felt a very deep dissatisfaction with who I actually was. I decided to take small steps to overcome that and break through that and really understand who I was. I started going into more personal development and started really digging into that. It might sound like it happened overnight. It definitely didn’t. It was several years in the making where I began to really see what is it that I enjoy and if I like this and nobody else does, what does that say about me?
Through really understanding and learning more about myself, I was able to realize that I do care about creativity and I do have very specific things about myself that I’m like goofy, but also I like that kind of edge and edgy style. It’s okay if it doesn’t all make sense. It’s okay if it’s not strategic in a way. It’s just who I am. Through that I was able to basically see like if somebody comes up to me and they are a hater and they say something negative to me, it actually ended up not affecting as much because I knew I was being myself versus when I was trying to have this mask on and be this person to be. The ultimate goal was to be liked by everybody.
When a hater would come around which happens quite often just in general in life and they would say something negative, that’s when it really affected me because it meant to me that my mask wasn’t perfect. That there was something that I strategically didn’t place in the right … It wasn’t organized in a way that it should have been because the goal was to be liked. When I flipped that and my goal became to just be myself, I became more resilient. I became more just happy and content with who I actually was. I wanted to create a business that supported me in being that authentic person and being that person who it is that I am.
I love working with people who are also looking to break through and be themselves and understand that even if you’re different, even if you have quirks about you, even if you’re weird or society deems you not normal, it’s okay because it’s all a part of your story and you shouldn’t have to reject a part of you just because it’s not easy to market or it’s not something that everybody’s going to like because it’s really difficult to be universally liked. It’s actually impossible to be universally liked. When we try, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. I’d rather just enjoy my life. That’s really what my business is founded upon I would say is being able to just live and just be yourself and do things in a way that feels good.
Chris Badgett: I think that’s really beautiful. It speaks to leadership in general and also teaching. In order to lead and teach, the first thing we have to do is lead ourselves. I mean clearly you’ve gone through an experience that then allows you to kind of give back, return and help other people who are trying to break through in a similar way that you were. That’s awesome. I love your story. That’s so cool. What was the transition point of going from your transformation to helping other people? You said it may seem like it’s overnight, but it’s not. Tell us a little bit more about the process of getting started online for you and what that was like.
Kamila Gornia: Well, getting started online happened when I was 12 and it wasn’t a very … I mean I guess it was pretty authentic because it was a website that I built and it was about Manga. This was back when I really liked it and there was no one in my town that liked it. It wasn’t a business venture. It was just kind of like a hobby thing, but for me … Then I had a photography business where most of my clients I got through the online and then I had a health blog and stuff. I think because I had so many things that I’ve done, when I finally became more intentional about creating a business … Because you know there are things I mean I consider them ventures.
I guess they were businesses because they were profitable, but I didn’t necessarily set out to like, “Oh, I’m going to now create a photography business. Oh, now my blog is going to become …” That’s not really what I intended it to be, but I feel like because I had these ventures, when I actually did become intentional about creating a marketing business, coaching kind of business, I had this background already that allowed me to know kind of which way to go about it, what to do, what not to do and that kind of stuff. I think for me the biggest thing was in the beginning especially with photography and even with my health blog, it was more about myself and it was more about discovering what I like.
It was a lot of that discovery that allowed me to find that there’s other people that are also doing very similar things. As I was moving into creating a more intentional business, I was actually a little bit confused about what is it that I wanted to create. I’m a multi passionate person. I love so many different things which is why I had all these different ventures. It’s unrealistic for me to have a business that incorporates all the things. Potentially my marketing business is selfish because I just am so interested in so many different things that I want to do them all, but I can’t. Same with the marketing, there’s so many campaigns, there’s so many things that I want to test that I realistically can’t do on my own in my own business.
I love being able to support other people who also are very passionate about what they’re doing. They see that mission. They see the thing that they want to change and I get inspired by passion. I get so fueled by other people who are passionate. They have something that they want to change in the world in some kind of a … It just make sense. When there’s that spark, that’s what lights me up. For me I’m able to then experiment and use my multi passionate tendencies towards my clients. I’m interested in health. I’m interested with relationships. I’m interested in like all these things. Well, that’s my clients. I’m able to basically use my interest and get them out there because I wouldn’t be able to do it.
I really see a vision for a world that is filled with love and creativity and passion and just really incredible things that everybody is doing. I would love a world that’s like that. This is my way of making sure that that happens. My work goes through these clients, these people so they can do the amazing work that they’re doing and I can support them because marketing has always been like I guess a superpower just because I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m leveraging that to support other people who are amazing in their kind of industries.
Chris Badgett: I think that’s really admirable. One of the things that I hear in there is it’s okay to be a little bit selfish. What I mean by that is if you give and you do consulting or coaching or teaching and at the end of the day you’re like, “Oh, I’m whooped. I have nothing left else to give,” which is fine if that happens, but what you’re also saying is that by helping these people, you get to explore and play in all these different areas in all your multi passionate ways that you’re also getting something out it which creates … That’s more like an infinite loop. They can just keep going and growing and expanding. That’s really well said. Where did the words blow up and scale up come from?
If you guys go to Kamila’s website, you’ll see just some really well written words around what she’s up, what the manifesto is. There’s a strong brand. It doesn’t feel like blah. It’s like, “Okay. This is Kamila.” Where does that come from, blow up and scale up?
Kamila Gornia: It’s funny because this was I think a year and a half ago. I was working with my copywriter and we were doing this whole rebrand thing. Maybe it was two years ago. I don’t remember exactly. In the copywriting process, she basically was asking me a whole lot of questions. The thing that I kept saying is, “Okay. What am I passionate about? Well, I want these incredible people, these incredible authorities, these course creators, these people to be able to blow up so that everybody knows who they are and then therefore they’re able to change the world.” People that create courses and membership sites and all these different things, they’re doing it because they want to teach people, they want to impact these people in a very specific way.
If they’re doing it and nobody knows who they are, they’re not really doing anybody any favors, right? It’s like how can you keep that brilliance to yourself. It’s selfish to do that. I want these people to be known. I want them to be known in a huge way so that everybody knows and has resources to support themselves in whatever it is that they need support with. I want them to blow up. Huge like explosive. I guess I like using masculine words. I don’t know. Like boom. Then the scale up, I kept mentioning that word to her. The other thing I was like, “Okay. Well, I really also like it to not be pure hustle. I also like it to have some leverage. You’re doing it in a way that it supports your lifestyle too and that you’re enjoying yourself.
A lot of it has to do with like scaling your business because the people that I also love working with are people that have already done this and now they’re looking for scale. They’re looking for leverage. They’re looking to bring in more customers without having to spend and extend more energy to necessarily do that. It’s kind of creating these systems to make it work like funnels and launching, automated launching and stuff.” I kept saying to scale up, like scaling and scaling. Blow up and scale up is basically like the gist of the thing that I tend to focus on with my clients. From that when I was thinking about these two words, I’m like, “Okay. This make sense. This is really interesting.”
Then I realized that I actually have a very specific methodology that I use when it comes to entrepreneurship. Everybody is in a very specific stage as they’re going through their business. It’s my blow up, scale up method which has like five very specific levels. There’s the set up. There’s the think up, set up, blow up, scale up and then free up. There’s five levels if you will for a business owner or a business to go through. It’s been really cool because while I fueled it, she was able to capture that and see like, “Kamila, you keep saying these words. What does that exactly mean?” Then that became a whole thing, like a huge part of my brand as well. It was a really cool experience.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Well, how did you get to that point where you decided you wanted a copywriter or needed a copywriter? Where did that come from?
Kamila Gornia: A copywriter was actually my first hire because I … When I was starting this business, I knew that obviously you need to make sure your copy is solid and all that good stuff. I didn’t really consider myself to be a very good copywriter. I’m okay with writing. I don’t love it necessarily, but whatever. When I was creating my website for this business, there was a lot of resources. I took a course on writing copy as many people have. I was going through this process to write my copy. I mean the copy that I wrote was great. Everybody would share how incredible it was and how much it resonated for them, but it took me so long to actually finish it. I’m a person that … I like things to be like, “All right. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go.”
For me to sit there for like two weeks to write my website copy was just like I just wanted to like die. It was not fun. After I did that, every future sales page, website, I mean just the energy expenditure was not worth it. The first person I hired was a copywriter. It was project-based of course. She wrote my sales page. Then when we’re doing a rebrand, she redid my entire website copy. It was so much better because even though I can …
I know a lot of like about technology and all that good stuff and that doesn’t take me as long as writing, but I feel like because I was able to work with a copywriter and she was able to capture what I said in like the exact words I was using just making them sound a little bit more sexy and the flow was already proven, for me just to learn these proven systems it would take too long. The cool thing is because I’m so integrated and I’m so into marketing, even though she was doing these things, I was able to capture what she does. It in turn turned me into a much better copywriter now. There’s some sales pages that I will write myself. It depends on my time, like how much time I have. All my emails I wrote myself.
All my social media posts I wrote myself. For me it was just like a part of the learning I would say and really making sure that do I really want to spend two, three weeks on writing a sales page when I could focus that time on something else. The question was I’d rather just hire it out.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. When you look at other entrepreneurs or just imagine a course creator who’s trying to make it online or somebody building their first membership site, in your experience what’s getting in the way or what’s holding people back in general or at one of the specific five levels? What do you see as the biggest kind of hurdle to get over for a lot of people?
Kamila Gornia: Well, I think it really depends on the person because a lot of people are stuck in the thinking stage where they’re still like, “Okay. Well, it has to be perfect. What is it going to be?” Most people actually stay stuck in that think up stage. They’re just there because they’re not great at taking action. Until you actually commit yourself to taking consistent action, you’re never going to get out of that space. For most of my clients and for myself too, it took a couple of courses before I was actually able to have a solid one and be like, “Okay. I’m actually really happy with this. The launch is going to be great and stuff.” It wasn’t perfect the first time around. It wasn’t perfect the first couple of times.
I feel like a lot of people are trying to make it perfect the first time around. Then because of that, they’re never happy and then they don’t want to put it out there in the world. Where in fact, I mean the reason why people are taking courses it’s to have a transformation of some kind to learn something. It’s not to have beautiful design and looking at the beautiful slides. That’s not why people are doing it. I recently launched a new program and one of the students was like, “Kamila, how did you do this? What did you use for these slides and what did you use for this and the set up?” I’m like, “Why are you asking me these things? You need to actually create something first and get people through it. This is like my, I don’t know, 20th course.
It wasn’t the first thing that looked like this. The first thing was like random PowerPoint slides. There wasn’t anything fancy about it.” I feel like a lot of people are kind of stuck on that because they sign up for these amazing beautiful courses where people have huge budgets and they use that as the benchmark for excellence when that’s not really the case. That’s one of the big ones. I think another one too is a lot of people struggle with feeling like they’re a fraud because, “Well, there’s so many people that are doing what I’m doing or like what I want to do. What do I really have to say about that? Who am I to even like want to teach people about this? It’s been done before. What if they find out that I actually don’t know what I’m talking about?
What if they find out that I’m not whatever?” A lot of these kind of limiting thoughts and beliefs that come up about worthiness are very, very common and feeling like, “I’m not really an expert enough. I’ve only been doing it for a couple of years or like a year or whatever,” where in fact, you’re probably going to be teaching the people that have zero experience. Yes, you know a lot more and you can therefore teach people. Also, through teaching you’re going to be able to really zone in on how … Like what your theories are and opinions and like your framework. Because in the beginning, you’re going to have to go through a process that you use, but then things are going to get even more specific. Again it’s rooted and taking committed action.
A lot of people tend to be stuck in that kind of space. I think the last one too, I think the last one is just not knowing how to grow and having a bigger picture for it. They think that, “Okay. Well, this sounds cool. Maybe I’ll do that,” but then because there’s a lack of that vision for how exactly is that fitting into the bigger picture, the strategy, they tend to kind of hold themselves back or they do it and then they don’t do it in the way that is supporting their clients because they think that, “Okay. Well, I’m going to be promoting something that I know they need,” where people actually are not going to sign up for something that you think they need. They’re going to buy something that they want and they consciously know that they want.
It’s kind of a different approach to that as well. I feel like these are probably the most common ones.
Chris Badgett: That’s very cool. Very cool. I kind of want to tap into some of your expertise for the listener and get some tactical tips and just learn from you. One of your specialties is Facebook ads. If somebody is like approaching that scale up phase, there’s like … You have an eBook I believe on your site about this that I encourage people to download. I just downloaded it. I just started reading it, but you talk about the three key things that people need. Can you tell us a little bit about that if somebody’s going to go to Facebook ads? Because I think a lot of people try it and if it doesn’t make any money or it’s cash flow negative, they try it for $100. They’re scared to spend $1,000 on it.
What do you tell the people who are trying to scale in Facebook ads? Let’s bring some sanity to the conversation.
Kamila Gornia: The biggest thing that I see people kind of struggling with Facebook ads is … Well, the biggest thing is they don’t have the strategy. There’s been people that come to me and they want my support on that Facebook ads front. They’re like, “Kamila, I’m going to do Facebook ads. My business is going to just blow up.” I’m like, “Great. What is your strategy?” They’re like, “Well, Facebook ads are my strategy.” Like, “No. Facebook ads are not the strategy. Facebook ads are like the traffic. Facebook ads are the tactic to get the people, but where are we sending them? Then what happens? Then what happens?” A lot of people don’t realize that Facebook ads are not the strategy.
Facebook ads are amazing and they will support you in getting the perfect people towards what it is that you have, but if your funnel is not set up properly, if there’s no funnel, of course you’re not going to get sales. I mean why would you get sales if you’re not selling anything at the end of that funnel? I would say that’s probably the biggest thing from people that I at least encounter a lot is just that lack of strategy, lack of that bigger picture of how are Facebook ads actually playing a part in this entire process. The other thing is a lot of people are a little bit uncertain about how much to spend and what to expect from that. Because again we like to compare ourselves to everything else. We’ll see somebody posting that they’re getting like 12 cent leads and they’re like, “Okay.
That’s my benchmark. 12 cent leads,” where in fact that’s not normal. That’s incredible result, but that’s not what happens for most campaigns. That’s not to say our clients haven’t gotten that. Pretty much every client has gotten really, really inexpensive leads at one point or another, but that’s not what we aim for because it’s not average. When we break it down just to simple math like, “Okay. You’re launching a course. How many people do you need to get on the webinar if you want to get X amount of sales? Okay.
If we need to get these many people on the webinar and we’re expecting to pay anywhere from $4 let’s say average per lead, then you need to spend this much amount of money to bring this amount of sales,” if everything works in that example that we kind of layout which doesn’t always work that way of course. People are like, “Man, I spent $100. I spent $200. I didn’t get any sales.” I’m like, “Of course, you didn’t get any sales because nobody saw the pitch.” It doesn’t make any sense. It’s actually not that hard to just really understand what you need to invest. You do need to invest a good portion to really see what you need.
Now that’s not to say that you can’t spend just $5 per day for a little while and like get people onto your list and have a really simple funnel with like a low cost offer or something. You can totally do that and you can maybe even break even if you’re lucky. That’s awesome and that happens for many people. Again it’s having patience and it’s being able to test and knowing that unless you’re open to losing the money you’re putting into Facebook ads, you’re presenting yourself up to not be very happy with how it’s going to work. Facebook ads change all the time. That’s probably the biggest thing.
Even within ad sets and audiences, that changes all the time too because competition and how many people are running ads to these audiences and just how much text you have on an image and just relevancy. That’s all going to affect how much Facebook is going to be sharing your ads in front of people. How much of your spending even per click is going to differ. Per lead, of course, it’s going to differ even more. Unless you’re willing to just come into it with an experimentation mindset and learning and coming into it as you can’t really fail because even if I get no leads, at least I’m going to know why people don’t really like this thing, it’s going to be not a very fun ride for you. I think that’s one of the big ones as well.
I think lastly too, a lot of people when they’re scaling ads they go from paying at like $10 per day per audience or per ad set and then they go to like a hundred immediately. They’re like, “Oh, I have all this budget. I’m ready. This is working. Let’s do it.” That’s not what I recommend either because what happens with Facebook, that’s a little bit interesting and we had one of our clients that was kind of facing this recently where she was in positive ROI when the budget was at like … I think it was like a hundred per day. Then we scaled it up slowly and then eventually the ROI started to break even and then it was a negative ROI. When we were spending less money, it was a positive ROI. The best thing you can do when you’re scaling is being …
When you’re moving into the scale part, being very aware of what’s going on with your ads and keeping a really hawk-eye on the ROI, how much you’re earning if it makes sense. Because just because you have more money to spend, doesn’t mean that your ads are going to be also performing in that same level. Facebook it’s really … I mean it’s a whole different beast. You just can’t guess what’s going to happen even if it theoretically should be working the way that you think it should be working. Scaling slowly. Adding just a couple of extra dollars per day and then keeping that really focus attention, laser attention, on performance is definitely going to take you far.
Chris Badgett: That’s great. Well, I really appreciate that and thanks for all that insight into Facebook ads and paying for traffic, making sure you know your economics and what are you pointing them to, what is the sales funnel. Not just pointing them to the homepage of whatever. In terms of like the offer itself, if we go through that to the offer and what we’re offering, one of the things I notice about you is you have like all these different things. You have a membership site. You have a mastermind. Can you tell us kind of what your product suite is and where you’ve been at that?
Kamila Gornia: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. This is probably one of my faults because I am creative and I love creating offers. I have a ton of offers and I create new things all the time that are a little bit more standalone and they’re more like spontaneous if you will. I’m not going to mention my low cost things because there’s a ton of those and they’re all moving into something else. Everything I create is very strategically created. It’s not like a random thing because somebody wants it and I’m creating it and it doesn’t follow into something else. There’s always a flow.
The bread and butter for me is my mastermind which is a high ticket, it’s 10 months now, 10 month program for entrepreneurs that are like around or at or pass six figures and they’re looking really to get to multiple six figures with leverage offers, sales funnels, paid traffic, launching, courses and programs and things like that. That’s my main thing. That’s the thing that eventually I want everybody to go into because that’s what’s making most of my money. Now the things that are before that, I have my authority launcher program which is like kind of self-study, but not. It’s kind of group self-study. It’s a very differently structured program than like anything that’s out there right now.
It’s about setting up your marketing to position you as an authority basically online. Really amazing program. I love this program. Again everything kind of goes into that because that’s where I want people to go. Then they’re ready for the mastermind. That’s kind of the flow from there. These are like the two main ones, the flagship ones, that I would say. I also have my Telesummit course, the Business Famous Telesummit Formula. This is kind of a standalone course, but again when people take that, they’re much more likely to be a good fit for the mastermind so it make sense that they would be taking that. I have a Facebook ads course as well, Rapid Growth Facebook Ads System. Again people that take that might be a good fit for the mastermind because we talk about Facebook ads.
I have a whole bunch of other things. Is there anything else that is like a standalone passive-ish … No, I think these are the main ones. I have my membership site. My membership site at the time of this recording it’s called The Society, the #WebOnlineMarketingSociety. I’m actually going to be rebranding that The Vault. It’s going to be Marketing Vault. Because I create so much content, it’s basically where all my trainings, my smaller content things that I create that people are going to have access to, like a vault of just marketing trainings and things like that. That’s another thing that I have and these are really the main things that I move people into.
Then all the smaller things, even the higher ticket things like workshops and stuff that I do, I mean they obviously make sense to move into something else at the backend of that, but I need to have that space for my creativity to flourish to. If everything was planned out and that’s all I was selling all year without giving myself space to like, “Oh well, what about this,” I would just not be happy. It’s allowing me to fuel that creative side of me, but also having that steady secure projecting kind of income base for my business to really be solid as well.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. That was a five minute masterclass on funnel design right there while still being true to your artistic, creative needs. That’s awesome. Well, let’s speak to the already successful online course or membership site. They’ve got a training vault if you will. I recently saw that you did a 185K launch on your mastermind I believe.
Kamila Gornia: Yup. A year ago.
Chris Badgett: If somebody’s like, “Okay. I did it. I have a successful membership site. I have a successful online course. I want to try this mastermind thing,” can you share your experience and what you learned? What works great? Where does most of the value come from? What are some pitfalls to potentially avoid? How big or small should it be? Should it be live? Should it be online? Should it be both? Take us to school.
Kamila Gornia: Before I talk about that, I want to just differentiate between a mastermind and a group program because a lot of people that create masterminds are actually creating group programs. I see a group program as something where everybody starts in a similar place and they’re all ending in a similar place as well. You’re taking them through a curriculum where you’re teaching people very specific things and they’re all going through together. You have live group calls, online calls and supporting them in that way. Most people are actually … Especially course creators, that’s the next step for them versus starting a mastermind because it’s easier. It’s easier flow, easier organization and that kind of stuff.
I have that. I’ve had for a little while too. A mastermind is more so where you bring people and there are kind of different levels. They might want to focus on different things, but there’s an overall theme that’s similar. People all start in different places. People are ending in different places because everyone’s kind of focusing on their own path and then everyone’s coming together and supporting each other to really step up in that high level. My mastermind, I did it. It was the first launch for my mastermind a year ago. 187 I think it was thousand. It was the first mastermind I’ve ever done, so definitely a lot of things that I learned through the process. The one that I’m launching now is quite a bit different.
That one was 12 months. It was a lower ticket. Most masterminds are about like anywhere from 20,000 up to like … I mean I know some people that do $100,000 masterminds.
Chris Badgett: Those are like for the course of a year, six months or what?
Kamila Gornia: A year. Yeah. The reason why I created this too from a business perspective is because I wanted to have that projection. I wanted to know that I’m solid for a year. I know how much I’m earning and I’m good. Then everything else I’m doing, I can kind of breath. From the business perspective, that’s why, but then also I knew about myself that I love working on like more bigger things, the launching, the funnels and all that kind of stuff and being able to support people in that kind of way. Also, I like teaching, but I don’t love teaching how to’s. I prefer to do it once and then people have it and then they can get to it versus me iterating it over and over and over again.
With a mastermind, I’m able to support people on a high level strategy just like how do we grow, how do we leverage, how do we get to the next level which is something that I excel at and I love doing. Everything else that was how to I have prerecorded and people can have access to that and stuff like that in like the group formats and stuff. With this I wanted to stay at that high level strategy. Lets freaking rock this. It’s going to be awesome. I did kind of a blend for this one. We also included two in person retreats as well for this because I wanted to have that in person intensive kind of feel. The reason why it was a little bit of a blend is because I included one-on-one calls with me once a month for these people.
Then plus, we had a training call every month and then we had like two additional group calls so people could support each other. What I learned for sure is because I combined two things, I combined the group program with a mastermind, it was a little bit confusing for people or at least that’s kind of the impression I got. I mean people got incredible results. Tons of people quit their jobs. They retired their spouse and they just like, “I really blew it out the water.” Because I wasn’t as specific about who I wanted to attract for this, I mean I was, but then I was kind of more like, “Okay. It’s my first one. It’s okay if you’re not quite there. Let’s just bring you in so that we have people.”
Because I was a little bit more lenient, I wasn’t able to actually support people on that high level that I wanted. Some people were still in that … They should actually been in a different program versus this. That was kind of something that I definitely learned and I understood. We had two different levels as well. Again that’s the impression that I got is some people were confused about it because some people got specific features. Others didn’t get those extra features and it was just like confusing on communication of that. Like, “Oh, we have a group call, but it’s only for these people and not those other people.” It was just like, “Oh, what’s going on?” I was confusing myself. For this one that I’m launching right now, one level.
Very straightforward. Very simply. They know they want to blow up in that way with the scaling. We’re not talking about like, “Here’s how to get one-on-one clients. Here’s how to do all that stuff,” which is a big part of what we talked about in the first mastermind. I know how to get clients. I’ve supported my clients to like get tons of clients, but it’s not what I’m most excited about teaching. I’m more excited about again that more leverage-based model. I’m making it very clear. Now I’m like, “Great. If you want support, I will help you, but know that we’re going to be focused on this. You are a good fit if you want to have huge courses and memberships sites and group programs that do events and that kind of stuff so that you can be seen as an authority.
You know that you’re going to have to run ads to make it happen. You know that you’re going to need to hire a team to make it happen.” It’s just more specific from that perspective. I do find that for mastermind I personally find that it’s better when it’s smaller. My previous mastermind was about 18 people. I like that number because not everybody shows up to calls anyways. If you want 12 people to show up for calls or retreats, then 18 people might be a good fit for you in terms of like who you want to bring in. Group programs, you can really make it much bigger.
It’s really going to depend on how you’re going to structure your group calls if it’s going to be laser coaching, if it’s going to be hot seats where people have more time for themselves to get support, if it’s going to be just training. If it’s going to be just training and just straight Q and A, you can have a lot of people. One of my colleagues who was a mastermind coach, she has like 90 people in her mastermind. It’s a ton of people, but because of the structure that she has for it, it kind of made sense a little bit more. It’s really kind of brainstorming on how do you want to support people and always starting with yourself too. A lot of people say like start with the clients.
Honestly, I want to have business that I’m excited about because if I’m starting with the clients and only thinking about the clients, then I’m going to create a business that I’m not excited about just because someone else is telling me to do that. I start with myself, how do I want to support people and then looking at what do they need and then finding a happy medium between the two.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that experience. I want to ask you something about working with your tribe. Sometimes you have these free opt-ins, maybe some free exchange on Facebook, Facebook group, social media, wherever. You might have some lower priced things. Then there’s like the membership and then there’s just like high ticket mastermind thing. Besides obviously like having a budget for the mastermind, what makes …
If somebody has like a nice size audience and membership site and they’re thinking about getting into it and maybe they’re scared that like, “I don’t know if anybody would actually go for my big mastermind thing,” what would you say to that person and how do you identify the people? What makes people different that are really ready for that, that appreciate that?
Kamila Gornia: Well, I would make sure that the offers, the low ticket offers, you’re creating are setting people up to be ready for that big mastermind. I have a lot of stuff about Facebook ads. People that are interested in Facebook ads have the money to spend on Facebook ads likely which means they might be more open to mastermind kind of stuff. Not always, but very frequently. There’s people that focus on very, very beginner stuff like how to set up, I don’t know, something really basic. Then on the backend they have this big mastermind that’s about like high level stuff and there’s the disconnect because well, of course people that are newer they’re going to want to know how to do these DIY stuff. They’re not going to want to spend money on it.
Of course, most people are not going to be ready for that mastermind, but it’s really setting up and framing everything in a way that is supporting you in that growth and then using very specific words that are attracting those right kind of people. Even when you talk, even in your emails, it’s just mentioning that big program, mentioning that this is how you work with people, mentioning this is what your vision is for people and how you like to support people and then the right people are going to stick around. If the first mastermind has to be like four, five people or six people, that’s okay too because those can be very, very effective as well. It’s not even stressing out too much about like are people going to want it or not.
If you’re setting everything, if you’re setting these kind of breadcrumbs for people to take and they’re all going to be ending up at that place, you should be fine. If you only have like 50 people on your email list, I mean it’s going to be a little bit tough that’s for sure. Maybe you’re going to have to lower the price for the first one like mine was much lower in price for the first one because it was my first one. It’s really like looking at what can you do to make it a success for yourself. If it means not doing the recommended thing that everyone’s saying to do, that’s okay because it’s supporting you in your own personal growth in your business.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Well, Kamila Gornia, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to thank you for coming on the show and honor you. I feel like you came on here and you just gave and gave and gave so much knowledge and insights. I’d encourage people to go to KamilaGornia.com and there’ll be a link in the show notes and all that stuff and check out what she’s up to over there. Just thank you for coming on the show and thank you so much for sharing so much great experience with the listener.
Kamila Gornia: Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. It was a lot of fun and I’m excited to support. If anyone has any follow up questions, I’m happy to support.
Chris Badgett: Is there anywhere people can connect with you besides your website?
Kamila Gornia: You can find me on my Facebook business page, too. You can message us on there. Yeah, we can talk.
Chris Badgett: All right. Well, thanks again for coming on the show.
Kamila Gornia: Thank you.
