In 5th grade (and beyond), I was bullied because of the shape of my nose.

Now, at the age of 43, I’m getting bullied for my teeth.
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That’s the part I completely forgot to tell you about last week, Reader!

Just a few days before I started making money from my live webinar funnel, I had to deal with Meanies on the Internet.

(If you’re just joining us, I’m recapping the results of an experiment: 25 webinars in 29 weeks. Read all about week 1 and week 2 to get caught up.)

I’m not going to lie - this STUNG. It wasn’t even just one person! I know that people who say shitty things online are mostly sad, unsuccessful people, but paying to reach people who bully you?

Awesome.

I wanted to take down the ad, but I couldn’t - it was the video getting me the best results.

My client Alicia scolded me: “What are you doing looking at your own comments??” I laughed because I’m always yelling things like this at my clients.

When you get comments on an ad, they show up the same place as comments on any Reel or post: in your notifications.

So now? I literally avoid my notifications on IG. (It’s not too big of a deal - I mostly use IG for conversations, and it’s rare for bullies to get into your primary inbox there.

Back to our story.

t was Monday again, time for webinar #3. I decided to hop on 5 mins early to try to get engagement going in the chat, since that part felt really great the week before.
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But only 2 people actually answered my “so tell me where you’re watching from!” prompt. And I sat there awkwardly waiting for more engagement.

When I asked attendees to share what their businesses were, I got a few more answers: a real estate agent, a home remodeling business owner, and someone else whose business was related to homes/houses.

My brain went crazy: THESE AREN’T THE RIGHT PEOPLE. I’M NEVER GOING TO MAKE ANY SALES.

(I have nothing against home-related business owners, but my 2nd slide was all about the training before for coaches and course creators! FML FML FML.)

I launched into the training, and about 2 minutes in, I could tell I wouldn’t make a single sale.

Nt because of the people who were registered or who show edup live…
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It was because I was racing through the content. I read the slides word for word and added nothing else.

I didn’t mean to go so quickly, but I could feel a bit of panic in my body the whole time. It was like my brain was saying “get through it, get through it, get through it.”
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And I was right - no live sales. No replay sales either.
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When I told my coach how quickly I had gotten through the teaching and started on the pitch, she remarked that there probably wasn’t enough time for people to connect emotionally to my story.

A friend experienced with regular webinars said "Some weeks the vibe is just off, no matter what you do."

So that was:

• $2134 in ad spend
• 126 registered
• 29 live attendees
• 0 sales.

To write this email, I went back to a voice message that I sent to my husband the afternoon after this bombed webinar. I had rambled to him for 9 mins about:

1. Our morning/camp drop-off routine with 3 kids at 3 different camps, and
2. Everything that felt awkward during the webinar.

Of course there were the usual thoughts like “this offer will never sell to cold” and “I’m terrible at this” and “I just wasted $2k on ads”, but there was more than that:

That rambling voice message ended up being a list of everything I would change before the next webinar.

I was happy to have changes that could really make a difference, but I hated the fact that I’d have to wait a whole week to try them out.

That was just my first taste of the mixed feeling of hope and dread that would show up consistently on Tuesday mornings as the Wait For The Next Webinar commenced.

More about that next time.
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Thanks for following along, Reader!

Claire

P.S. If you're into this kind of radical transparency, you might want to check out an audio series that a friend of mine is coming out with next week.

It's all about how different business owners are actually using AI (and grappling with the effects it's having on our industry).

It costs zero dollars - check it out here: Fly On The Wall Series​

P.P.S. That ad with the mean comments is still running! Because it's working. I blocked the initial bullies, deleted their comments, and now my assistant reviews and responds to all comments on social.