Confidently launching a paid community and optimizing for business growth ahead of author’s book launch
SD Byock is a psychotherapist in private practice and the founding director of The Salome Institute of Jungian Studies, where she teaches and hosts other speakers online. Her clinical work and writing focus on how developmental psychology attends to the first twenty years of adulthood. Her book Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood was published by Random House in July 2022.
In the months leading up to her book being published, Satya knew her business was at a major inflection point for growth. The publicity for the book launch would bring a lot of increased attention to her work. With essentially three different brands (her private practice, her work as a thought leader, and the institute) and a number of online properties, Satya and her small team lacked clarity on how to best direct that attention and how to have everything work together more cohesively.
"There were a lot of questions around how these different brands were going to make sense together and how the online presence was going to work with a bunch of websites and how it was all going to come together. I had some notion of what I needed and needed help with, but there was a variety of things that were outside of our scope of understanding, so I reached out to Sam."
Identifying priorities and gaining more cohesion
I worked with Satya and her team first to establish a roadmap and then support them as a Fractional CTO in the lead up to the book launch.
We started with the innovation roadmapping process to define the post-book reality and quickly narrow in on a strategy to focus Satya’s team’s on a small number of high-priority, high-leverage efforts for what they were trying to accomplish. Satya says she and her team members enjoyed the roadmapping sessions and the process of diving into their core values and getting a better picture of their mission.
”Sam has an extraordinary capacity to listen deeply to each team member and understand what they are saying in both the minutiae and the big picture, to digest it, and feed it back. He’s able to see and articulate the core values and the direction of the company and really see all of the different parts and how those are working together, or not. It was supportive for us in gaining cohesion overall of where we had been and where we were headed.”
One of the early choices that we worked through was choosing which of the online properties would be critical to capturing the attention generated by the book’s publicity. We decided on two main umbrella properties (Satya’s author site and the Institute’s site). We shut down two other blogs Satya had previously set up, pulling in the popular articles into the two main sites to consolidate the SEO and inbound marketing opportunities.
I encouraged working with a designer to develop a consistent, well-designed, high-quality design system and assets that would harmonize and elevate the quality of the marketing efforts and the two core websites. As the Fractional CTO, I helped find and onboard a designer that would be the right fit and supported the implementation of the website redesign.
Starting a membership / subscriber program and integrating new tools to help grow the business
After establishing an understanding of Satya and her team’s goals, I reviewed their customer data and calculated the number of repeat customers and the average customer lifetime value. Based on all that information, I recommended that Satya and her team launch a membership / subscriber program for Institute customers, which would help establish a private community for members to share while also creating a new revenue stream.
I also recommended using Circle as a community platform for the program. Unlike other options, Circle could both be implemented quickly and offered an opportunity for more community-driven discussions rather than hinging on Satya’s postings alone.
“I had vaguely thought about doing a subscriber program before, but never really bothered exploring it. I don't think we would have launched one without Sam's strong encouragement. He also strongly encouraged that we use Circle and argued against some other solutions we were thinking of. It really shifted the way I run classes online. We've been able to incorporate this new technology in a beautiful, seamless way.”
Circle was just one of the platforms and tools I recommended and helped Satya and her team set up to support growth. We added Slack and Notion as new internal tools to help streamline discussion and workflow. To help in the marketing of the book, we used Geniuslink to smartly handle URL distribution (including connecting to online bookstores and redirecting traffic to the appropriate country-specific website based on the user’s location) and track conversions so the team could identify and double down on successful marketing efforts.
I provided a variety of backend support throughout the project. Ensuring emails landed in the inboxes of subscribers and media representatives was crucial, so I worked intently on setting up DNS and DMARC/SPF records to maximize email delivery.
Throughout our work together, Satya says she appreciated having the benefit of having access to my knowledge and recommendations to help them level up both in terms of internal team strategy and customer-facing work.
“He really pushed our team and the company to grow in ways that I have either resisted or would not have ever imagined moving towards. He doesn't shy away from offering strong opinions and pushing the client in the direction that’s right for them. He does that in a way that's truly based in knowledge and insight of the work and not just being pushy. I appreciate his incredible wealth of knowledge and expertise, but also the grace that he brings. He’s such a great human being. He’s kind, he's funny, everyone loves working with him.”
Entering new phase of the business with increased confidence and agility
Satya says our work together helped define the post-book reality for the business, expanded her understanding of what was possible, helped her and her team understand cohesively where they were headed, and ultimately helped bring the company to a new level. She says the team have been able to be more effective and streamlined in their work in both the lead up to the launch and on an ongoing basis.
“Sam’s experience as a CTO in so many different ways really allowed us to very quickly make decisions and then fix problems that arose. I can't even imagine the roadblocks we might have otherwise encountered. Getting tools such as Notion and Slack integrated into our teamwork has also enabled us to be much more efficient and agile than we had been before. It’s gotten us significantly off of email and out of 60 Google Docs and allowed much more cohesive conversations.”
Now on the other side of two major launches — the book having launched in July 2022 and the subscriber program shortly thereafter in August — Satya says she feels confident that she and her team are better equipped to meet the opportunities and challenges ahead.
“I feel like we're appropriately meeting this next phase of the company with the right technology under our belt versus trying to do it with the wrong look and feel or the wrong backend technology. Without Sam, we would be hamstrung without the right tools we need to be agile as a team internally and to provide for our customers. His work was instrumental in supporting us to grow in the right direction. I think that he's a game-changing colleague. The level of expertise he brings and the kind of person he is, he's worth the investment and I strongly recommend him.”