Ruth Poundwhite [00:00:00]:
I ran two big sales last year. One of them I can tell you everything about, but the other one just takes up space in my head labeled, that didn’t go great and I couldn’t tell you any reason why. So today I’m going to share why that difference actually matters and how I recommend that you should be debriefing your sales. Welcome to the Soulful Sales show, where we talk about believing in the value of your offers, getting them in front of your right people, and selling more of what you do in your unique way. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of the Soulful Sales Show. So, in today’s episode, I want to be honest about something I’ve been a slight bit of a hypocrite about. So I tell everyone to debrief every sale, every launch that they run, every event that they run. And, you know, I do debrief my events and my launches, but there are always some that I just avoid debriefing.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:00:54]:
And there was this sale that I ran last year that I never properly debriefed. The reason that I’m bringing this up now is that I just sat down to plan my birthday sale for this year. So that’s all planned and coming soon. By the way, if you want to know first what is on sale for my birthday sale this year, go to ruthpoundwhite.com forward/bday. It is starting on Monday if you’re listening to this at the time of release. Anyway, back to the point of this episode. While I was planning my birthday sale, I realized that the birthday sale I ran last year, which was a big sale in the sense that there was a different offer or a different daily deal for like an entire week. So it’s a big sale and I never properly debriefed it.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:01:42]:
So of course I can go back. I can see the emails I sent, I can see what kind of sales I made if I trawl through all my transactions. But I never did a debrief of what specifically worked. I never dove into it or all I have in my head is this sense of that didn’t go well. It’s. It’s a vague feeling. Contrast that to when I ran my Black Friday sale, which was a similar sort of sale. So daily deals, I debriefed that one properly and really interestingly.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:02:11]:
Still, I have a story about that in my head. Like, that went a lot better than my birthday sale, but it was a lot of work. I still didn’t remember the details of it, but it’s okay because I did a proper debrief that I could pull up and I could find out the details from. So one of them I could get into all of the reasons why it did or didn’t work and what worked well, what I would do differently. The other one is just a. That didn’t work so good and kind of this, this feeling of like winging it when it comes to running the next birthday sale and improving on it. So what I did was I, with the help of AI, of course, I did go back and I was able to kind of reconstruct some of details of the birthday sale that I ran last year. So I pulled my transaction data out of ThriveCart.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:03:00]:
Thank goodness for the kit connector in Claude, because that meant it could go through the emails I sent. I could see, you know, how often I emailed what I sold and all of that stuff and kind of piece it together. But the first part of that is it’s time consuming to do that after the fact, especially when I don’t really remember it at all. Like it’s all out of my head. It was a year ago now and it still didn’t include as much detail at all as my Black Friday debrief. So for Black Friday, I had a proper debrief call with my mastermind. I also made a spreadsheet of all the specific numbers. I debriefed it in my membership and I summarized it all in a Google Doc.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:03:44]:
So it wasn’t just headline numbers, which I’m able to kind of reconstruct from last year’s birthday sale. It was also how did it feel or, you know, what things did I notice as I was running it in terms of the practical stuff and the feelings as it was going, like, there’s so much more to it than just those headline numbers that I’m able to kind of reconstruct from last year’s sales. And it was because I put in the work at the time to debrief the sale while it was fresh in my mind. And I think a lot of us avoid this part of a launch because firstly, if you’re neurodivergent, you probably have that thing where the launch is done and in your brain that means you don’t need to think about it ever again. I totally understand that and that is how my brain works as well. However, it’s not fully done until you debrief it. Because the debrief is really important for your future launches. The debrief may not matter to the launch that you have just completed, but it will really matter when you make decisions about launches going forward.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:04:47]:
So when I sat down, I was reconstructing last year’s birthday sale, and I had much more data available for this year’s Black Friday sale. What I really noticed was that I had an idea in my head about what worked better about the latter, what didn’t work about a format. And when I actually dove into the debrief that I had made for myself at the time, I realized that there were clear markers, some things that I definitely shouldn’t repeat, that completely flopped even in the Black Friday sale, which was more successful. And had I not had that debrief, I probably would have put those same offers on sale again, because in my head, for some reason, I thought that they did fine and I forgot where the bulk of the sales actually came from. So it was so, so important for me to have that data. I think also there’s that element of how we feel about things that can muddy the data. So, like I said, there was a certain offer that I feel really strongly about and really passionate about that I wanted to put on sale again. And actually, when I looked at the data, the decision was very clear to me that I just should not bother with it.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:05:47]:
But had I not had that debrief there, I probably would have bothered with it again and completely wasted my time. But, yeah, I think a lot of us avoid it for that first reason. I totally went off on a tangent there where we think the launch is done, but actually the debrief is the gift to our future self. And the second reason we avoid it is we are tired or potentially the launch didn’t go the way we wanted. And it feels like a lot to have to look at it. And if this is the case for you, then I do think you can have a bit of a break before you do the debrief. But I do really want, really want to encourage you to put that work in, because a little bit of work when it’s all fresh in your mind will save you a ton of work later on. I have started being really, really more.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:06:31]:
More. What’s the word? Like, militant. I don’t think that’s the exact word I’m looking for, but we’ll run with it. About forcing myself to do the debrief. And one thing that’s really helped for me is to book in a call with my assistant way in advance. So, like, I know the launch is going to end on a certain date. I’ll book the call with my assistant in advance and just talk it out loud. They don’t even necessarily have to ask me any questions.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:06:53]:
Just having them there is like that accountability to actually do it. And the AI note taker can make the notes. You could also book a call with a business peer. I have done that as well. Or mastermind group if you have that. Or if like me you have a membership where it would be useful for you to share it with your members. That is a great accountability thing for me to for force myself to do the debrief. And my members always love the behind the scenes stuff.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:07:17]:
I will also say that you can just use AI on your own. So I love a tool called Whisper Flow. I’ll put my affiliate link to that in the show notes. And the reason I like this more than just using the voice mode on AI is it’s way, way more accurate. It also stores the transcripts of the recordings you make in its own app. So sometimes I found that AI can lose what I have said on voice mode, which has been very frustrating at times. But yeah, if you have the motivation to do it on your own and just ramble, just record yourself talking and transcribe it, that can be really, really helpful. And a really specific tip in terms of the practical stuff that you should cover.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:07:56]:
Always get the facts first without any kind of judgment. So this many people open my emails, I sent this many emails, I got this click rates and you can use AI for a lot of this stuff if you have certain connectors. Previous episode of the podcast we just talked about connectors. So I use the kit connector. Claude can summarize that stuff for me using the connectors. And yeah, how many people viewed your sales page? How many people bought the offer? Stuff like that. How many email replies did you get? And then once you have noted the facts, then get to the feelings. Because what you don’t want to do is let a story influence your recording of the facts, if that makes sense.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:37]:
So a story that oh this isn’t good enough, I didn’t do very well. You want to get those numbers without judgment down and then talk about the feeling. So how did you feel during the launch? How is your energy? How do you feel about the results? Do you have any gut feeling about what you could do differently? All of this stuff. I actually have a full debrief template and an AI bot to walk you through the debrief in the Soulful Sales Society membership that’s@ruthpoundwhite.com SSS but yeah, simple tip for you. Facts and numbers first, feelings second. And the really important part of this is however you do it, especially if you are using AI or using transcripts. So when I’ve had a call with my assistant, I would always put the transcript into AI to kind of summarize it in categories and bullet points. The thing that you must not skip is actually saving this debrief somewhere proper.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:09:29]:
So I don’t know about you, but if I have conversations with my AI and make debriefs, it can feel very productive and very helpful in the moment. And then when it comes time to actually find it and use it, I have no idea where I’ve put it. So really, really important to to store it somewhere safe. I almost thought I had lost my Black Friday debrief, and then I realized it was in a proper Google Drive folder. So thank you to past me. Do not just leave it in an AI chat. Okay? So yeah, it’s really, really important to debrief. And I have found that especially sales that you run again and again and again, or events that you run again and again and again.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:10:06]:
So, for example, at the moment I’m in the planning stage for my seventh summit. The debrief process has made a huge difference to the decisions I make for my summits. Like, every time I run a summit or a launch, there’s always a kind of a point of friction or something about it that drained my energy or that didn’t quite work the way I wanted it to. It’s so helpful for me to name that so that I can improve it next time. So, for example, in my summit, every year, I’m kind of streamlining the process. So now in the application form, I’m getting the speaker bio and the headshots and everything at the application form stage so that I don’t have to send successful speakers an additional form after they have been approved. It’s a really, really small difference that actually makes a big difference in terms of the admin and the workload involved when I run the event again. And something else that’s really, really helpful is also having kind of a record of how you did things.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:11:04]:
So one of the parts I often find difficult about a launch is making decisions about how many emails should I send a day. What should the format of the emails be? What time shall I send them? And if I have all that stuff listed, for example, from my Black Friday sale, I know I sent two emails a day at set times of day. I had a specific template for my emails. You know, if you have the AI connector going into your emails, it can even link out to each individual email so that you can quickly find them when you want them. That just saves me so much thinking for my next sale that I don’t have to worry about that stuff. I can just rinse and repeat the kind of overall structure of the launch from last time, assuming that worked. And if it didn’t work past me, wouldn’t have known exactly what I’ve done differently. And that decision is kind of already made for current me as well.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:11:50]:
So yeah, I hope that this is helpful. Short and sweet episode, but a very important reminder as to why debriefing a launch now or a sale or an event now is a gift to to your future self. It’s not about the event that you’re doing now, it’s about about the lessons that you will bring to the sale and event that you run later. And it’s okay if you don’t love looking back, but I really promise you that if you don’t do the looking back, you’re only ever guessing when you run your next launch or event. And if I guessed based on a feeling or a story like that didn’t go so well, then I’d have no idea why it didn’t go well, or what parts of it didn’t go well, or which parts did go well that I could expand on right and I couldn’t improve. Or I could improve, but it’d be like throwing spaghetti at a wall basically. So yeah, even if you just give yourself 20 minutes to ramble in a voice note, ideally use some sort of transcription software like whisper Flow, talk it out loud, get it summarized, the facts, the feelings, and then save it in a in a document where you can actually search for it and find it next time, even 20 minutes. Your future self is going to thank you for that.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:13:00]:
You will also probably see your results in a different light. So if you do have a negative story about how it went, it will probably shift that story as well. And like I said, I’ve just planned this year’s birthday sale. It’s going live on Monday, so get on the wait list to be the first to hear what is on sale. That is at ruthpoundwhite.com forward/bday and I’ll make sure that the link is in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Soulful Sales. If you have a moment to rate and review, know that it really does make a difference and if you would like to carry on the conversation then you can connect with me in the free community@ruthpoundwhite.com community or my personal favorite, Join me inside the Soulful Sale society membership@ruthpoundwhite.com forward/membership and keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.