34: The Backend Systems That Made My 5-Figure Live Program Launch Run Smoothly (For Solopreneurs)

Feeling overwhelmed by everything that needs to happen before your launch? In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I’m breaking down the exact systems, tools, and workflows I use to prep behind the scenes of a live program. From folder structure to Flodesk workflows and automating with Zapier, I’m giving you a real look at how I keep things organized, simple, and stress-free—even when I’m building from scratch. Whether you're launching your first offer or your fifth, you’ll walk away with actionable ideas to streamline the process.

To read the full show notes, CLICK HERE.

Things I cover inside the episode:
 ✨ How I organize Google Drive, docs, and forms
 ✨ The structure of my “launch Bible” doc
 ✨ My favorite tools: Zapier, Flodesk, Podia, Zoom
 ✨ How I automate onboarding + segment emails
 ✨ Why accountability pods + Q&A forms matter
 ✨ My SOP system (and why it saves me)

🔗 Helpful Links & Resources

• Try Flodesk for 50% off, unlimited pricing DISAPPEARS at the end of Nov '25 - don't miss out on this email marketing deal!
• Check out Podia for hosting your website, creating a course, selling products, and more
• Connect your platforms and make automations easy with Zapier

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Transcript

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I love to ask people a number of questions when they join my program. What are you struggling with? what does success look like at the end of this program? What's your name? What's your Instagram handle? Do you have an email list? Can you share your website with me? I like to do a little deep dive into every person that joins my program ahead of time. I like to have that starting relationship, even though I haven't. Probably met them yet, but honestly, 50% of the people that join my live programs, I have met them, whether it's in a previous program or in my current membership, which I kind of love. Hello. Hello. I am back with another behind the scenes look at what goes into a launch for me. So this is all in reference to live launching live programs. So this is not, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of things you could apply to like. Digital product type stuff that's evergreen and you sell forever. But I'm specifically talking about my live launches for live programs because I put a lot more effort into that than I do a digital product, which I'm not even really doing digital products anymore. It's like either you're, you want my membership and you're gonna come into my membership, or you want my live stuff and I, I don't. Really have an in between at the moment. And, you know, maybe that's a mistake, but, I just want people in my membership, all my good stuff lives there and I know there is so much value to be had inside of there. And I wanna attract people who really are ready to make a change or level up their business. And to me, a one-off little digital product. It's just not gonna get the job done. It doesn't for me personally, so I don't really feel great selling them and feeling like I can deliver on that transformation. So anyways. I wanna talk about, the first steps in launching. So I did an episode last week all about just figuring out what I wanted to launch, figuring out the name, the structure, the pricing, the dates, what support I wanted to have. the, the loose structure of the actual program and what is gonna be teaching inside of it and all that good stuff. And weightless, like building weightless. And this week it's. A little more boring, I would say, but it's the stuff that's necessary to have a smooth launch. So this is where, things like your Google Drive and flow Desk and zoom, that kind of stuff, right? So again, it's. Not sexy. It's not super exciting, but I do need to get all my ducks in a row before I open these doors. And for me, at this very moment, the doors open in a week and a half to my wait listers and my coven membership. And I need to get some things absolutely in place before that happens. I will tell you that I spent the entire weekend working on my. Sales page, and I'm not kidding, I will probably be tweaking my sales page and the pricing up until the moment the doors open. I have issues, I'm not gonna lie, but this is one of those areas where I'm just like, should I, shouldn't I? Is that good? Is that not good? I'm just back and forth and here and there and it wakes me up at night and it wakes me up in the morning. And that's just where we are at the moment. but I, besides the sales page, wrapping that up, I am absolutely still building my wait list every single day. And I have a Google folder. So inside my Google Drive, I have a folder called live programs. Inside that folder, I have, one called the Insta Canva Collective, which is my signature program. And now I have one called the Messaging Edit. And I have one called Start and Grow your email list, um, the live version of that. So I will just put the main name of the program and then when you click into the messaging edit folder, I'm gonna have a folder inside there called September, 2025. So, you know, I do probably plan to run this again, so I will have a folder for each of those different launches. So once you get into the September 20, 25 folder, you are going to see a folder called Google Forms and Spreadsheets, and then that's pretty much it for folders inside of there. Then I'll just start adding files inside of that folder. But what do I need? Number one, I need a Google Doc. That is gonna be called the messaging edit Fall 2025. And this is like my Bible. This is gonna have multiple tabs inside of it. Tab one is just structure notes. That is me. Just, you know, free styling, name, ideas, just any thoughts, ideas, messaging, pricing it, it launch dates. It's anything that comes to my mind for this program. And then I'm gonna have another tab called important links, and that's where we're gonna talk about these forms and stuff that I need to create ahead of time. So what does that include? It's a Google form. That's an initial questionnaire. So I love to ask people a number of questions when they join my program. What are you struggling with? what does success look like at the end of this program? What's your name? What's your Instagram handle? Do you have an email list? Can you share your website with me? I like to do a little deep dive into every person that joins my program ahead of time. It just, I like to have that starting relationship, even though I haven't. Probably met them yet, but honestly, 50% of the people that join my live programs, I have met them, whether it's in a previous program or in my current membership, which I kind of love. Um, so I've got that initial questionnaire. I also have an end of program questionnaire. So the second to last week of any program I run, I send out a Google form. And I ask, you know, how have you enjoyed this? What's been the best part of the program? What do you still need help with? Do you feel like your problem has been solved? All that kind of good stuff. And that's where I get a lot of really fantastic testimonials. And one of the last questions I ask. Is, is it okay if I share your responses publicly? Right. And they can say no, and that's perfectly fine. But that end of questionnaire, end of program questionnaire. I will give again the second to last week, not at the very end.'cause people are like super checked out at that point. I'll do it the second to last week and I will usually raffle off a prize to one person. So I'll put everyone's name in the hat. The last week who did fill it out and I'll raffle something off, whether it's like an Amazon gift card or like a free 30 minute call with me or something like that. again, just to get people to do it. I then have an accountability partner spreadsheet, I love offering inside my programs for people to join an accountability pod. So whether that's two people or three or whatever you want, it's that extra level of accountability. you can check in with that person once a week. It's up to you too. I basically say, I'm bringing you all together. You're all really great people. Here's a spreadsheet. Add your name if you want to grab an accountability partner. What you could do with this accountability partner is you can meet once a week. You could get on Voxer together. You could. on Slack, like however you communicate's, completely up to you. It's outta my hands once you find each other, and I have found that people absolutely love this option. I loved it when I did my first live program. I'm still friends with the woman that I ended up being a partner with, and we just really held each other accountable. It was, again, just that extra layer that I tend to need inside a program. And then there's a weekly q and a form. So we have weekly calls and I know that everyone can't always make it. So I always wanna give people an option to fill out any questions they have inside this Google form and I will answer them live. or it's just for people who just are shy. They don't wanna ask it live. They don't wanna unmute or they can't, they have kids home. Whatever. I don't care. Fill it out if you want your questions answered live. And then I usually have a call recording document where any and all document recording calls get put into. So those are the things inside important links. Okay, so we've got the structure notes. Which is just honestly brain dumps of everything I'm thinking for the program. Important links. This is just one place that I can go and find any important links that I know I'm gonna need. Then I've got, it's called the magnet method for this program, which is just me breaking down what I wanna teach weekly. and then I've got sales page. Notes. So anything related to the sales page is gonna go in there. Uh, DM responses is a tab. So if I'm asking for feedback on people, like, what's your biggest struggle with, you know, messaging and I'm gathering feedback, I will put all of those notes inside of the DM responses. Um, that's gold. That's, that's stuff I can use for my sales page. It's stuff I can use for my sales emails. It's just, it's the real voice of, of the my real dream clients. To be honest. And then right now I have a tab called Behind the Scenes Launch Flow. And that's actually where I'm just putting what I'm doing, like what I'm doing for this launch. And that's what I'm working off of right now to record this. It's just bullet points of what I need to create in order to get up and running and launch. Okay, so that's my. Folder inside of my Google Drive, and then that is all the kind of random documents that I need to create. Now, the next thing I had to do this morning was create all the Zoom calls. So I go into Zoom, I create a Recurring meeting for all my calls, and that means they all have the same link, which is really helpful for anybody inside my program in case they lose the link or whatever. Now, I won't invite people to that calendar zoom, call link until I have my final group otherwise. Adding people one off, it just takes too much time. So I tell everybody in the welcome email, I'll be inviting you all to these calls the day before we get started. So be on the lookout for those calendar invites. And again, that way I can just copy and paste everybody's email address who has signed up for the program. Now how do I get all those email addresses for everybody who has signed up? So I do create a Zap. Zap is from Zapier. It's like an if this, then that. so if someone signs up for this program on my Podia sales page, zap them onto this sales spreadsheet, what is included in that sales spreadsheet? Their first and last name, their email address, the date and time that they signed up. if they added on, like if I have a special add-on, like right now for the messaging edit, you can add on a call, like a one-on-one call with me at the end, and they will be added to that. Call'em, they'll get like a check mark if they signed up for that, what they paid for the program. And let's see, what else? I think that's it. Um, so I have that sales spreadsheet open the entire time I'm launching. What am I doing? I'm just looking at who's signing up. I'm making sure I'm reaching out to the people that signed up for one-on-one calls. I actually will add a column as well for if they're in the coven and mark that off. I just like to. Z and track how many people sign up for my live programs that are from my membership. the only thing that Zapier is zapping over is the date and time of their purchase, their name, their email address, and what they paid. The rest are things that I have to manually track. Okay. So, Once I get my community up and running, I do have to manually add everybody to the community. It's just the way it works for me. So again, I'll have a column on there as well, like added to the community. so it's just my way of tracking what I've done with the people that have purchased. And it's so that nobody falls through the cracks.'cause that's really important to me. I don't want anyone to feel like they're missing out or they didn't get something. so that's again, really important to me. And that, that just helps me figure that out. the next thing that I needed to do this morning was head into flow desks, create a segment called Customer, the messaging edit, September, 2025. And I created a workflow for when you purchase, so that workflow. Is just one email and it's just gonna say, welcome to the Messenger Gadi, and here are your next steps. And inside that email is basically asking'em to fill out that initial questionnaire so I can learn more about them telling them all about our Zoom calls and telling'em when they can expect to be invited to those Zoom calendar alert. Um, let's see what else. Telling'em about the community and giving'em a little video on like the walkthrough of the behind the scenes and telling them that I'll invite them To the community when our doors close and we have our 20 women or however many sign up. And that's basically it. Just saying, I'm so excited you're here. I can't wait to meet you. Work with you and learn all about your business. and then let's see here. Lincoln Bio. So I can't remember if I included this on the last episode, but I make sure that I include the wait list in my Lincoln bio with course start dates and, the week be, well, the week the doors open, or the day the doors open, I will actually change my link in bio. Instead of being my stand store link, I will actually just make it. The sales page for the messaging edit. So for one solid week or for however many days this program's open, my link and bio will just be directing people to the sales page. And the call to action above it will be join the messaging, edit, you know, 20 spots,$500 off for the first five days, whatever, some type of call to action. And I'll just get rid of all what is in my Lincoln bio right now and. that's just to make sure people know what's going on, and I really direct people that way. So for one week, yes, people white might not be able to find my freebies or they might not be able to find my main website, but that's okay. They'll, they'll figure it out if they really want to. And it's more important for me to get all eyeballs that I can on the messaging, edit, sales page, before the doors close. Let's see. The other thing I had to do was set up my community inside of Podia, so I have to set up a plan inside of Podia. Then I have to set up the topics. So what I love to do is create a topic. You can think of a topic as like a thread for each week, and that way when my students head in there. They can post their questions under the week that it correlates with. And again, this just keeps things organized for me and my co-coach. And then I also have one for just intros and random questions. I combine those two and people can introduce themselves there. I make sure that I go first once the doors open and say what I'd like to hear from everybody in their intros. And it's just a great way for everybody to get to know each other on those first couple. Of days. let's see. Gosh, guys, I feel like those are the main things. Uh, one other actually big thing I wanna talk about is having SOPs. So if you've never heard of an SOP, it's a standard operating procedure. My husband Rob, got insane with SOPs when we owned our gym. He had an SOP on how to clean the bathroom. I am, I'm literally not kidding. Like it was, I thought it was overboard, but he was just all about it can. What that means is when you create an SOP or a standard operating procedure about every single thing you're doing to prepare for or to do whatever you're working on, it means you can hand it off to somebody.'cause. Handing something off to somebody and just saying Hey, this is how I do it. You know, take some notes as I'm talking. Good luck. No, I need a list. I need to be able to follow step by step what I'm gonna do. So I have SOPs for every single live launch that I do, and it is organized by. Platform or place they need to go. So like Google Drive, here's a list of the five things you need to do in the Google Drive when you start a program, make a folder for the program. You know, add the Google intake form, blah, blah, blah. Then zoom, right? Then I have zoom listed. schedule your Zoom calls, right? Schedule the Zoom calls and make a call recordings doc for all the links. Flow desk, create a new segment, uh, create a workflow. So this is all listed out right in front of me, and I highlight them as I go. I know there's the notion and the Asana people out there. I'm not one of those girls. I, I just am not, I just, I, I'm just a Google Drive girl. I just wanna see this document. I wanna highlight things as I go. I wanna keep this real simple and straightforward and this is how I do it. So then, these SOPs are also organized by one month beforehand, and then two carts bef two carts. Then two weeks before the cart open, then one week before the cart open, and then the day before the cart opens. Then after the cart closes, so I have all the things listed out that I need to do before or during these different phases before a launch. So right now we are a week and a half before the cart open, and I only have two things listed. Make and update the graphics for social media and start drafting the launch emails. So that's what I'm gonna be working on after today, where I did all that, like non-sexy stuff, but the stuff that keeps my programs. Really flow beautifully and keeps me really organized. So I think that's what I've got today for behind the scenes when it comes to my launches. I hope this has been helpful for you and yeah, let me know if you have any questions. I'm always here for you. I.