Launching is not for the faint of heart.
I know many entrepreneurs and clients who feel exhausted by launching and who never want to launch again. It can be one of those things that you pour a ton of time and money into, without ever seeing any results.
And I get it — I’ve been there too!
But as a quick start, enneagram 7 and manifesting generating, there’s something about launching that I love. There’s a whole buzz about it and time for me and my team to focus our efforts on ONE THING.
I can be seduced by shiny object syndrome (maybe you can relate?), but launching keeps me focussed, “eyes on the prize,” honing in on ONE THING.
And the beauty of that?
It means you get to focus on improving something, instead of always creating something new.
That’s when entrepreneurship really starts to pay off!
Once a launch plan is created and you have all your launch assets paid for, you can repurpose it all, without having all those front-end expenses. It becomes more profitable, and because you’ve done it before, you might even find yourself loving the process.
Before I go into how to have a profitable organic launch — let’s look at some of the most common reasons why a launch may fail:
1. You didn’t talk about your offer and how it helps people enough during the launch.
2. You didn’t have enough pre-launch content to warm and nurture your audience.
3. Your offer didn’t match what your people *actually* want.
4. Your messaging wasn’t clear enough to communicate WTF the offer is and how it serves your audience.
5. You didn’t send enough emails to your list (or maybe you didn’t send any emails).
6. You had zero way for people to get to know you or ask you questions during the launch process (like a book a call button, DM you or chatbot on your sales page).
7. You didn’t ask for feedback from your ideal clients when you were crafting the offer or you didn’t do any market research ahead of time .
8. You are so attached to the outcome of the launch that you weren’t open to anything amazing happening.
9. You didn’t believe in yourself.
10. Your buying process was complicated or your checkout page wasn’t smooth or your price was too LOW. (It’s not true that lower prices attract more people. In fact, it can often be quite the opposite!).
11. Nobody bought immediately so you stopped believing in yourself, your offer, your work and you stopped showing up (talk about sabotaging yourself!).
Do you relate to any of the above points? Maybe more than a few?
No shame or judgement here, but it’s helpful to look at how we’ve dropped the ball or where we fell short, in order to make improvements. Because then you can focus on how to make it work.
Now let’s dig into how to plan for a successful organic launch:
BEFORE YOU LAUNCH, DO RESEARCH TO CLARIFY YOUR OFFER
Before you launch, long before your cart opens, your primary objective is to clarify and validate your offer, to test and validate your content ideas, which will pay off during your launch.
There’s no point in selling something people don’t want, is there?
It’s important that you test your concept & ideas ahead of time, to gauge interest, get feedback, and make any changes to your offer, so you can plan for a profitable launch.
You’ll want to do some customer research to get clear on:
- What your clients are stuck with
- What their ideal solution is
- What’s holding them back from taking action
- What objections they may have about doing this work / buying your program
- What they’ve tried before to find a solution to their problem
It’s vital to capture your clients’ exact language during the pre-launch phase, so you can use their words in your copy and create an offer that they deeply desire.
Once you’ve gotten clear on the offer and what your clients want, it’s time to warm and nurture them with some great pre-launch content.
Sometimes people launch before they’ve taken the time to warm and nurture people. It’s kinda like dating and marriage. You usually spend some time getting to know someone before you ask them to marry you. Or before you say yes to marrying them.
Right? (I mean, not always I suppose, but you get the idea….)
Launching is like that too. You gotta warm people up with some free content, or maybe a low priced workshop, or newsletters & blog posts before you ask them to buy something.
Now onto the launch itself!
1. Commit to stay the course and show up for the ENTIRE open cart period, even if people don’t buy right away.
I’ve seen this so many times when someone launches and they *think* that 10 people will sign up right away.
And then? Crickets. Nobody signs up!
You panic. You feel shitty, embarrassed and like a failure, so instead of doubling down, you question yourself, your offer, your work and you back away, sabotaging yourself.
But here’s the thing: A lot of people need a reason to buy right away, otherwise, they will wait until the last day to purchase. You can add a really amazing fast action bonus if you’d like to incentivize people to buy right away (without making it fear or scarcity-based). And you need to be fully prepped and poised to show up FULLY for your own launch the entire cart open period.
(And you’re creating future clients in every launch. They may not buy this launch, but they sure as heck will buy next launch, so, stay the course!)
2. Talk about your offer, on repeat
In the 1930s, movie execs discovered that a certain amount of advertising and promotion was required to compel someone to see one of their movies and the rule of 7 was born.
The Marketing Rule of 7 states that a prospect needs to “hear” the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they’ll take action to buy that product or service.
This means during your launch period or open cart, you need to be talking about your offer ON REPEAT. Keep in mind that not everyone will hear or be tuned in every time.
It can feel like a lot, but it’s key to making sales.
When selling your offer, be sure you address:
- What the offer is and who it’s for (more on that here >> How to create an offer)
- How it helps them
- Why now is the time to buy it
- What outcomes/results they can expect
- How the thing is delivered
- Address any possible objections
- Outline your bonuses — which should be juiciest enough for reason alone for people to buy
- How they can reach out to you if they have more questions and where to sign up!
3. Manage your energy
Launching takes a lot of energy.
Not only are you doing a lot, but you’re also holding a lot of energetic space for others. Even if you don’t think you’re holding space for other people, you are.
And that can be exhausting.
When you’re building out your launch calendar, be sure to add in time for you. You need to look after you, so you’re not completely exhausted after your launch. I like to book in time to go horseback riding and have leisurely walks on the beach, because that’s what nourishes ME.
What nourishes you?
Book that into your launch calendar. I promise time off for you will add to your bottom line, not hurt it.
4. Let go of the outcome and allow yourself to be surprised and delighted
This means that your launch will likely not go as planned.
But guess what? It might be even better! You need to release all the work you’ve done to prep for your launch and let the universe do some of the heavy lifting.
So many people head into a launch with the idea that it’s going to tank….and guess what?
Your people can feel that.
>>You need to be excited for the possibility of what might happen.
>>You need to be so excited for the people to sign up for your offer.
>>You need to be connected to the essence of that which you’ve created.
People will “buy” your energy.
So if you head into a launch feeling super heavy, then there’s a good chance it’s not going to go well. But what if your expectations will be exceeded? What if the universe is going to deliver you the exact right number of clients?
I’ve had clients who didn’t get the number of sign-ups that they wanted during their launch, but, because they showed up, they attracted new private clients—which allowed them to exceed their revenue goals. Maybe the revenue wants to come in in a way that you’re not expecting?
I’ve also had clients that by the end of their launch, they’ve attracted an amazing collaborator or they’ve been asked to guest teach in someone else’s program. Magical things can happen, if you’re open to them.
At the end of the day, you don’t KNOW what’s going to happen, so give yourself some time and space to entertain the idea that it could be better than you ever imagined.
What if you believed it was going to be a raging success?
How would you show up then?
Now go do that! Happy launching!