I talk about my top tenets for launching a new product, digital or otherwise, and discuss how to correctly set expectations, whether this is your first launch or your fifteenth. Often we want plans that are more complex than necessary and don’t focus on the right parts of the process when performing a product launch. Feel free to use this episode as a guide to help you think through making the transition from service-focused businesses to products.
In this podcast, I cover:
- Submitting an application to the Residency, which will be open until December 1st
- Defining a launch as selling within a time frame
- Rethinking the concept of digital products as “passive income”
- Explaining my personal and professional launching experiences
- Diving into the Dos and Don’ts of your next launch
15 Launch Dos & Don’ts:
- No launch lives on its own. It’s either the first of its kind or an iteration.
Each launch performed by your business cannot just be a standalone launch. Launching is a learning process as well as a growing one. The first version of a launch is rarely a moneymaker and is instead a chance for you to develop something successful through experience.
- There’s no such thing as a launch that worked or didn’t work.
We have tons of research that can prove any marketing tactic and launch concept works and makes money. If the path you’ve chosen doesn’t yield the results you want, consider what you’d change without scrapping the idea entirely.
- Don’t hang your hat on launch #1. It’s too stressful for you, your business and your customers.
I have seen too many clients depend too much on the financial success of launch #1. When we hang our hat on a one-time thing, we risk scaring away customers, clients, and even collaborators with the obvious fear and desperation surrounding this project’s success.
- Leave time for you to sell yourself on your product and launch processes.
If you don’t take the time to sell yourself first, you risk undermining the value of the work you’re doing and the decisions you’re making. “The minute you have to explain or talk to someone else about the value of your product…that’s the minute that your brain starts questioning everything.”
- Don’t mirror your first few launches off of another company’s 19th launch.
Your business is not anyone else’s business. Numerous times in my coaching career, I have had to step back and remind myself that what works for me doesn’t have to look the same as what works for a business bigger than mine or an entrepreneur with more experience than me.
- Focus on delivery of results. Be explicit about where you are taking your people and how you’re going to get them there. Remove everything else.
People invest in your product or service for results and transformation. Everything else is just fun, fluff, and filler. While there’s nothing wrong with adding things to your launch, remember that each element needs to have a purpose and result attached.
- Build first for validation of your product, the audience, the price, the onboarding process. Only then can you add unto it.
“It doesn’t need to be perfect and it doesn’t need to be everything you would ever add.”
- Leverage other people’s audiences during your first launches.
While a major portion of business ownership revolves around building an audience of your own, the first few launches need to appeal to an already-existing audience to be successful. Consider tapping into someone else’s audience with consideration to what their needs truly are.
- Decide on launch goals between financial fitness and terror.
Goals, especially for your first few launches, need to be manageable between fitness and fear. A launch goal needs to be financially successful enough to be worth your time and resources, while still maintaining a realistic understanding of your financial fears.
- Do not change your marketing/sales tactics part way through a launch. Decide on one for a period of time and work on iterating.
Within my own professional career, I’ve had to iterate numerous times on launch tactics and marketing concepts. Still, iteration and evaluation is not the same as changing something completely. Sticking with your tactics is extremely important to solidify success.
- Prepare yourself for the mental journey to have ups and downs. It will happen to you.
Even if you feel amazing about your product and your launch, you will still have to go through the emotional rollercoaster of emotions associated with sales and marketing tactics. When you’re worrying that everything is going wrong, remember that you’re not alone in feeling this way.
- Assume this is a learning process just as much as it’s a money-making process.
Going into a launch expecting an easy, passive income rarely ends up being the reality for most business owners. Digital product launches are an immense amount of work and require a great deal of learning. Thankfully, the reward of that learning is that you will see financial results.
- Evaluate like the life of your business depends on it, because it does!
You cannot go through a launch without an evaluation process. Defining these set times and tactics to sell allows you an invaluable opportunity to evaluate and analyze what you’ve learned. You need to eat your vegetables. Evaluating is like the vegetables of your business.
- Constrain, constrain, constrain. Less is more.
As someone who has a minimalist style, I understand and feel comfortable with the idea of doing less to get more. However, this concept can be hard to grasp, especially in early launches. Remember that your audience is looking for results, they aren’t just looking for more.
- Be gentle with yourself as you learn a new way of selling, marketing and delivering.
Product launches need to be a result of devotion and dedication. You cannot force this process and you should not fill your business with unnecessary elements if they aren’t suiting your goals. You don’t have to create these products, and doing so should be done out of a desire to learn.
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Applications for One Year From Now: The Residency will be open from now until December 1st at brainspaceoptimized.com/residency.
Additional resources mentioned in this podcast: Podcast Production School
Connect with me through my website and on Instagram.
Schedule a clarity call with me here: https://oyfn.co/clarity/
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