[Transcript starts at 1:19]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. It is Thursday, September 21st if you are listening slash watching this when it drops. Hopefully you are watching it because my lighting is so good. I am recording this earlier in the day.
It is noon o'clock here. The lighting is just banging, and I told you I got that window that is… It's west, excuse me, south facing. I got a, I got a west facing window as well. That one's not as helpful for me. But I got a south facing window. The light is so good. I'd look, this is like angelic. Just that light is coming in. It's good.
So hopefully you're watching. If you're not, well, that's fine too. Just glad that you're listening. Uh, but it's Thursday, September 21st, when this drops and we are talking about what to do when you finish a launch. I'm pretty sure that I did an episode in the past about like how to debrief a launch, but once is never.
So here we are. Change the title a little bit and going to look to simplify things for you in this episode and give you three questions that you can ask yourself immediately after launching so that you know how to tweak, fix, or maybe change nothing for your next launch.
So before we get into that life updates, uh, when I release this episode I'll be at Dinah.
So that's really cool. Uh, Dinah is a big homo event. It's a big gay event, big lesbian event. I kind of hate the word lesbian, so I don't use it a lot. Gay is, is just, lesbian feels like a skin disease or something. I don't like it. Uh, but there's a big gay event in Palm Springs. Um, and it's just fucking phenomenal.
I've gone twice before. I'm going this year, renting a house. It's way more fun when you rent a house because sometimes the parties are kind of whack, the music isn't necessarily great, it's like thousands of people that go. But I'm, I'm old, and some of these young kids, they're just doing too much, and the music, I don't know, the artists, and I'm like, put on the 90s stuff!
Uh, but, you know, they got these artists that I don't know, and so I'm like, I wanna leave this place, it's hot, I'm gonna go back to the house that I've rented, and sit in the pool. So doing that. Uh, got a group of friends going, and I'm actually really excited about that. So that'll be the day when this releases, I'll be there.
I'm going Wednesday through… Sunday. Um, Lex is coming, got, there's six of us total going. Rented a dope house. I like planning stuff like that. So I'm really excited about that. Um, but that's really all the up, life updates. Um, I think if you want to hear life updates, Monday is really the episode to tune into because I batch these episodes and I record two of them on Monday.
So usually the first episode that I record, which will then go out the following Monday, uh, gets more of the life updates, but it's cause nothing has happened since the last episode I recorded because it was literally like 45 minutes before.
But the house is still amazing. I love living here. I was actually gone in Sacramento, so maybe I do have more life updates.
Uh, I was gone in Sacramento for, for Camille's, um, CrossFit competition that was inspired last episode, the episode on Monday. And I just love being here, folks, like the furniture is coming in. We got the fire table. I got to put that together and bring it upstairs. Um, or we'll bring it upstairs and then we'll put it together.
I got a miter saw. I'm in love. I got a special project that I'm working on. Not that big of a project, but it's nice to be able to cut wood without, like, using a hacksaw. Um, I've been using an angle grinder for, like, so many things, and that's not safe. And also, that whole past sentence was just so gay, and that's fine.
Um, but it's just exciting. I got space, and I love it here, and that's, like, all I want to be doing is just being home and hanging out with Lex and hanging out with I should just say MooPert, hanging out with two of them. They're getting better. We got a trainer coming in and we're gonna try and figure it out.
Moose is just so excitable and she's so big. She's like my size and I'm like this is so much. Rupert's becoming more tolerant and by tolerant I mean he just looks at her and like is like I hate you but it's fine. Um, but it's good man. Life is fucking good.
This episode we're talking about what to do after you've done launching.
And the reason I'm talking about this is because it's top of mind. I just finished my Instagram Intensive launch. Round, round 14 of my Instagram Intensive. And after finishing, like I was able to be in, uh, Sacramento for and support Camille during this launch. It was during the public part of the launch.
Um, but like, there's not like a lot of stress that goes into launching. And I, I want that for all of you. I know that people hate launching, and I think that one of the main reasons that they hate launching is because they're doing it quote unquote wrong. A. k. a. they're doing it in a way that doesn't work for them, doesn't feel good for them.
I'm not obsessed with launching. I don't love it. I'm not Jill. Jill loves it. Every day be launching. Always be launching. I fucking love her. You know, I talk about Jill every episode because I love her. But I'm not obsessed with launching. I don't love launching. But I also realize that promoting your services in some way, shape, or form is part of running a business so I figured out a way to do it in a way. Or rather, I figured out how to do it in a way that works for me. I've leaned into doing it in a way that works for me.
So first off, launching is tough. So if you feel tired after, that's normal, right? In some way, shape, or form, you're like, man, I'm glad it's done, right?
I'm not like dead and dying right now. But like after that, I really push hard during the first part of my launch. And this episode is not about how to launch. But I kind of, will just probably weave it in a little bit. I break my launches into two parts where the first is the waitlist launch and then it's the public launch.
I go really hard in the paint for the pub, for the, excuse me, the waitlist launch. And so after that I'm, I'm just definitely like relieved, like okay good, I'm glad that part's done because I'm like writing all these emails and all those things. And definitely I'm glad when the public launch is done as well because I think most of us, we just like creating content.
We like giving. We like helping people. We don't necessarily like asking. And so selling is an ask and it can feel like just like, ah, I'm just done. I'm over it. I get that. Totally normal to feel relieved when you're done or to feel tired, especially in the beginning, alright, to feel tired when it's done. Second part of that is that launching is tough.
So expect it and embrace it. And then when you're launching, go hard in the paint. When you're launching, be launching. This way, when you're not launching, you don't have to fucking worry about launching. But if you kind of half ass the launch, then you get half the people or less than half the people, and then you gotta worry about all of that when you're not launching.
You gotta try and maybe launch more, and it's fucking annoying. So when you're launching, be launching. This way, you don't have to worry about launching when you're not launching.
There are different types of launches you can do, like I said earlier, but this episode, I just want to focus on what to do when you're done launching.
Namely how to debrief your launch, AKA assess how well it went so that you know what you want to do next time. If you want to do the same thing, you want to change anything. Of note, this episode and launching is specific to actually launching, aka specific to an offer that has like an open and a close.
It's not something that's evergreen and always going on, right? If you have something that's evergreen, then you're going to probably want to look to want to have kind of this time period that has parameters around it, and you kind of have like a push period. But what we're specifically talking about is an offer that you've created that you're selling for a specific amount of time where people can get it and then the doors are closed and they can no longer get it.
Alright, I'm gonna simplify, my goal with this episode is to simplify that debrief period afterwards and what I think, uh, you can be doing so that the next time you go to launch, you have a bit more of a game plan. I think that you can get very in depth with this, which is why I want to use this episode to simplify things.
Um, but it's cool that you can get very in depth with things because you can make it very clinical, right? You can get, get lots of data points. How many posts did I do? How many emails did I send? How many stories did I do? And then you can look to change and manipulate that variable the next time through. But let's take a step back through this episode, kind of take almost a 30, 000 foot view approach to it and simplify the steps that I am going to suggest you take after you launch.
So if we start way zoomed out and we kind of go into the less clinical, more soft skills kind of ish considerations for what to do after you launch, three things that, uh, we'll go with two things. Two things that I want you to consider. First thing, let your highs and your lows mirror each other. And I'm saying this because most people get very, very low, and I want to make sure that we're balancing that out with getting very high, that sounds weird.
Uh, let's balance it out with celebratory highs, right? If you're a person that's always high, and this sounds weird saying high all the time, but if you're a person that's always happy and you're like positive about things, cool, then just stay there. I don't need you to like, manufacture sadness. But most people like we have a negativity bias, negativity bias as humans.
So most people tend to look at the negative or the bad side of things. So if that's you, I want you to let your highs mirror your lows. If you're like, Oh, I'm really hard on myself. Cool. Then you got to like really celebrate the people that came in as well, right? Balance that out. I personally tend to just stay right in the middle and I keep things pretty objective.
And it's actually been interesting. You know, Lex has been like learning this about me and she'll be like, aren't you excited? And I'm like, yes. This is me being excited. And she's like, what? Like, I'm not jumping around bouncing off the walls. Like, I am grateful for things, but I'm not super emotional about these things, nor do I take them very personally as it relates to the business, right?
If someone didn't sign up, I'm not like, they hate me. Oh my god. Nor am I like doing a fucking backflip off of my balcony. I'm just like, this is awesome, and I'm super grateful that that they trust me to help them out. So I tend to just, and that's always been me, I kind of stand right in the middle. But if that's not you, that's totally fine.
Just let's let your highs and your lows balance each other out.
The next thing to do, kind of soft skills after you've launched is to deliver your program, right? People tend to forget. They get so amped up with their first launch, especially. And they're like, holy shit, I have to like actually deliver it.
That's the most important part. The launch is not the most important part. It's, the launch may be the hardest part, like getting people in is very hard, but the most important part is actually the delivery because those people, then you get them results, they will go and spread your message farther and faster than you ever could.
And it makes your marketing efforts and your launch efforts for the next time much easier. So make sure that you crush the actual delivery portion of things.
To that end, you may want to build in some time to like catch your breath after you're done launching or after the doors close and before the offer actually starts.
So for me, I close the doors for my Intensive on a Friday and then we don't start till the following Tuesday. So there is a period of like, I can chill, I can make sure all the logistical stuff happens, and then I hit the ground running and I crush it.
Okay, so let's get into the tactical stuff, the tactical side of things of what I suggest you do immediately after you're done launching.
Two questions to ask yourself if you're unhappy with how the launch went. All right, because that's so many people, they're like, oh, I didn't get any people, they want it. Okay, let's zoom out and then we're going to zoom in. Two questions to ask yourself if you're unhappy with how your launch went, number one, did I have a strategic approach to launching that involved selling to a captive audience?
All right. Did I have a strategic approach to launching that involved selling to a captive audience? Captive audience, meaning it was a specific interest list, or you had like a lead magnet, you did a workshop that was dedicated to selling people into this thing. If you had it, awesome. If you didn't have that, then you need to think about creating that for next time. Otherwise we have no way of getting objective with this. And that's going to tie into the second question to ask yourself, which is, was my goal realistic and objective? People come in and they just be like, I want 50 people in this thing. And I'm like, that's cool. Where'd that number come from?
You just pulled that right out of your ass. Cool. All right. But that's just made up. Why not say you want a thousand then? I want you going in being realistic and objective. And there is far less uncertainty in online business than people would have you believe.
Jill and I really talk about this a lot, um, and Jill's really opened my eyes to this and working with her and it's been great and taking people through Legacy and such. There's, there's far less uncertainty in online business than people think and that people say, right? Conversion rates hold true.
Conversion rates, meaning how many people buy this thing? How many people go from not having bought it to being, excuse me, how many people go from knowing about it to actually buying about it? Buying about it. How many people go from knowing about it, to buying it.
For cold traffic, meaning this people, these people are not in your ecosystem. They just got exposed to you right now when you're like about to sell this thing, they, that converts at about one to 3%. And let's just like go on the low end of this, right? Cold traffic converts at 1%. Meaning if you have a lead magnet, you're running a workshop and it's 100 people, excuse me, let's actually take that back.
Cold traffic will be, we'll put it as actually paid traffic, which is going to, because it sometimes you get paid traffic and then they go into the thing, but, into the lead magnet, but we'll, let's just go and keep it simple here. Cold traffic, these people have never heard of you before, you run an ad, and somehow they get onto your, you know, they get in front of you, you get in front of them via this ad, and now you're going to sell to them.
One to three percent of those people will buy. Meaning if a hundred people get on, get exposed to this thing, they see this offer. One might buy. 100 people, one might buy. Warm traffic. This is people that have gone to your workshop that you've had. These are people that are in your ecosystem. They typically know you, right?
This is where we kind of see, like, the overlap. That's why I've said it before, but like, I'm going to keep it separate because the goal of this episode is to simplify. Warm traffic. They go to that lead magnet. They go to that workshop. They go through this lead magnet that you, that you have created that you're going to sell to them at the end.
Two to 5 percent of those people might buy. Again, let's go to the low end of that. So if you get a hundred people that sign up for your free workshop, and at the end of that workshop, you're going to pitch this paid offer. Two people might buy. Two. Two percent. Don't shoot the messenger, but please listen to the messenger.
Two percent. If you have a wait list, right? You have this offer, you're putting it out there and you're like, Hey, get on the early interest list, get on the wait list for this thing. We see wait lists converting around 10 to 15 percent. There are things we can do to increase that number, or actually I should say to move to the top of that range.
But again, you see with those conversion rates, this is why I personally really love selling to waitlist as opposed to any other approach. But the point of this, laying this out here was those two questions to ask yourself if you were unhappy with your launch, which is number one, did I have a strategic approach to launching that involves selling to a captive audience?
Number two, was my goal realistic and objective, and making it realistic and objective based on conversion rates. If you didn't have a strategic approach, if you didn't have a captive audience, then the second question is null, you don't even know you can't have an objective goal because you're selling to anyone who may see this, which we have no control over, we have no idea, so we can't have a, we can't have a goal, we cannot have an objective or realistic goal because we're just like, I don't know how many people are going to see it, so I don't know how many people are going to buy it, right, that would be your goal. I don't know.
Whoever buys it, buys it and that's great. You can't be like, I want 50 people. If you're selling approach was just to post on Instagram, then again, you have no way of coming up with a predicted conversion rate because you have no idea how many people are actually seeing your stuff and you're actually selling to them.
It's a total guess. So if you want to get super clinical now, super objective, there are three questions that I suggest you ask to plan and structure your launch, right? So immediately after you've launched. You're done. Three questions that I want you to ask and work through. Number one, did I ensure demand?
Do people want this thing? Were people asking you for it? Did you ask people if they wanted it? Did you create a poll or an interest list or something where people could raise their hand and say, yes, I want this and I will buy it. Number two, did I create a captive audience? Did I make an interest list?
Did I create a lead magnet where I'm going to get all these people in one place and I'm going to sell to them? Whether that's a webinar, a workshop, a challenge, something like that. And then number three, what were my conversion rates? Right? We're gonna get super clinical here. Cold traffic. Again, we said that's one to 3 percent conversion rate.
Warm traffic 2 to 5%. Waitlist, 10 to 15%. So we're looking at how many people were on the interest list, and then how many people bought. There's your percentage. How many people were in the lead magnet? I mean, how many people signed up for that workshop and then actually attended? And then how many people bought? Right? For workshops, I really do look to look at how many people actually attended or watched the replay.
It's not just people that signed up because it doesn't matter if they signed up, but then they never do anything else. So I really want to look more at the like, who, how many people attended, how many people watched the replay. And then we can look at conversion rates for that. And so from that lead magnet, that workshop, then we're looking at 2 percent converting.
So suddenly we're like, cool, I had, because again, I want people that actually watched the replay, actually did the thing. If you get a hundred people that signed up, but you only get 20 people. That actually show up. Or maybe you want to get 10 people that show up. Or maybe you're going to get 5 people that show up.
And then you get another 5 that watch the, uh, you get another 5 that watch the, uh, I'm sorry, my brain. You get another 5, there's numbers coming here. You get another 5 that watch the replay, so we have 10 total. All right, 1 percent of that, excuse me, 2 to 5 percent of that, of those people, because it's warm traffic, consider it, considering that, might buy.
Suddenly we see like, oh shit. That may mean zero, alright? Because one person would be 10%. So now we start to be able to get realistic with our predictions. So, uh, this, what I'm presenting here is a simplified approach and now simplified solutions to what you should do or what I suggest you do after you launch, right?
And this, again, this is for a launch that has a specific open and closed selling period. First one. If you didn't was the first question was, did I ensure demand? If you didn't, then do that first next time. Make sure people want it. Don't make shit that people don't want. Wait to create. I stay saying that and I will say it till I'm blue in the face. I will die on that hill. Wait to create. If no one's asking for it, don't make that thing. Second one. Okay. yes, you ensured that cool. We're going to the second question. Did I create a captive audience? Yes. Okay. Then amazing. No? Cool, then let's do an interest list next time or let's do some sort of lead magnet next time.
We have to get people in a container so that we can sell to the specific people so that we can now go to question number three, which is, did I hit conversion rates, right? What were my conversion rates? Within this part, now we're looking at conversion rates. This is when we can get even more tactical, more strategic.
If you hit the conversion rate, um, parameters or the conversion rate within that range. That's what I'm going to say. If you hit within that range, then what we're going to focus on for the next launch, if you want to change your numbers is to get more people top of funnel, right? So if you converted your warm audience at 3%, cool, then you can do the same things again next time, we just need more advertising efforts.
We need to get more people, more eyes. So how do we do this? More posts, more stories, more emails. Maybe a longer runway period. So the amount of time that we're spending advertising before we actually launch this thing. Of note, your second launch is typically harder than the first because you've exhausted the early adopters.
If you did not hit your numbers, then we want to think about changing the messaging or the delivery. We want to focus on that, right? So meaning if you didn't hit the conversion rate range, not if you didn't hit your goal, but if you didn't hit the conversion rate range, if you had a waitlist that converted at 5%.
Remember, we're looking at 10 to 15%. If you had warm traffic, you converted at 1%, or not at all, right? If you had people that signed up for this thing, but then nobody bought, then we're looking more at the messaging and the delivery there. So within that, if we take a general approach, we're thinking about getting more specific, right?
More specific audience you're speaking to, more specific problem that you're solving, addressing specific concerns, like in your FAQs and in overcoming objections. Right. So two parts for that conversion rates, we're going to look at your conversion rate, and again, these, these build on each other. First was, did you assess demand?
Was there demand for this thing? Second one was, did you create a captive audience? If you didn't do those, then you have to do those things first. Cause if you didn't have a captive audience, you can't look at conversion rates. So if you ensured demand, you had a captive audience, then now we're looking at conversion rates.
Cool. If you hit the range, then we just need more people top of funnel, more eyes. We're going to increase our advertising efforts. If you did not hit within that conversion rate range, then we're going to think about more so messaging, changing that, working on your copy and working on your delivery. Okay.
Two different parts there. I know I'm speaking fast. I actually really love this stuff. And I'm going to get plug my own services right now. If you want help debriefing your launch, this is something that we can absolutely cover in a Maestro Meeting. If you want help planning your next launch based on this, you're like, Holy shit, I don't have any of these things, that is also something that we can do in a Maestro Meeting. I will say that if you're looking to plan and execute a launch, that typically is more like three to four Maestro Meetings, just because people want the launch, and it's looking at historically when I've worked with people, they also want the launch support and just depending on how many moving parts there are with your launch, it can take more time.
Uh, and it can be helpful to have you implement something, excuse me, to have a call, implement, have another call, implement. So if you want help with the debrief, if you want help with the planning, these are things that absolutely we can go over in a Maestro Meeting. I can help you out in a Maestro Meeting.
I love doing that shit. Um, so we will link that in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney. But hopefully this episode is a good starting point for you to say, where am I at? Okay, what do I need to change for next time? How do we get objective and clinical with this? How am I not pulling numbers out of my ass?
How can I, you know, get more, uh, less emotional about my launches, take things less personally and, you know, be super grateful about it, but also be super, super, super objective, super clinical and then know what I need to change or not change for the next time that I go to run this offer.
Right. I'm looking at the time.
We're going to wrap this up. We're hitting over the 22 minute mark. Sorry, Emma. Also congrats to Emma because Emma got hitched. If you're listening to this, congrats, Emma. I've said it in the DMs, but congrats.
Alright, no reviews to read this time. Maybe next week I'll read some of the old reviews from the archives.
But if you want to leave me a new review, I would love it. I would love it if the spirit moves you on Apple podcasts. I have no idea what the situation is on Spotify. So if the spirit moves you, you listen on Apple podcasts, would love a review. I don't know if it helps this, the podcast get found. No idea, but I like reading them and also other people, it helps them, right? People love the gift of going second. So thank you in advance if the spirit moves you and you decide to leave it a review. But let me wrap this thing up. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends. Maestro out.
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