04 Oct [VLOG] Why people FAIL in online launches
I’ve been thinking about why good people FAIL when trying to sell places to an online course or coaching programme. Ahem…
…and why I didn’t exactly LAND the launch process right at the beginning of my online journey.
Here’s what I’ve come up with. I definitely did two out of these five. Can you guess which two?
Five Reasons:
(1) We come out of no-where
We work away in top secret, locked away in our offices or bedrooms building our wonderful new offering.
And we don’t tell anyone about it. We do no build up. There’s no way to test it because it’s a secret so we just guess what people want.
And then BOOM!
One day we just BLAST it all over our social media channels and direct people to the sales page (if we have one!).
No-one’s heard of us.
No-one knew we were working on this.
And now we’re STUCK.
This will never work and it’s not a scalable business model for online sales.
Why?
Because people buy from people they KNOW, LIKE and TRUST.
So, before any launch, we want to spend weeks, MONTHS EVEN, building an audience of people who get the chance to test us, learn from us and ultimately decide whether we can add value to their lives or not.
I know ‘months’ might sound crazy – it sounds like a lot of work, I know. Plus, there are a lot of people out there promising record sales in 30 days. Lol. I don’t know ANYONE big, ANYONE who I really respect, ANYONE I’d actually recommend who woke up then 30 days later BOOM, they nailed it. Do you?
Now, here’s the rub! After sharing our best work online, anxiously looking for signs people are finding it useful, we realise that a TINY percentage of the people who engage actually go on to become clients.
Bummer?
Nope. We got to help a lot of people one way or another. Maybe we gave them hope. Maybe we taught them something new. Maybe we made them smile…And maybe they’ll choose you in the future.
Meanwhile…
A small percentage of the people you helped will be looking, waiting, curious. They want more…
They’re wondering: What are the options for working with this person?
And that’s cool too!
NOW comes the launch. It’s for those people to decide if they’re ready to make the commitment, no-one else.
(2) We have NO IDEA who we want to help.
When I ask a client “Who are you here to help” and they say “Anyone”, I feel almost excited at the clarity they’re about to get!
Because by the end of that Zoom call they’re going to be able to tell me exactly who they want to work with, why this product is PERFECT for them and how it solves the EXACT problems they wake up worrying about every day.
And, YES – they might have some work to do on tailoring their offering after the call, but that’s okay. Our offer is never really DONE anyway.
To succeed in a launch, we must be able to divide attention.
If you’re THIS group of people, you’re going to LOVE this – I built it for you!
If you’re THIS group of people, you’re going to HATE this, don’t even waste your time! It’s far better to have 100 people on your mailing list who want and need what you’re selling then 10,000 who just don’t!
I know some people with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram making no money in their business.
And I know people with 2000 followers making multiple six figures…
It’s not about the vanity metrics, it’s about the relevancy and the connection you have with your audience.
Relevance first.
Scale second.
(3) We have no sound ‘logic’ to our launch…or business
Do I need 100 delighted customers at £2,000 and a team of freelancers to generate a profit?
Or do I need 3000 customers at £100 and three team members in an office to generate a profit?
Will I use Facebook ads or in person connections to spread the word?
What’s the budget for my launch? How many launches will I do in a year? Are they planned in? And how will I budget for them?
How will I service the demand when I win the clients?
What happens if I don’t win the clients? What next?
This is the LOGIC of your business. And you must be clear. Who are you here to help, how many people can you help at a given time and how will you sustain yourself while you scale this up?
I bring this up because people tend to focus on the money they want to earn but don’t think about what this means.
I.e. it means helping X number of people to hit Y goal in this timeframe using Z infrastructure.
If your goal is just to ‘make sales’ or ‘make £50,000’. It’s not enough.
You need to know, logically, what you need in that moment for your business. You need to connect with the people you’re here to help.
In some cases, and call me mad, winning £50,000 of clients could slow you down in the longterm if you’re just not ready emotionally or financially to deliver at that level yet and you let people down.
Maybe a £3000 launch would be ace right now. Maybe a £10,000 is perfect. Decide, and back it up with infrastructure.
(4) Our offering is sooooo generic!
We’re offering ‘just another group coaching programme’. And it’s just like someone else’s. We’ve got to be original. We’ve got to build a unique brand. We’ve got to share a captivating story if we want to make it into the big leagues!
So, it might be a group coaching programme but what’s the narrative? What’s the story? What can people say about working with you? Are people excited to share your work – is it conversation worthy?
When people go to Marks and Spencer’s for dinner, they have a different story to tell than if they went to Aldi for dinner.
Both places are perfect!
They’ve both created a narrative their shoppers can buy into.
Some people boast about going to M&S. Some people boast about going to Aldi.
Why? How did the brands do that?
They told you a story. And it fit your viewpoint of the world, it allowed you to affirm what you believe about the world.
‘I love luxury – you really can only get this at M&S, that’s why I shop there’ vs ‘I love saving money – it’s all the same food, why pay more? That’s why I shop there’.
What is special about your offer and why will people rave about it?
(5) We quit on launch 1 or worse…
Our launch is not going to work first time. Yes, we might make some sales, but it won’t be enough to quit our jobs and go all in.
Our first few launches are a test.
Is my offer relevant? Did my landing page work? Have I hooked up my email sequence correctly?
There is a lot to learn in an online course launch and each launch is a chance to learn something new and dramatically improve another part of the process.
When people quit on launch 1, or worse – launch 4 or 5, they’re stopping before they’ve given themselves a chance to figure it all out.
I made £200 in my first launch. And I was thrilled! I knew if I could make £200 I could make £2000.
And if I could make £2000 I could make £20,000.
And so on.
I didn’t hit my first £10k launch until launch 5. And things scaled quickly from there because I’d built an audience by then. I’d nailed my launch.
And I’m still going – improving, testing, tweaking.
So give yourself a chance.
Do another launch…
Full video below, if you want to see more.