In the summer of 2020, I did a really successful launch of my online course The Creative Doer. It wasn’t planned, I cobbled it together at lightning speed because I’d found my dream house and I needed to raise money for it.
I needed an extra $15 000 and I had five days to make it. So with zero preparation, I dove in, I worked my ass off for five days (and nights) straight and at the end of it I’d not just made $15 000, I’d made $30 000.
I ended up not being able to buy the house anyway (I’ll tell you that story another time), but still, the launch was a success. All that cash in such a short time – wouldn’t it be awesome if I could boil what I did down to a launch strategy and hand it to you so you can replicate the success?
Let me give it a try:
My homemade recipe for a successful launch
1.
Start a business firmly rooted in your values and desires. Work tirelessly on it for years, birthing new iterations as you grow and learn, until it represents and reflects everything you believe in and stand for; until it’s fully aligned with what you want to spend your one precious life doing. Because that alignment will make it really easy for you to market your work when you go on to launch something.
2.
Make all the mistakes and learn from them, so that eventually you have a list of a few tried and true ways of marketing and selling that really works for YOU. Then stick to those few ways. (That’ll keep you from wasting time trying to replicate someone else’s recipe for success.)
3.
Cultivate a rock-solid community. Reply to thousands of emails and Instagram comments. Reply like you care – no, reply BECAUSE you care. (If you don’t care, go right back to step 1 of this strategy and re-think your whole business and the reason why you started it). Get to know people. Let them get to know you. Give them your big beautiful heart. So that you one day, when you need to call on their support in a launch, they’ll rally to your side in a heartbeat.
4.
Create meaningful and strategic content, primarily for said community. Share all about your work, every angle of it, all your insights and your know-how. Share the changes and realisations, and the mistakes too. (Don’t have a lot to say about it? Go back to step 1 of this strategy and re-think your choice of business.) This will inform and inspire your right people so that when you launch, they’re ready to buy.
5.
Make sure you love and believe in your work so much you’re willing to be uncomfortable for it. Growth means stretching and expanding, it will scare you shitless at times. Learn ways to stay with yourself and your purpose through the discomfort of marketing and selling. Learn how to roll with fear, all the way to “cart closes”. And watch the money roll in.
6.
Do it publically. In order to reach a big launch goal, you’ll need to expose yourself as the audacious dreamer you are and reach and stretch and let them see you put your faith in nothing but your own ability to do this. And then possibly fail (*if you do, refer back to step 2 of this strategy and keep going). You’ll need to let them see you in all your mess as well as in all your greatness. (Surprisingly, you might find the latter harder.) Do it enough times to learn that failing publically isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be – and actually, succeeding publically isn’t either.
There you have it. Six simple steps to a great launch 🙂
Joking aside, I could market myself by showing only my wins, and showing them in such a way that it looks like it was magic or easy or whatever. But that’s not true. And if it’s not true, it’s not helpful.
The truth is in the big picture. Yes, I had a successful launch. And it was successful because I’d worked longterm to create the circumstances that made that success possible. Actually, not only possible – inevitable.
There are people who have overnight successes, but they’re unicorns. And most of them aren’t able to sustain that success, nor do they know how to repeat it, because they never had time to build a solid foundation that supports the growth.
Building a good foundation is what really interests me. If you do it right, there comes a point when success is not just a fluke or a possibility, but the inevitable next step. Let’s talk more about that, rather than the quick fixes and cookie cutter strategies.
