00:03:35
Let's get it so live launching is something that I love because it works really well for my personality style. So if you have a personality similar to me, it's pretty probably going to be a good thing for you. I like training for something and then having like game day for it. So I like in my business, the sprints, not the marathon. So in terms of going cyclical and having time where I'm like all in and hyper focused and then having time that I am more just focusing on my current clients and serving them and not having to be as front facing all the time.

00:04:13
And so. So I love live launching for that reason, for my energetic being, but also because it's always yielded better results for me than evergreen and for most people that I work with, that is the case. But in saying that life launching is not for everybody because it is hard, despite what some people may tell us, it is not for the faint of heart. And it requires a huge amount of stamina, a huge amount of energy. It requires you to be good under pressure because of the scarcity.

00:04:48
It's scarcity for both the clients and for you as the course creator as well. And so when you're going into it, it can have that feeling of, like do or die kind of thing. Like we've got to do well here or we don't get to do it for months. And one of the keys energetically to doing well is to let that go, which is really, really hard when there's so much on the line for the launch. But this episode is not about the energetics of it.

00:05:15
But I did want to say that just to preface everything that I'm talking about, practically in there as well is because you need to be prepared to do everything. The whole build it and they will come is just simply not true, especially in the noise of the current state of the Internet and the industry and the world that we're operating in. So you need to be able to have crystal clear messaging. You need to have an irresistible offer like those things I am already assuming you have nailed this episode is more about, okay, what do we do when we've done all those things and it's not going to plan. If you would like a copy of my live launch checklist, I have a free one for you that has like, all of those practical things of here is everything that you need to do for a proper live launch.

00:06:07
If you want that, you go to the show notes or go to herempirebuilder.com checklist. Or if you are on the instagram, you can go to her Her Empire Builder and just dm us the word checklist and you'll be sent that straight away. So that's a nice handy resource for you. Okay, so launch is underway. You're doing all your things and it's not getting you the results.

00:06:29
What do you do? How do you salvage as much as you possibly can? What I will say is I truly believe that three quarters of the success of launch is all about pre launch. So it's what you do before you launch that is going to determine the success of that launch. If you don't start, like really getting into it and really marketing and really connecting with people until launch opens, it's kind of too late for that launch.

00:06:56
What it can do is it's a really incredible marketing exercise that will allow you to connect with a lot of people. That then if you maintain and nurture those relationships in your off season until you do your next launch, your next launch will be really, really good. But what I find is that if you're waiting until you've started launch, it is too late, then I am really, really sure that and even more so than it used to be. So a lot of my clients in her Her Empire Builder are finding more and more success with their waitlist, period. So if we look at like five years ago and there's been a lot of changes lately, it's actually an episode that I'm recording in like three or four episodes, time will be coming out is the massive changes happening in the course industry right now and the shift in trends.

00:07:42
But one of those is like five years ago we used to do launches and you might get 40% to 50% of people on that last day, even the last 12 hours, because people were like, ah, I don't want to miss out. Like, let's go. People are much more discerning now with how they're spending their money and the market is a lot more competitive. And so what we are finding is the bulk of clients are often coming in in the early bird waitlist period, which means that people are going, this is something I'm really interested in. I want to think about it.

00:08:13
I want to make sure it's the right decision for me and I'm going to be prepared for the investment, both of time, of money, of everything that we want to do. And so it's even more important to focus on building that waitlist in the off season and communicating with those people so that you can connect and form that relationship before you even open your doors. So the first thing I would say is pre launch. Then once you start making sure that you're communicating really, really well with that waitlist in the early bird period, I personally do a 48 hours waitlist period. We do often recommend, depending on where you're at in your course creation journey, could be 72 hours for that if you are newer with a smaller audience.

00:08:57
But once you've got a big audience, I'd go to the 48 hours. So it's like really quick, we're open, then we're closed and then we're into the main event kind of thing. So with that waitlist, you want to value stack the bejoozers out of that. Your early bird people are always going to be the people that get the best deal of the launch. So you want to make sure that you've got a lot of bonuses for them so that you can capitalize on the people that are already loving what you're doing, that are already there going, they've put their name down, they're going, I'm really, really interested in this.

00:09:24
Help me make my decision. And so that's for that one. Okay. Once you open the main event, though, so it's usually like, first day is great, second day is great. If you're doing, we recommend like an eight day live launch.

00:09:36
On day four and five, you can go into a little bit of a lull that is usually going to happen because you'll capture people that are peachy keen. There's like two types of people, right? The people that are fast decision makers that jump in early and the people that leave it till the very last minute. I am always one of the first people to buy something because I am a fast decision maker. And I know I don't need to wait till the last minute.

00:09:57
I know I'm either in or I'm out pretty quickly. I cannot believe how many people are the opposite that like to wait till the last minute. And so you could be one of those people, but it means that in the middle you usually just trickling in, in that time. So it's the time to really nurture, to connect, to take that action. And so when we get to that lull bit, you've opened your doors and you're like, okay, launch is not going how I want to.

00:10:22
How can I recover this? Number one is personal connections. I will always go personal connections over mass marketing, anytime. That is. Even with the level of revenue and the audience size that we have now, so much of our success is based on personal connections.

00:10:39
It is working with partners to share our stuff. So having like alliances or affiliate relationships with people that will share it on their social media to spread the word, to expand that audience, connect with people, it's then connecting with every single person who connects with you. Now this to me always sounds like, would anyone ever not do that? But it is amazing how many people they see that have people comment on their things and the comments left unanswered or send them a DM and the DM doesn't get replied to. So making sure that you're connecting with people as personally as possible and not doing everything in an automated sense.

00:11:18
I love systems and automation. Love. There is zero chance I could run the business that I run at the level that I run it at without like beautiful systems and automation. However, what systems and automation allows you to do is to free up your time so that you're not spending any time on doing the things that can be automated, but all your time is available to personally connect with people and serve them. And so that's what we're really looking for here.

00:11:46
You then want to look at who's clicking your emails. So we use Kajabi, but any email software will do this. You can go in and export the list of everybody who has clicked on your launch emails. We call that our hot list. So when we're launching and we're going, all right, we're a little bit slow here, I want to pick up the pace or I want to connect with some more people.

00:12:06
I've got a little bit of time to be able to do that. What I will do is I will download the list of everybody who has clicked open on an email. Now, depending on your list size, depends on how many people. This is going to be right. So adapt this for your list size.

00:12:21
Now, ideally you would contact every one of those throughout the launch in the beginning, but when you've got a list size of like 1020 thousand, you're not going to be able to do that. Hopefully your emails are getting clicked on a lot, but if you're going at, you know, like a ten to 20% click rate, then that's going to be a whole lot of humans. And so what I look at is our hot list of people that have clicked, but then also people that have multiple tags. So people that have engaged a lot in our content in terms of they've downloaded free resources, they've come to a past webinar, they've come to training before. Then I will put them in order from who has been on our list the longest.

00:13:00
Now with our business, we have people that have been on our list for a really long time before they join. So we have an average of 1.6 years that people will be on our list before joining her Her Empire Builder. We do have some people that find us and buy within the launch just from social media, but that's in the minority. The majority of people have come to a training previously and haven't been able to like back themselves or been ready to take the rear score, ready to really like. It's scary when you want to level up and you want to do something that you've never done before.

00:13:36
And for most of us with course creators, we're like doing things that are asking people to make a transformation that are going, if you want to get from point a to point b, it's going to involve you doing things that you've never done before. And that's going to be fearful because it's unknown. And I want you to trust me enough to be able to help guide you and get you there. And so that's something that, you know, it's a lot of trust that people are putting in us as course creators. And for a lot of people, before they're going to spend their time and their money, they want to make sure that you are the right person for them.

00:14:12
So it's always very disheartening at the end of a launch when someone's like, I wasn't ready. This time I will get you next time. I know that when I first started, when people said that, my heart just sank because I'd be like, no, you won't. No, you won't. Like, that's it, I've lost my chance.

00:14:27
Let me tell you friend, they're coming. So I like, in our recent launch, we had people join that have come to, like, four or five trainings before. Like, free three day, four day trainings. And I'm like, why? Like, to me, it's intriguing because I'm like, why now?

00:14:44
Like, why have you felt like all of those other times you couldn't do it? And what I find is often people get frustrated with themselves and they're like, I've been dreaming of this for so long. Like, I'm just ready to go. Let me. Let me do it.

00:14:56
Like, I've got to find out, can I do this or not? And so that's usually what happens, is often people will go through a couple of cycles. So when you're connecting with people, look at who's clicking your emails and then connect with them. Now, how we connect with them will depend on the information that you have, the time available that you have, and the energy that you have. My favorite is Bonjoro.

00:15:18
I'll link to it in the show notes so that you can see, but it's spelt B o n J o r O. It is a video kind of messaging service that goes straight into people's inboxes. Now, the reason I love this so much is its open rate sits at 98% for us, and its click rate, like its watch rate, sits between 60 and 70% consistently. So in terms of deliverability, kicks butt on anything else that we do. But the flip side of that is it takes a massive effort on your part to do so.

00:15:56
When we do it, we address the person. We'd say, I was talking to Anna. I'd say, hi, Anna. I can see that you attended our free training last week and you haven't jumped in yet. As we've got the doors open, I just wanted to reach out and see if you had any questions or let me know where you're at out in your course creation journey.

00:16:15
All right, thanks. Have a great day. Bye. Kind of thing. I do it a lot more articulately than that when I'm in the zone, but that's basically it.

00:16:23
So it's like a 62nd video where you're saying hello to people, you're calling them by name, so that they know it's personal for you. You're acknowledging where you have met in your business, so that you're like, you know, I saw you at the webinar, or I saw you at the training, or I can see you've downloaded some of our free resources, like, where are you at? You're not saying by now you're going for connection. Like, where are you at? Let's talk.

00:16:47
Let's see if it's the right fit kind of thing. So that will open up conversations with people so that you can then not sell to them necessarily, but figure out if it's right for you and them or not. So that is, the first one is use bonjoro. The next one is to go through your instagram and figure out who is engaging a lot. So when people are commenting on multiple posts, or when they're liking everything that you put out, when they're sending you DM's, like if they've inquired a couple months ago and then you haven't heard from them, like circling back, reaching out to them.

00:17:20
I find a lot better conversion rates with voice DM's than with text DM's, because what I find is often people are surprised it's me. Most people, and this is the way that it's going in the industry now, will have their vascular do this type of reach out and pretend to be them. And so what I like about this is it's you. You're showing you actually care about connecting with your clients and they can't. Well, I was going to say they can't fake it.

00:17:47
But, you know, there's software that can nearly get that right for right now. But we won't go into the slippery slope of AI for the purposes of this conversation. I think it is really important for you to personally connect with people and say hi and connect in a similar way to what we do in a bonjoro video. Like, where are you at? Is there any questions that I can answer for you?

00:18:07
A lot of people that will go unanswered, so you'll have probably 50% no one will reply to you. It takes, like, I always go, my background is franchising and I always had the mantra like spine of steel, heart of gold. That was always what I tried to operate with in going, like, how can I have a really open heart and be ready for that, but also a spine of steel, like being resilient. No one can mess with me, knowing my boundaries, all of that sort of ethos in there. And you need to have that when you are launching and when you are building any business because you will get rejected a lot of times and it will be disheartening and you will be going, gosh, half the people aren't even replying to me.

00:18:53
Is this even worth it? What I want you to focus on, it's the people that are replying the people that are connecting with you. I know from the last lot of bonjouro videos that we sent, every time I send ten of them, one person will reply with a really beautiful message and they will either join in that round or in a future round. So 10% hit rate is worth my time on doing that. Plus, I like connecting with people, so it's a win win on both sides.

00:19:19
The next one is to adjust your emails as you are going. So I am a very big batcher. We are, we have often created all of our social media, all of our posts, all of our emails, everything like a month or two before we're actually launching. And that works really well because for me it's like an insurance policy if I'm sick, if my kids are sick, if something goes haywire, like the launch can still run how we've scheduled it, not as well, but it can still run. Whereas what happens is often, if you've missed the mark a little bit on messaging, so much of it is messaging and messaging for the time that you're in as well.

00:20:00
So what I will do is if I find that our click through rate has dropped a little bit, our open rate has dropped a little bit, I'll look at that and go like, I know it's not hitting the mark. So what do we need to change? So I'll go in and I will look at the remaining emails and I'll unschedule a few of them and I will rewrite them from scratch. I'll have a look. We still keep our same pattern in our launch emails of, you know, going through story, customer story, like, we still got the same pattern in there, but the language has to be different.

00:20:26
And what I will often look at is what is the feedback I'm hearing already? So people will tell you what they're afraid of. I am not sure I'm ready yet because I'm really afraid of failing or funds are really tight, so I need to make sure I'm going to get a return on investment or, like, there's so many reasons that people will give you. And what I find is it works really well when you can use that exact language so you can address those objections in your remaining emails that you've got going out. So I'd really encourage you, if it's not going so well, to look at the emails that you've got.

00:21:01
Do they sound like to stock standard? Do they sound generic? Do they sound different to how you would sound in your normal, ordinary emails that you send? And if so, let's rewrite them and make them more human. Let's make them more you.

00:21:15
Let's let you shine through and imagine you talking to that one person and connecting with them at the most human level that you possibly can. So they are my top tips for how to salvage a launch that may be flopping along the way. If you do all of those and really focus on the goal of connecting with people, it will end up better than what it would have if you just sat behind your computer screen just kind of panicking or waiting. So like I said at the start, don't wait for it to come. Like, it's not a build it and they will come.

00:21:48
Go get it. Go connect with those customers. You started your course because you've got something of massive value to share and you know you can make a positive difference in people's lives by sharing it. And so instead of just keeping it passive and to yourself, go and connect with those people. Go and help.

00:22:04
Go and be of service. And you will be amazed at how quickly it grows, how much the word of mouth grows and how much you have clients that you have connected with that are your right, clients that are a joy to work with. All right, cheers to less launches flopping and more being successful so that we can all grow and continue to help and serve as many people as possible. Like I said, if you want the launch checklist, go to herempirebuilder.com checklist and you can grab that one. Have a great day, friend.

00:22:35
This episode was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, HerHer Empire Builder, the best online education for female course creators in the world. Check it out herempirebuilder.com. Along with so many free resources to help you get building your empire and seeing those results that you deserve. If you loved this episode, please don't keep it a secret. Share it with a friend on social media and tag Tina Tower and give it a review.

00:23:05
It really does help us to be able to bring you bigger and better content as we grow. Have the most beautiful day. I'm Tina Tower and I'm cheering you on all the way.