Ep 52: How to Build a Sell Out Launch Plan

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, a business and marketing podcast with a difference, ranking in the top 5% globally for people who want to start, scale and grow their own business. Dawn McGruer shares tips to improve marketing, motivation and mindset, as well as her own real life challenges and experiences as an entrepreneur. Guests include some of the world’s most inspiring leaders, too. So if you are an aspiring, established or serial entrepreneur, this is your go-to podcast to fast track results and rise to meet today’s challenges, and master the art of online influence and business success, and avoid common pitfalls along the way. Never miss an episode, and subscribe and listen at dawnmcgruer.com. 

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to episode 52 of Dawn of a New Era. In this episode, we’re going to talk about how to build out a sellout launch. This is something that we hear in the online marketing world a lot, about people in constant lanch. People who are doing these huge, huge launches are even a million pound, I heard the other day. I think when you’re looking to market your service or your business, regardless of what you stage in a business as an entrepreneurial business owner, or even corporate leader, we need to focus on a couple of basics. Because looking at the bigger picture, and looking at these huge, mammoth launches, is just absolutely daunting. And to be honest, it’s overwhelming. 

Think about what suits your personality

For me, who worked very much in the corporate world, and then jumped into obviously some of the online marketing side of things, when I was seeing these so-called gurus doing these launches I just was like, “This is not for me.” I think when we think about launches, you have to think about what suits you and your personality because not everybody is going to launch in the same way. But, it doesn’t mean it can’t be an absolutely epic sellout launch. 

I know lots of people doing absolutely amazing amounts of figures in terms of launches, but it’s all relative to where they are in their journey. Some people will launch through a huge challenge, or someone might do a master class. Someone might do various different launch patterns, using different tactics. Anything from doing something over three days, to five days, I’ve even seen challenges over 30 days. Now, what suits someone might not suit the next.

The preferred method for me, for launching, has always been about trying to recreate what is the most successful way of selling. Now for me, it’s always been in-person. If I think about my ideal client, and I think about my products or services, and I’m looking at how to convert them and how to persuade them into coming on board to a program. I know confidently that if I’m in front of the right person, and I’m talking about all of the enticing benefits to them rather than just the features about the program then it’s easy to convert, if I was in a meeting or I was on stage doing a presentation. 

So if we think about doing online launches, what is the next best thing? For me, it’s always been about showcasing. If I’m in a meeting or I’m doing a speaking event, it means that I can absolutely share my expertise, my experience, I can add value, I can do all of these things. But, how do we recreate that massively interact experience online? Well, master classes. Master classes, it could be called a webinar, it could be an online workshop, whatever you want to call it. Master classes for me, the terminology is better than webinar because webinar, I don’t know, it has this stigma where people think it’s a bit old fashioned, “I’m going to be sold to.” 

I don’t want to be in constant launch

Where a master class, genuinely I will create a master class where I will share some huge, huge value, and techniques, and tips, and insights and trends. Because I’m confident in the fact that, if I show people authentically my journey, and I talk about what I have done and the transformational journey of my clients, then that in itself is persuasive content. Because even if someone doesn’t buy there and then, I have given enough to position myself in their mind, I’ve given enough value that they can take away an action. But, the majority of people who are genuinely interested and see that value, they want to buy at that time. 

The thing is is that launching for me, I don’t want to be in constant launch. I’m not somebody who wants to show up online every single day. And, for lots of people who think about me as a digital marketer, I would say I’m probably part introvert and part extrovert. I like to work on my own, I like to work a little bit in teams, but I don’t want to be out there all the time and that’s my personality. If you feel that social fatigue where you just think, “Oh, I’ve got to be live all the time,” you don’t. I absolutely am testimony to that because I’m all about working smarter not harder. I want my business to be fun so I don’t want to show up every day online, I don’t want to have to do endless, exhaustive lives. I don’t want to be doing social media all day, every day. 

It’s about utilizing your content and showing up in a way that’s authentic to you, that’s very powerful, and it’s about building powerful communities who will see you consistently. Consistently doesn’t have to be every day. I’m probably showing up two, three times a week and that’s what works for me. I’m using LinkedIn, it’s one of the most powerful networks in terms of lead generation. I’m spending 10 minutes a day. You’ve got to think about what suits you and what is working for your current customers right now. If you are selling something, what is the most persuasive, highly converting content? If you are doing things like master classes, why would you not use them in a launch? 

Here are a couple of tips, things that I feel that, if you jot down, you can go and sense check and you can build a really solid launch plan. 

Number one. What’s working right now? What would be that best way that you could show up, that you feel that you could really, really get your ideal client so excited, create so much desire, that they want to take action now? For me, that’s a master class.

Share your own journey

Number two. You have to be able to share your own journey because if you’re trying to position yourself as a leader, as someone who can take that person through the transformation, you need to give a little bit as well. It’s not just about talking about your clients’ success, people want to know where you came from, who you are, what you’re about. What’s your mission, what’s your vision? Have a look at your social media and is it saying that?

So many corporate brands, and brands and businesses I look at online, the content on social media is just utterly boring because it’s all about the business. People want to know about the people in the business, the people who started the business, the brains, the minds, the inspiring leaders who are at the forefront of all of these brand identities. The thing is is you have to be able to step forward. It is difficult if you have not been in the online space before to step forward and share about you. 

It’s about the experience

This is really where my podcast Dawn of a New Era has allowed me to share more of me, to tell my story, and to tell people about pitfalls, challenges, epic fails because authenticity is about genuine journeys. We all have goals, but we have to be able to enjoy the experience of getting to that goal but there’s always ripples along the way. It’s not plain sailing. One of the things I do a lot is I tell people about things that didn’t work because if someone’s going to sign up for a program, they have to totally believe in me because I’ve been in business for 20 years. People need to hear the story, they need to know what I do, how I did it, what have been the success factors along the way. What is it that I can do for them? 

Because if you’re telling someone that you can get them to X, Y and Z, and you’re giving them all of those benefits, they need to know that you can build that bridge and you know exactly the steps, and the challenges and pitfalls to avoid along the way. You have to be able to showcase this because it’s not straightforward. I tell people, “Do not come and join my program if you don’t want to put the effort in.” Because number one, I do not want to work with people who don’t want results. Results for me are social proof. But, it’s about the whole essence, and mission and vision about what I do. It’s not just a process that someone is following, it’s a life changing journey and experience. Something like a program that someone goes onto just to do an online course, you hear loads of people who start but don’t continue. I’m very clear in my proposition that I know that every single person who’s put the effort in will win. The thing is is you have to be clear and you have to really focus on your ideal client. 

Talk about the person

Now, this takes me on to the next point. When you are looking at launching, you have to talk about the person because honestly, they’re more interested in themselves than you and the product or service. Why wouldn’t they be? They don’t want to know about the features, that you’ll get your online portal, you’ll go through X, Y and Z. They want to know what they’re going to get at end. What is it going to do, and is it aligned to their goals? If they’ve got objectives, you have to put it into their language and talk about you. This is very important, especially on sales pages. You have to clearly tell people, “This program, this product, this service is for you if you are this, you want this, you feel this.” Put it into their language. It’s a very emotive thing.

Anyone who thinks that buying a program, a course, a product or service online is a rational decision, it’s not. It is emotionally driven. Even if you were buying a pen, toilet paper, anything, it’s an emotional decision because we will choose something not rationally. If you wanted koala bears on your toilet roll, that is not a rational decision. It’s emotional. You have to think, when you’re talking to these people, that it’s the emotion about what this experience is going to be. The clue here is in the word experience.

People don’t just want to join an online program, people just don’t want to go a load of work, people don’t want to do a diploma. People want an experience and people need to be able to visualize this as a mini movie running in their head of where they’re at now and where they’re going to be. You need to be able to paint that picture so vividly that people can see themselves there, but it needs to feel truly achievable. You need to present it out there, and if it sounds too good to be true, it is. You have to be honest in the way that you position things and your proposition has to sing that completely. 

So when you’re looking at who you’re going to market, it’s about building a community. It’s not about numbers. Who cares how many followers you’ve got? Who cares how many likes, how many comments? It is irrelevant when you’re coming to a launch. These are all nice things, these are vanity metrics. But, the crux of online marketing, the essence of social media and the success of social media is all down to building the right people. Each and every day, reaching your ideal client, telling them about your journey, showcasing yourself as a leader, giving them social proof, testimonials from your clients, being there consistently. Showing people that your business is growing and scaling. Right people, right time. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. 

It’s about quality over quantity

I would rather somebody launched to 50 amazing, targeted ideal clients and you will sell, guaranteed, rather than 5000 absolutely rubbish people because you’ve just built a list on numbers. You’ve built a community on let’s get as many people into this group as possible. You want to just strip everything back and think genuinely, “Have I got a powerful community of people who are absolutely, 100% my ideal client?” 

Now, the other thing is is what is the best way to get people onto your course, your program, whatever, when you’re launching? Well, to borrow audiences, to guest in other people’s groups on social media, to showcase yourself. Now, what that does is just the sheer fact that someone has invited you into the group already tells the group that you’re safe, you’re solid, you are to be trusted, and that the other person has an affinity to you. If this person who is inviting you has this lovely audience of people, quality, it doesn’t have to be quantity, then these people are already invested in that person. Just the whole social proof of being invited in by this other leader, this is a great positioning tool and it’s an amazing way to get conversion. 

Now, think about when you are empowering these people to join, you want to make sure that you’ve got ideal clients because you want your program, or course or whatever, to flow. Whatever your product or service is, it doesn’t matter. You have to think about the right people, the right audiences. What is it that will actually tip them past, “Oh, I’m not sure,” to “I absolutely want to be here?” You have to be able to talk emotionally about all aspects of what this is, and you have to be very genuine about it and very transparent. If it’s going to be difficult, tell them. If it’s going to be for a particular market, tell them. Tell them exactly who it is for and maybe tell them exactly who it is not for. Because you should never be scared of repelling audiences, you only want to have people in your tribe who are part of what you want to be creating. It doesn’t always have to be ideal clients, but it could be powerful partners, it could be affiliates, it could be all sorts of people.

Utilise the power of affiliates

Now, that brings me onto my last and final point. When you’re planning out your launch plan, think about obviously who could be an ideal person to invite you into their group. Now, anybody whose maybe sharing master classes or coming on board as part of your program to deliver it, these people can be affiliates. And by affiliates, I mean you give them a commission if they pull anyone through their own audiences into your product or service. You pay a commission, why not? It’s marketing. So when people ask me about the average commissions, they vary, we pay 10%. The thing is on a 2000 pounds program, which is an average of what we do, that is 200 pounds a sale. Now, that is a great incentive for somebody because if somebody is putting through and gets 10 sales, they get 2000 pounds. 

Now, we also build in for our affiliates giveaways, competitions, to incentivize them even further with great prizes. From holidays, to hampers, to vouchers, because these people are the strongest people to get other people on your program. If they’ve got audiences who already trust them, then it goes without saying that of course it’s going to be easier for them to convert. And if they believe in your program, too, then you’ve got your own sales team. 

Don’t go it alone. When you’re looking at how to build a sellout launch, work your way through everything from the best way to launch, how to build the audience, how to talk to your ideal client, how to reach them through other people’s audiences, how to incentivize these people to become your affiliates. Once you start mapping this out, you start to think about taking your mind away from the tech and just actually looking at real life actions that will build a really sustainable but hugely profitable launch. And, business that goes with it. Think about when you want to launch, think about how long you want it to be for, think about the strongest way that you can show up and the way that you know that you can deliver this persuasive content that people can buy. 

Think through the actual steps. Forget tech, forget all of the other things that go with it and think about it human to human. How would you get somebody to buy your product or service? What are the stages you would have to do? If you don’t have an audience, how are you going to get 50 solid people in that network? How are you going deliver the master class? Just start mapping it all out, first of all. Because at the end of the day if tech is not your thing, if there’s three things you’ve got to do that you don’t know how to do, which could be setting up landing pages for people to sign up for a master class, it could be setting up the emails to go with it and it could be actually hosting the master class, those things can be outsourced and you can be in your genius zone. 

Forget the tech and map it out, and let me know how you get on. And, I shall see you in next week’s episode. 

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast. For your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit and success, and join our community go to dawnmcgruer.com.