The Truth About Launching

Welcome to episode 99 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, the Business Growth Coach. This episode is all about the truth of launching. This may shock you, and I know it's pretty controversial, but it's very true. I have just completed a survey of 20 entrepreneurs last month, and I really wanted to get behind the scenes of all of these launches.

I wanted to dig deep into how launches worked, and were they actually the best business model. For some people, they absolutely are, and this is not a podcast episode slating launches or saying they're not the right thing to do. This is just an honest, true portrayal of what I found. And I did a survey of 20 entrepreneurs.

I looked at all of the sales pages. I looked at the lead time that they started marketing the launch, right the way up through to open cart, to close cart, to announcing the figures and running the program. So I looked at the end-to-end process, and I even looked at the actual length of program they were selling. And quite often, many entrepreneurs were opening themselves up, or their programs, and tying up for even like a 12-month commitment.

That's quite big. And as a business owner, one of the things that always sparks with me is that I love my time, and the thought of being attached to something that I had to do day in, day out, or week in, week out, or in a particular schedule—I don't know what it is—I just don't like the thought of it. I like having space and freedom. So if I'm doing a container or a unit, etc.

, I like to plan it in a way that works for me. So this is what I love about working with clients, yes, for 12 months, but in a way that works. So let me just share something with you before I reveal these shocking stats. When I run a mastermind, I love the fact that I have a copy coach who will come in and critique my clients' sales pages, ads, email nurture series.

I mean, these are the things that need addressing day to day. One of the things I wanted to do when I set up my Success from Your Soul Mastermind was that when people do a program, that they don't just need strategy; they need the actual tangible nitty-gritty, the specifics, the bits that actually move the needle. We all have an idea in our head of where we want to be. And then I come along as the business growth coach, and I impart my strategy, and I show my clients things that are happening.

But then I take it a stage further. I drill down into the specific actions, the step-by-step actions that need to be carried out in the most efficient and effective way to get the best results. That will get my clients so far. There's an additional support level that is around mindset.

It's around motivation. It's about success barriers. We've all been there when we think of an amazing idea, and then we hit overwhelm. We could have the best strategy, but if you're stuck, you can't get past it.

We need the clarity. We need that person to come and tell us it's going to be okay. And I feel like this is where coaches and mentors really need to show up more, because I see a lot of clients that come to me that say, Well, I either got the mindset, but I didn't get the strategy, or I got the strategy, but I didn't get the mindset. And then I hit a point that I kind of wasn't motivated, and no one reached out.

You need the holy trinity. You need these three critical core success pillars to be successful in business. This comes down to when I talk to my clients about launching or creating anything. By having a container that is 12 months, I know that 12 months is the length of time that I need to make the shifts, the transformations, and get the results I get.

There is no way I could claim the results I get for clients if I worked with people with a 90-day plan. It just can't work like that. I can set people off. If someone comes on a strategize and energize retreat, they will have an amazing time, and it will be transformational in terms of the community, the whole experience on that retreat.

And yes, we will create a 90-day plan to go along with it. You see, it's like a package. It's only part of the piece. And when we do a 12 months, whether it's working one-to-one or in the mastermind, there's certain things that have to happen.

I work from a framework. I have my growth hacking model, and this is where it comes in, because when I create something. And I, let's say, go to launch it. This is really where this whole podcast episode came from, because as I was gearing my mastermind, as I was getting my coaches involved, I got my copy coach on board for the critiquing, and this really started to accelerate results.

Then I started thinking, right, the other biggest gap here is I talk about this whole getting visible, getting clients piece. I need someone who's going to be behind the scenes, really cheering on my clients and helping them by really coaching them through in things like the content, the social media, etc. And having these two coaches and having a program that I support my clients through the mastermind once a month with these additional coaches is a really good balance. The reason I tell you this is because everything is costed out.

We operate at 83% profit. Yep, 83% profit. There's 17 of us across all of my businesses. We are a really lean but expert team, and I love the way that we work because everybody shows up and takes responsibility.

We are not a hierarchy where everyone comes to me. I do not manage most of my team. I empower the people who are true leaders in my team to do that and free myself up to be the CEO. So when we think about launching, okay, let's get back to the heart here.

My key points are that anything I do in my business, my model has to be profitable. I have to think away of about launching and attracting and getting a steady flow of leads, an abundance of leads that are turning into profitable paying customers, and we do this for our clients too. So when it comes to launching, I started seeing literally from January this year, launch, launch, launch, launch, launch. I have never really been a launcher, I'll be honest.

And again, this is not me slating people who launch. This is just what is the truth behind it. You see people showing up, they've created a program, they launch it, and hey presto, they're at— There are six, seven figures, and it was the best launch ever. Well, I went and dig deeper, and I thought, I'm going to see whether this is actually what we see on social media play out.

Is this the truth? Well, the sad fact is that when I looked at 20 entrepreneurs, and as I say, I looked at the end-to-end piece, the whole program from start of marketing to delivery, I reviewed every single launch figure for 20 people, and only three were actually profitable. Now, that's pretty shocking. Three.

Three. So don't get caught up in the hype of launches and challenges, unless of course you want to and they are a solid structure for you. There are a couple of warnings that I want to give you. So this is not don't launch.

This is if you are launching. Think about it. Or if you don't want to launch, the good news is, is there are some really, really profitable ways where you don't have to. So if I think about my last business, when I set up Dawn McGruer, my coaching and mentoring business, I hit seven figures in seven months.

Did I launch? No, I didn't. So there are lots of ways of doing things, and each person will have something that aligns to them. It feels right, and you have to show up in a way that feels authentic.

For me, the thought of launching, the energy behind it, it just isn't me. I just do not like this fast sell. I like to organically attract and work with clients in a way that feels at the pace and timing that's right, okay? So of course I launch things, but not in the traditional sense where you think it's a three-day challenge or a five-day challenge or whatever.

I use different things, like I use applications, I use masterclasses, I use audio. I do lots of different things to communicate with my audience that enables me to generate consistent high-income cash months. We can be nailing an easy 100K plus for myself and for my clients, but without the burnout, without the stress. And one of the things I see on social media is all of these figures, and then people start launching and trying to do challenges.

They're absolutely exhausted, and the cycle continues. They might only be doing it three, four times a year, but there's a six-week marketing lead time that goes into that, and then there's the launch itself. And the crazy thing is, I had one of my team members telling me that there was a launch happening whereby there were two lives a day. These were going on into the late hours of the night, and everyone on the team was just absolutely knackered by the end of it.

And the launch didn't even pull in the figures they wanted because guess what? We can't control everything, and you may do a launch, and I've seen— This in so many cases, whereby last time it was epic, the next time you do exactly the same and it just doesn't fly because things change. Market behaviors, customer behaviors, other people. You do not operate in silo, and you have to think that you're constantly up.

Against other people. So when we think about launches, I want to give you an example. And one of the examples that I reviewed was I went in and I had a look at this 250K launch. This person was showing up on social media, talking about this launch, how happy they were.

It was epic. It was amazing. It was the best thing in their business. And I thought, okay, this sounds amazing.

Congratulations. This is wonderful. I support you, and I am proud of you. And then I started looking at the sales page, and honestly, I nearly fell off my seat.

When I saw the low figure that this person was giving their time, their expertise, and their program, I literally was aghast. I just couldn't believe it. It was such a low figure, and they were giving access to them for a year. So yes, you may have done a 250K launch, but this is what really sparked me to go and research and dig deep, because I was like, okay, if you've done a launch and it was quarter of a million, that sounds very, very impressive.

But what was the profit? Like, how much did it actually cost you to run that? What were you charging for the product or service? How much were you giving in terms of time?

So what was the delivery cost, and over what period? So by the time I looked at the fact that they were going to show up every month, And deliver all of that time over 12 months, I just cannot see how there's any profit left. Not only is that quite draining, because what you've actually done is you've devalued your own expertise. This can be potentially damaging to your own business because why on earth would clients pay more for services with you in the future when they got a year's worth of support for less than a thousand pounds?

I mean, it's just crazy. So I'm not saying that everything has to be high ticket, but have some respect. This impacts the whole coaching industry. If you have invested in yourself, if I think about my investment, I have trained, I have certified, I have done everything from business performance coaching through to psychology, business, marketing.

It's crazy. I have been in masterminds, I've worked with coaches, I have trained as a professional speaker. All of the accolades, like my fellowships that I've been awarded, and all the benchmarks that I've hit, did I do these in vain to sell my soul and put out products and services whereby there's absolutely no profit? No.

I respect myself. And I think the thing is, is that I'm not sorry for this podcast. I've posted it on Instagram and already I've had so many messages. We as business owners are powerful leaders.

We are people who educate. We lead. We help our clients. You know, service-based businesses and people who make products and services, we all have a purpose.

But to have a sustainable, profitable, or even sellable business, it has to be making money and it has to make sense. So I want myself and clients to respect our expertise, our time, and our results whilst running profitable and sustainable businesses. But we want these to create freedom, flexibility, fun, and dreams whilst focusing on our financial growth too. So what does this mean?

Well. The truth about launching is, is that 98% of launches are not nailing these sorts of profits. Yes, they might be hitting six and seven figures, but it's not necessarily all cash into the business because it could be payment plans, which is absolutely fine. That creates recurring revenue.

But how long do they have to deliver for? What is the time out of their schedule, the commitment that's attached to delivering that? If the investment is so low, I often feel like there's no skin in the game. I know that when people really make a decision and work with me and invest with me over 12 months, we're looking at really making big shifts in 30 days, changing lives, not just businesses.

And that happens because we've shown up with a commitment to each other. I think the thing is, is that when you build in the cost to launch and the team and maybe resources or the expertise that you have to get in, that's six weeks normally marketing. Then you've got obviously the launch itself and the delivery of the program. So please cost it out.

So if you are going to launch, think about what the end-to-end cost will be and think about how it will feel. Like, do you truly love launching? Are you exhausted? Maybe if you're launching three to four times a year, you could do it once a year and then switch to an evergreen.

We do not want to sell our souls. We do not want to have to feel just because other people are posting about these amazing epic launches that we need to be doing it too. Don't get caught up in the FOMO. Do not think that people are doing bigger and better things than you because honestly, as a seven-figure business owner, I am always, always looking at how to improve my business.

And yes, it is tempting to get caught up in the buzz, but these vanity metrics are not all true. So think about it. If you could get consistent cash coming into your business, if you were hitting like 20, 50, or even 100K plus months consistently without burnout, how magical would that feel? I want to share a story with you because I always talk about profit, and me, marketing, motivation and mindset are the three success factors that get me to this 83% profit margin.

And I want to stay there. I want to have a lean, magical team. I want to be energized. I want to have time to spend with my family, my friends.

I want to go on holiday. I want to play with my puppies and have my life in balance. I do not want to get caught up in launching. So I do a lot of overt selling where it's basically, we're launching this, this is the application, this is the price.

If it's for you and you're going to be committed and you really want to get results, apply now. Things like that. I think about my calls. I do all my discovery calls.

I don't do masses of them, but they are quality. I have 100% almost show-up rate and almost 100% conversion. Why? Because it's transparent.

People know what they're applying for. They know what they're coming on a call for. I'm not trying to sell them onto a call where I'm going to do this magical strategy for them and then suddenly sell at them. They know that they're coming on the call to discuss the thing that they applied for.

And I think in this day and age, there is a time and a place because guess what? Even in the summer, even at Christmas, even in January or when we think no one's got any money, people are ready to buy. Do not get caught up in seasonal mindset. I've talked to a lot of people this week who are like, Oh my goodness, July and August are coming up and we're going to get no sales and everyone's on holiday.

Do you know what? July and August for me are the most amazing months ever because this is often when people have a bit of downtime, a bit of space. They start on the bigger projects. They invest, ready to really hit the ground running from September.

So this mindset monkey that kind of jumps in there is a false truth because there's always people ready to buy. And the thing is, is sometimes it's the way or the process that you're using to sell. And if launches are not something that lights you up and makes you feel energized, don't. Don't do them.

If you want to sell by evergreen, find the way. The thing for me is I have been working in business since I was 21. Started my first agency, 2005. Started my academy.

Trained 30,000 students so far. That's a heck of a lot of students. Now, I couldn't have done that without a solid pipeline, generating leads every day that were turning into customers that didn't need intervention, that people could buy online and self-serve. When I set up my last business, as I said, I hit seven figures in seven months.

Again, I needed a model that would work for me. I don't want to be just constantly in this cycle of finding people. And when I first started my business, I was in feast and famine. And this is something that I see so many times.

I can see any stage, any industry, any niche of business. It could be a seasoned entrepreneur who'd been hitting six or seven figures, suddenly dip, and then they hit a feast and famine. Why? Could be that they're going through a bit of a business model change, and that often happens.

I've been there. And you take a drop to then rebuild it up. It's sometimes hard. It's a painful change, but you know you have to do it because it's going to be better in the long run.

And actually, that's what I went through just before I did the seven figures in seven months. I took a massive dip because I really wanted to pull out certain things that were not enjoyable anymore. And I didn't want to be traveling around. I didn't want to be just doing training and corporate training and things like that.

I could train all day long, but it was about having the balance. So I started to design my day, what my business looked like, from working in the agency to working in the academy to working in my coaching and mentoring business, and also in my property business that I started with my partner. So having four businesses, I have to be savvy with my time, and I had to really drill out, like, what was going to be the thing that lifted me up, boosted me, gave me that motivation, the inspiration to be like, yeah, this is what I love doing every day. It's not exhausting.

I don't feel burnt out. And launching couldn't happen for me in that way. So this is why I started running everything on evergreen, and I literally feel like I am like— Like the digital marketing queen, I started working in online marketing when the internet began, and I've always found the way of being able to consistently feed my sales pipeline. And honest truth, this has been the number one thing that has been my success.

It's been the number one thing that I don't have to feel like I have to show up on social media every day because I'm causing a ripple effect with my marketing, or the systems are in place. Everything is there. And this is one of the things that I teach a lot in the academy, especially when I'm doing things like our How to Build a Successful Digital Agency online program, because to run the

Businesses, you have to be in the right place. You have to have the model, the foundations. All of these systems have to be working for it to be profitable. So I want you to think about what it is you see online.

I want you to really challenge the truth behind it and be aware that some of these figures will be truth and some will be vanity. There is a way that will work for you, and maybe it's having a balance. If you love launching, you just launch less, or if you really hate launching, don't launch at all. For me, the way that my model is set up, it means that I have a steady flow of clients coming into the business every single day, and that brings me joy, of course, but it brings me money.

I don't run my business for free, and I don't ever want to be devaluing the investment in myself, my team, everything that I have worked for by selling my soul and putting things out at such low figures. If I sold my programs and things like that for like £500, I would absolutely be selling thousands of them. That's fine, but I know that the results come with a certain amount of investment and time that has to come from me. So there's a certain way that the program will work and get the results.

I don't want to just be churning out content and selling things. I want to create changes. There is no way that I would want to position myself as the business growth coach and go through all my trademarking to get that title globally, to then suddenly just think, right, okay, I can make a load of money and I'm going to go and just sell this all over here. People probably won't get results, but that doesn't really matter.

That's not what lights me up, and that is not what I stand for. So think about your mission and vision. Think about what lights you up, and think about a way that's working for you. And if you want to know more about ways of launching, come and find out first of all where your business is and do the Business Growth Scorecard.

You'll find this on DawnMcGruer.com. I've created the scorecard to measure you against all of the five critical success areas that actually will catapult growth and move the needle in your business. In your business.

Once you've actually scored out of all of those five, you will see your strengths, you will see your weaknesses, but you will ultimately see the things you need to change in your business to be able to scale to that next level. So if you are in a state of flux, or you are a little bit stuck or overwhelmed, or you just really want to push that next level and really kind of go from like 10 or 20, 50, or even break that 100K barrier per month or even per year, then go and do the scorecard. Find out what your score is and see what it is you actually have to then spend some time on and do some tweaking, because sometimes it's little shifts that make these big changes, and small changes and small steady steps build this big momentum that brings big change. So nothing has to happen overnight.

It's sometimes these consistent steps that will make the biggest changes. So head on over to DawnMcGruer.com, do the business growth scorecard, and reach out and share any of your launching stories with me on social media. I love to hear these stories.

And remember, if you like the podcast, come and rate and review, and don't forget to subscribe so you can get the next episode, which is going to be episode 100. So thanks for joining me, and I hope you enjoyed the honest truth about launching. Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast, and 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.