A few of my students have recently just gone into a launch period and some exceeded their expectations and others didn’t quite go to plan and so I’ve been coaching them through this and wanted to share the insight because I’ve had failed launched for both my virtual assistant services and coaching programs. So if that’s something you can relate to, hopefully todays episode can help you bounce back and head into your next launch with confidence.
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So before we get into todays episode I wanted to preface that almost every business owner I know has had a failed launch, so even though thoughts of i’m a failure, I’m not cut out for this, I knew this was going to happen, it’s not possible for me are popping up in your head right now, know that it wont always be this way. You are not alone in this and you can bounce back.
A failed launch is one of those things that is just a little bump in the road, and most people have driven over that road at one point or another. But the reason they’ve gone on, kept driving and are now seeing the success they are is because they have learned to bounce back.
The biggest mistake you can make when it comes to having a failed launch, is making it about you.
There are so many reasons why a launch might not go to plan and none of them are because you’ve been too greedy or too ambitious. It’s not because people don’t like you or because you suck at business. It’s not because you’re not credible enough and it’s not because it’s not possible for you.
These are all thoughts that I have been coaching my students on in the last month and I wanted to share some insight into their experiences in hopes that it can inspire and encourage you. I’m not going to share names, but my student is a social media manager who’s been in business for about 6 months. She came to me wanting to learn how to make passive income and expand her earnings as an online service provider. Her goal was to create a course and so we worked together on creating the program and launching it in the end of last year.
Her goal was to have 10 people sign up, but she ended up only having 3 people sign up and in her mind, that was a failed launch because she didn’t reach her goal.
However what then happened was she stopped launching. The fear of failure kicked in, the self doubt crept in and kept telling her she wasn’t good enough and so she pulled back on her launch. She could have continued promoting the program after the initial launch period, because its your business, you get to choose to extend or not. But the voices in her head said that if she did continue, she would be spamming people. That if she promoted for longer than a few weeks, she was desperate. She was scared that people wouldn’t see her as an authority figure and so when no one signed up after 2 weeks into her 4 week launch she joined our coaching call in tears with all these fears coming up. She had so much frustration towards the launch and the lack of clients because she was pouring her heart and soul into this program over the last couple of months and she felt like she had nothing to show for it.
And I could completely relate to exactly how she felt. I felt the exact same when I launched my coaching program for the first time. I set a low price, spent 3 months creating the program, I launched for a month and had 1 person sign up.
I was exhausted, frustrated and couldn’t really celebrate the 1 client I signed because I had so much self doubt outweighing that because I didn’t hit my goal of signing 6 people. I remember it like it was yesterday. This was over a year ago and the way I show up now is completely different, the way I sign clients is completely different and that came from a shift in mindset.
When I had a failed launch I made it about me. I made my lack of clients mean something about me, rather than just being a fact. Just as my student did when she experienced the same thing.
And its natural, you’ve put so much time and effort into creating this course, program or service and so when things don’t fall into place its incredibly frustrating. But what if you believed that every action you did was making you money, regardless of whether or not you could physically see it.
What would happen if you had blind faith that ideal clients would come and now that you’ve tried one way of attracting them, you’re one step closer, because now you know what didn’t work. This means that you can tweak your messaging, change your strategy and you are one step closer to landing clients.
What if you could look at a failed launch and be excited by the challenge and the opportunity that presents.
Take your ego out of it
When you have a failed launch the first thing you need to do is look at it objectively. Take the personal feelings out of it, because whether you agree or not, the universe isn’t out to personally victimise you.
What if you looked at it objectively and said ok, what is this teaching me, what can I learn from this, what can I do differently next time.
There are a million reasons why a launch may not go to plan and often times it’s a simple tweak that can be the difference.
When I joined the call and saw her in tears, we reviewed her launch plan and adjusted the wording she was using as we realised that her ideal clients were using different vocab to she was.
Within 2 days, she had her first sign up and 3 days after that she signed her 2nd and before the end of her launch she had signed 1 more. And so whilst she didn’t hit her 10 sign ups that she was hoping for, she had the first sign of proof that it is possible, because she had 3 people who were willing to invest. They saw the value and that is worth celebrating and being proud of.
Once you’re able to look at it objectively you override your ego and you can make changes without it meaning something about you. This is not as easy as I have just made it sound. This comes from deep shadow work, working on your self belief and your mindset, and the more you fail, the easier this practice becomes. That’s why I often encourage my students to become a beginner as often as possible. It can be something as simple as giving my students homework to find and try to cook a new recipe. I’m not attached to what it is, but the more you can get out of your comfort zone, and try something new, the more you’ll make mistakes, and thats good, thats how you learn, thats how you test your mindset and that opens up opportunity for growth.
I think often times we put so much pressure on ourselves to hit all our goals, but theres no one else putting that pressure on you, so give yourself a bit of a break.
Because lets imagine you want to learn to bake a cake, theres no real risk involved if it doesn’t work out right. So even if your cake sucks, it doesn’t matter. The same can be said for your launch. Does your sucky cake mean you are a terrible, unworthy person, obviously not. It just means you need more practice, maybe the ratios were off, maybe it needed more cooking time, when you can look at it objectively you’re more likely to go in and try again adjusting your method the second time. The way you operate in one aspect is how you operate in all others and you can use this analogy to draw parallels to your business or your launch and know that if you can bounce back and make a better cake the second time you try, then there is also the possibility that your second launch could also be better.
understanding your customer journey and their barriers to entry
The second thing to remember is that there are so many areas where the sale could have broken. Just like there are so many reasons why your cake could not bake right.
It could come from their first interaction, is your content attracting them? Is it clear how people can get in contact? how can they sign up? do you have a sales page? or a sales call? are they getting that far and then ghosting? Are they saying yes on those calls, but then when it comes to crunch time do they not commit?
Understanding your customer journey can help you understand where they have dropped off. For example with this students we’ve been looking at her analytics and noticed that the pricing for the course wasn’t clear and so people might have been hesitating to reach out if they weren’t committed, She also didn’t have a webinar or a way for potential clients to get a taste test of what is inside the program. We also looked at her strategy and looked at ways for next time she can continue to warm up her audience and build hype for the entire launch period whilst not suffering from burnout as she ended up pulling away in the last week or so because the fear and burnout was creeping in.
When I had my failed launch, I was doing sales calls, and still to this day, by the time I have people on sales calls they are 80% enrolled they just want to meet me to finalise it, so I knew that if I could get them on a call 8/10 people would sign.
If you are finding that you have a low close rate on calls, then perhaps it’s something you are doing or saying on those calls. So in that case, you want to ensure you are recording all sales calls, and then go back and review it, take notes and see what you can do or say differently next time.
For me, I found I had low retention on my webinar for my original program. I had 18 people sign up, but didn’t have a single person on the live call when it came to it. I had 3 people watch it later, but the other 15 were never heard from again and so I knew that they were obviously interested in the webinar, but what happened between signing up and attending.
I then tweaked it the second time and made it a live call only. I had 2 sessions to give more options and whilst yes I had less people sign up, I think I had about 12 people sign up, but these people were more committed. I still didn’t have everyone attend the live call, but 6 out of the 12 attended. So I went from 5% to 50% attendance rate.
So look at the things you did, what went well and what could you do differently next time and then just try it out.
The people who are successful right now, were once feeling like you are feeling. But the difference is that they learnt from it, tried something new, gathered more data, tweaked it again, gathered more data and continued that cycle until they’re reaching the 100K years and the 1 million dollar years.
release all attachment and have faith
The third thing you can do is to release all attachment, and trust that the right people will fall into your lap. You will be given the clients when you are ready for them and when they are ready for you, and if you’re not at that level yet, it’s because the universe knows that you are not ready for that level of expansion, whether you think you are or not.
When I had my first launch and landed the 1 client, I realised that my program wasn’t right. I needed to tweak things inside the program, I had teething and tech issues and it was way more overwhelming that I imagined coaching would be. I was only able to manage it without loosing my mind because I knew I only had to keep 1 client happy. If I had the 6 clients that I wanted, I would have had to refund them, looking back I just know that I wasn’t ready to take that many people on, it would have been too overwhelming for where I was. But, I can only see that looking back, at the time I thought I was ready, but the universe always knows best and always presents when the timing is right.
Theres an example my coach used to always tell me when I went into a launch. Think of a launch as one big opening party. Imagine there is a new hairdresser down the road, they’re putting the flyers in letterboxes, they are putting up big signs saying open now and they are inviting everyone in. Your launch is the same. Whether you are doing a live launch where you have a specific time where cart is open and closed like a program, or if you’re just announcing that now you’re open for business, like a VA or Social media management service, It’s all just one huge opening party. Imagine you are the customer. You walk past the hairdresser opening party and think that looks so cool, I’d love to go there it looks like lots of fun, but I just got my hair done last week. At that moment, you’re not going to go in right away. But the next time you’re ready to get your hair cut, you will remember and go there.
That’s what your launch is doing, it’s planting seeds in your ideal clients minds that you are here, you can help them and when they are ready, they will come. Its not your job to convince them and use pushy or sleazy sales strategies. It’s your job to throw the most epic opening party that they can’t help but want to be apart of and trust that because you have, whether its in 3 days, 3 months or 3 years, those people will come because of the impact you made back then.
I spoke recently about how my first coach made such an impact on me when we first met that 2 years later I hired her as my coach. So don’t undervalue the work you’ve done during this launch.
Every action you’ve taken has taken you one step closer to clients on your books and cash in the bank. So hold faith, trust that this is the path you’re supposed to be on, it is all working out, whether it feels like it or not and know that you are not alone in how you feel, despite no one else talking about it. Remove the guilt, remove the shame and be proud that you actually launched, because not everyone gets that far.
I hope this has been helpful and if you can relate to my students recent launch or you can relate to my launch story, I want to let you know I have coaching spots available and want to offer you a free strategy call. So if you are looking for support to make 2023 the year you finally grow your business, send me a message and we can chat about what support could look like for you. So whether you are wanting to learn how to start your business as an online service provider, or you are established and you are wanting support to scale I can help you, so get in touch and we can discuss what support could look like.
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