The Many Blessings of a Mediocre Launch
When it comes to launches, you often hear about the 6- and 7-figure ones, the ones that are equal parts glamorous and grueling and inspiring. So you do your own, launching a new program or service or app, perhaps at a much smaller scale, but nevertheless as challenging and hopeful.
Launches are hard work. The heavyweights will readily admit that, even when they have teams behind them to help them pull it off in style and scale. You’re good with that. You put in the work. You might even hire some extra help. You give it your all.
And then… well not disaster exactly. At the end of the day, you look at your results, and they just aren’t near the numbers you’d hoped for. It can feel like a real letdown. I get that, but I’m here to remind you about all the great things that come out of a launch, even if you didn’t hit your targets.
Before I get into those… congratulations—you did it! I’m not trying to be flip. Deciding to create an offer and put it out there for sale can be freakin’ scary. It can feel so overwhelming, time-consuming, vulnerable, risky, confusing… yeah, no wonder a lot of people just don’t go there. But you did. And that’s to be commended. You have something of value and you believed it enough to put yourself out there for it.
Pulling off a launch of any size is also something to celebrate. Maybe you have an Online Business Manager who orchestrated a lot of moving parts which is wonderful. Maybe your VA stepped it up for some critical moves which is super awesome. Maybe you did it pretty much all by yourself. In any case there were likely some late nights, some cursing, some nail-biting, some moments of utter relief. Again, you did it. You’re here. On the other side. So now let’s consider all the terrific things about your launch EVEN IF YOU DIDN’T MAKE A SINGLE SALE:
Loads of new content
All throughout your offer, whether it’s a course, a program, a productized service, an ebook, or something else, are little nuggets of content that you can pull out and repurpose as articles, videos, mini-trainings, Facebook Lives, guides, cheatsheets, swipes, workbooks, blueprints, and more. If you developed a presentation or other training as a segue to the main offer, well then you have even more source material to pull from. Isn’t that wonderful? Forget having to figure out what to write about on your blog. Gone are the days of wondering what to post in your social channels. Just because someone hasn’t bought your full offer, who says they won’t be interested in a stand-alone portion of it?
New packages and offers
Now that you’ve got your offer figured out, I bet you can see where you could create a “lite” version of it or add-ons. Let’s say your offer is a course, how about selling just one of the modules as a stand-alone? Are there colleagues you can collaborate with for a supplemental offer? It’s so much easier to approach potential collaborators now that you’ve got your offer out in the world. Before all you had was a vague idea of possibilities. Now you have a real thing.
Tons of clarity
After all the writing you had to do for the sales pages, the emails, the promos… maybe you even did a free masterclass or webinar so you had to write that too. So. Much. Writing. Which. Is. So. Awesome. Writing is the number one way to get to clarity in your business. With this new level of clarity comes a deeper feeling of confidence in what you’re offering, where it fits into your prospects’ lives, and how valuable it is.
New insights
If you had people buy from you, now you have a chance to ask them what made their decision. If no one bought you can still survey your list. Or I bet you have a handful of folks in your audience you can reach out to individually and get feedback. Either way you’ll learn so much about what’s working and what’s not and that will all go towards improving the offer and messaging for your next launch.
You figured out what not to do
There’s a ton of to-dos in a launch. But how about them not-to-dos: Spend less on ads. Spend more on ads. Do four promo webinars instead of two. Do it all by yourself. Forget to give your spouse or family ample heads-up. Stress. Forget to exercise, meditate, eat, breathe. Panic.
Although the things in the what-not-to-do-next-time category will be unique to your situation, they’re worth noting because it means you’ll do it better next time. This is huge! In a world of #hustle and #allthethings, it’s soooo refreshing to know what you can do away with so you can focus your valuable time and energy doing the right things.
New or revamped back-office systems
Going through a launch has revealed to you where you need some extra help in your business. You had to get more organized—either you weren’t organized enough during the launch so you learned your lesson or you quickly got more organized than you were before so you could manage things properly. If you haven’t done so yet, do a launch debrief and document the systems and processes that worked well and what you might need for next time.
Self-confidence
You proved to yourself you can do it. And you didn’t die. No one laughed you off the stage or booed your offer. So you got some unsubscribes when you were promoting your offer to your list. So a few folks left your training early or didn’t show up at all. What matters is: you showed up. Not everyone will follow through on their commitment to you and that’s disappointing, to be sure. What’s truly devastating is breaking the commitment you made to yourself. And yet, you didn’t do that. You followed through and showed up for yourself. This is incredibly empowering. You have strengthened your self-trust, and self-trust is the precursor to having a level of confidence that is both satisfying and magnetic.
So there you go. Seven wonderful, business-building, myth-busting, inspiring outcomes from your launch. Don’t believe in your numbers. Believe in yourself. There is nowhere to go but up from here.
Have a comment? Or a specific question about what you just read?
Email me—I really will respond. I love getting email from readers, and I’m happy to give you a quick strategy or tip to make sure you’re rocking your message and your marketing feels fun and productive!