You can have the most incredible launch strategy and the best launch plan ever. You can have an engaged community ready to hear from you about your new offer, but if you make this mistake, your launch still might flop. Find out the number one mistake you should avoid in your next launch.
Maybe you know you want to launch something. Maybe you’re thinking about putting out a course or group program or membership into the world. Perhaps you listened to episode 85 of this podcast or Christa’s episode about launch timeframes and you’ve realized you probably should plan for a fall launch so you’re not stressing and trying to do too much this summer.
Before you go much further in your launch planning and prep, I want to talk to you about the number one mistake I see people make when they launch. I’m going to share that mistake with you, along with a few others, and give you a few tips on how you can avoid it for yourself.
A Few Mistakes People Make When Launching:
- Trying to launch an offer before building up any kind of community or audience
- Incorporating ALL the elements of a launch plan instead of keeping it simple and doable. In Episode 47, I referred to this as the ‘overachiever’ launch, and it’s a common one.
- Not ensuring all launch technology will work. Check out Christa’s Instagram post for some tips on the tech involved in launches.
The Biggest Mistake People Make When Launching
All of those mistakes can lead to a flopped launch, but this mistake is the one that I think will impact your results in an incredibly negative way:
Not focusing enough on the offer itself.
Sometimes people focus on the offer by actually creating it before they launch. They map out the entire course and record all the videos, etc.
There are times that this is needed, but many times it’s a mistake to do that first.
Most of the time, the focus on the offer that is really needed is on actually figuring out what problem you are solving with your offer and how your solution is going to be different than other solutions out there.
This is similar to my current real life example of submitting my book proposal. There are a lot of books out there in the world, and if you want to write a book, and you want to get published by a publishing company, you have to create a book proposal. In that book proposal, you have to make a case for why your book is different from the other books that are related to the topic that are already out there.
So when we think about your offer, we need to think about it in the same way. There are already solutions for the problem that you want to solve most likely out there on the marketplace somewhere, whether it’s in the form of a course or a book, or a blog post or a YouTube video. Somebody may already be able to go get a solution some other way.
So how is your offer, your course, your membership, your program, or your coaching going to be different from all the other potential solutions?
Another example is the launch of my mini course, Podcast In A Weekend. When I went to create this course, I had already been podcasting for several years and had worked behind the scenes on many podcasts. And I had helped launch over a dozen podcasts either with our done for you services or within my coaching.
So clearly I had the experience to teach this to other people.
But when I decided to create a course, I still had to figure out what problem I was solving and how I was going to be different than other people solving it.
My solution was to solve the problem of someone who wants to launch a podcast but doesn’t have a lot of time or they don’t want to wade through hours upon hours of in depth video training about it. This was how I chose my specific angle.
I developed the concept of how my course was going to be different before I tried to sell it.
The Solution:
One of the best ways to figure this out and to develop this idea is to write your sales page.
Julie Chenell (Stoian) from Episode 82 of the podcast, and one of my own mentors, taught me about this idea of writing your sales page before creating your offer.
Tips to Avoid the Mistake:
- Before you decide what your offer is going to look like, think about what problem you are going to solve for your customer.
- Spend time working on developing your offer by writing the sales page.
Next Steps:
If you’re feeling like you’re not sure how to do this or where to start, I have good news!
My friend Christa Hutchins and I are going to be running an 8 week LIVE Guided experience this summer through Level Up Your Launch.
As part of that program I’ll be sharing a Confident Offer Masterclass, walking you through my Confident Offer Template and helping you make sure the offer you are going to sell in yoru launch is going to be compelling to your potential customers!
The doors are going to open for this program the week of July 17th, so make sure you are on our email list so you’re the first to know!
The best way to do this is to grab our free resource, the Pre-Launch Assessment, that will help you determine if you are ready to launch.
Quotes to Note:
- “Tech glitches are almost inevitable with launching, but it is important to make sure you test your tech and ensure that it is actually working before you put out your program to the world.”- Esther Littlefield [4:50]
- “Make sure you know why someone would need your offer instead of just thinking that because you have experience or expertise in this area, people are going to buy it.” – Esther Littlefield [6:50]
- “It’s [writing your sales page before creating your offer] something that will force you to figure out what problem you’re solving and what the customer is feeling and experiencing when they need your solution. And it will force you to figure out how your solution is going to be able to help them solve the problem in a different way than all the other solutions that they could tap into.” – Esther Littlefield [11:40]
- “One of the best ways to have a more effective course or program is to narrow down the offer and to narrow down the problem you’re solving.”- Esther Littlefield [13:15]
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