261: Cringe-Free Launches and Evergreen Sales Considerations with Anne Samoilov

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Welcome back Free Timers. I am so, so delighted to bring you a conversation with Ann Samoilov today. Anne is one of the OG launch strategists in this wily online space that we're in and originally started out in Hollywood. She has experience as a VFX producer. She created the Fearless Launching Program to teach impact driven entrepreneurs how to create simple, streamlined and standout launches without relying on template or cookie cutter strategies. She has helmed product launches for Laura Roeder, former guest of the pod, Marie Forleo, and Jonathan Fields, a longtime friendor Menschtor, as my friend Casey calls him. And she's led the VFX teams for TV shows on Paramount and Starz. You can listen to her podcast, one that I happily binged on several years ago called the Fearless Launching show where she shares insights and tips on how to have an amazing product or business launch your way. Currently entering season seven. Ann, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jenny. This is a long time coming so I'm so excited to be chatting with you today.

Well, we definitely had one of those parasocial friendships. Even more because I was saying that I was traveling to Carpenteria to film a LinkedIn learning course and you were with me on the beach, you were with me in cute cafes. I was binging every single single one of your episodes because I love how you've gone through your own journey being Part of launches and doing your own in the online space and you've arrived at this place of you don't have to do it like everyone else, your launch doesn't have to be cringe inducing. As you say in your bio, here's how to do it your way. And so I just really appreciate the calm yet strategic brilliance that you bring to this conversation.

I love that a lot of people do say the calm thing, but I think I've just learned to like keep it all kind of down, pushed down and I still do have those non calm moments myself. So that's great.

You've been part of various launch teams for a very long time and B school probably being the one that people ask you most about. I want to dive right into the biggest shifts that you've noticed. So let's say in the last 10 to 15 years to where we are now. How has launching changed?

Well, it's interesting, I was literally just thinking about this because I decided to no longer have the fearless launching program. People are just selling and marketing and promoting their products in so many different ways now that it's almost like. I don't want to say the word launching is dated, but launching is just such a bigger topic than. Because people are doing it in so many different ways. They're doing things more automated, they're just selling on the fly, on social and all of that. And so there are some changes that I have seen. And also there are some of the people like you've mentioned, Marie Forleo, who's still doing the same sort of launches that she has always done. She might not do a three part video series, but she's definitely doing little workshops, more interactive things. And she might not be doing things in that same product launch formula way that she always did, but she's still doing the giving value, having people sign up for that free experience of some sort, webinar or otherwise, and then selling her product. So some people are just sticking to those basics, which it's still working, but then a lot of people, which I think it kind of lowers the bar for a lot of newer business owners and newer people coming in that you don't have to do all of that. You can provide that value in like little bite sized snippets on Instagram or I'm thinking of YouTube shorts and TikTok and all those. Everything can be done faster and smaller and still have that same impact.

One of the reasons I was listening to your show was partly to get any practical tips and things that I might not have thought of since a previous launch. And I can't remember, I was either relaunching my private community or it was for the free time book launch. But either way, no matter how much I've learned, no matter how many books I read, podcasts I listen to, times that I try to like it. I'm approaching my 13th biziversary, and launches still feel like my Achilles heel. I can't stand doing them big, splashy launches. I find myself dreading so many different points in the process. And I've tried to reframe things like creating an invitation letter rather than a sales page. I've tried to run a chill launch with my friend Stephanie Houston or a fun launch for the book. And still, it's the thing that drains me so much. And I'm wondering if you can shed some light because you've worked on many launches with many entrepreneurs behind the scenes. Why do people like me find it so?

I think it's actually just because when you hear launch, it's like, you got that one shot. Or it's like the moment where if you make a mistake, there's no turning back. It's like a train on the tracks. You can't back it up, you can't pause it or anything like that. Whereas actually, that's not true. And I don't know in your case if it's worried about making a mistake or no one showing up. I think that's the thing. When it's live, when you're saying, okay, we're launching, people are watching. Some people are. And it could feel like, oh, gosh, there's a lot of pressure here. Whereas something that's more like, okay, my automated funnel is set up. Let's see who shows up. Like where you just open the doors and let people come in at their own pace, that feels a little less pressured. I know that artists, I've worked with a lot of artists who also feel this way, they feel like, oh, gosh, well, what happens? What if this doesn't go well? Do I have to wait like another three months before I do it again? Or people will be like, no, we've had enough of you. So I think there's like a personal thing in this, a personal risk to the word launching, especially when it's live. No matter how chill you do it, there's still something on the line.

That's true, that's true. In fact, you're reminding me. I did an early episode on the vulnerability of launching, and I don't mind book launches as much, probably because I've put so much energy and effort into the book that I feel really proud and excited to get it out. But you've addressed something crucial, which is that what I often find is that in the middle of a launch there is a gap between how I thought it was going to go and how it's actually going. And although once in my entrepreneurial career, I sold something out in 24 hours, for me, most of the time because I'm not on social media and I have a delightfully tiny media company and platform, let's call it, Things don't sell out right away. And it always feels like there's this slog in the middle where I have to just keep throwing launch spaghetti at the wall. And then the amount of effort that for me goes into launching specifically online products and in person events. So let's say not the book, even the podcast, it could get so tiring. And it's like I'm sending so many emails, I'm doing so much work, I'm putting it in my newsletter, I'm writing one on one, I'm creating podcast ad spots. And when things don't fill, it's frustrating and it feels like the effort to return ratio. I try not to be resentful of anyone who has signed up for my audience, but I get exhausted, like emotionally exhausted, which I think you just touched upon.

I mean, I wanted to add to this too in the beginning, even working on, let's say, the first B school launch. I think we didn't even have everything done in terms of the launch stuff when the launch opened. And over the years I realized what a big mistake that is. And this is what I try to encourage people who I work with who are like a little bit more tender and like, they're the ones who will get super discouraged and I want them to keep trying to launch. So what I say to them is, when you have that amazing idea and you're like, okay, I'm going to launch, literally you have to put time in between creating all that launch stuff, all those little emails and posts and content and communication to put time between that building and the actual launching. Because during the launching should be like, oh, maybe we should do this. It should be like the fun little things that you can insert. You shouldn't still be spending the time. And I know in an ideal world you'd have everything done in advance, but it really does buy you that space. And like, okay, let's have fun. Okay, we didn't get enough people on the webinar. Let's do another webinar. We'll just use the same emails. The way we're preparing for the launch, if you're still preparing for it when you're in it, it can be incredibly exhausting. And the other piece to it too is that planning and building is a different kind of part of your brain than actually the launch part. And that's why I think separating those is so important. Or have someone who's on your team, who's a launch manager, strategist, whatever, who's kind of worrying about that for you, which most people don't have that ability necessarily to have that separate person. You are that person. So if you can do more things in advance, I think it helps with the exhaustion.

Well, I have to give a shout out again to Stephanie Houston because she has played that role with me, alongside me, many times. And now she even offers batching sprints for entrepreneurs to help them get it all done at once.

Yes.

So I'll put the link to her in the show. Notes One way that people like me try to get around life launches and the stress and pressure of that is fevvergreen. So I kind of try not to do two part questions, but alas, I have one.

Can you briefly describe what an Evergreen launch system looks like? And I'm curious what you see as the pros and cons, because it sounds like the holy grail. Evergreen launches an automated pipeline, you know, webinar funnel, and it all just works seamlessly. And for some reason, as much as I love systems, it seems really complicated and easy for things to go wrong. And I'm just wondering what you've seen from the behind the scenes of Evergreen style sales.

Okay, so first, an Evergreen style launch, or more automated launch, really has a person who's interested in something you're doing signing up for a free thing, a free selling thing. I call them interactive events. Even if you're not actually there, they're still there kind of interacting with the content. Like for a webinar or a challenge or an email series, whatever it is that you have them signing up for, or a video series signing up for. Then at some point during that series or that event, you're making an offer, you're sending them to a sales page, but they're doing this, and they can do this on their own schedule. So there's lots of software that helps you kind of make that happen, like a deadline funnel type of thing. And I don't know if you've ever used that, but I feel like that's pretty well known in terms of like a tool. And usually you can set it up for as many days as you want. It could be a five day launch, someone watches the thing that they signed up for. You offer them whatever it is they're going to purchase or that you want them to purchase. And then you follow it up with a series of automated emails. And then eventually you in quotes, close the doors, air quotes, close the doors. And that's essentially it. I mean, there's other pieces to it, but that's what it is. And it runs on a schedule based on someone's own timeline, logging in or signing up for whatever the thing is.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Than non sponsored jobs. See the results for yourself. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions Appreciate Real quick, before you answer the pros and cons, we've had debates in my private community about, let's say, the ethics of pretending it's a live webinar. Because a lot of this software will say there's a webinar happening tomorrow at noon, but that's actually relative to when the person's seeing it and the host is not really saying that it's not live. And there's even sometimes comments that you can program into the webinar, or maybe it is a prerecorded version. So I've always hesitated to set something like this up. I mean, I'm so far from implementing anything like this, but I remember getting stuck on this type of question. The time scarcity and the deadlines that I think sometimes evergreen funnels deploy. They're not true, like it's evergreen, but they need to make it look like it is.

So that actually is one of the cons for me as well. I've seen it done so many different ways where either someone's using some sort of webinar software, they have a person sign up for it at a specific time and that's supposed to somehow be the best way to do. The Evergreen Funnel, however, I saw just as meant. Like I've also played around with personally just having people sign up for a webinar that they just watch and then you just have it built into your series of emails to go back and watch it. For me, it's ended up being on a thank you page. Now I do think like having a deadline for people is important, but that whole fake live webinar thing, and I'm just gonna say it, I know the tool that uses it most often and has a list of people, people asking questions, live people on. I'm like, really? No one really believes that, right? So does it actually really mobilize someone to take the offer during the webinar, like if you have a fast action bonus or something? So I'm not a huge fan of that. But the bigger con, I mean obviously there are pros to it, but before I share those, one of the biggest cons I think is that you're just assuming that your audience will like that or resonate with that kind of launching style and you won't know until you do it if people are responding to it or not. But I think that the audiences that really want you live, that want you there, want to know that they can ask you a question and you're going to answer back as a real person, are going to be a little bit bummed out, let's just say it like that. Bummed out when they find out that you aren't there live. I'm thinking of a friend who has a very hands on business. She's an artist. People like to follow what she does and be part of her art classes essentially and her programs that require them to make their own art. There's no way that she could do the program that she's doing right now. I don't know if you know her, Catherine. Just she's very in the moment. It's not like she can't create something that can be done without her there. But a lot of her programs are just very hands on and I think her people would not be excited about joining something where she's not going to be there. It just goes to say that you just know your audience and know how that might come across to them and just test it out if it's something you want to do. But know that it might not fly. But obviously the pros to it is that it can be running all the time. You can update little pieces of it often. Like if you see people not responding to a webinar, you can be like, huh, what part of the webinar are they falling off on? Let's redo the whole thing and update that little part. Or let's offer a new bonus. It does allow you to insert new things into the launch anytime that you want to. One thing I really love back to this whole idea of live webinars or not, is that in a recent launch that I've been aware of, just because I'm an affiliate on it, there's an opportunity to watch the recorded webinar or attend an upcoming live one. It truly is a live webinar. So she has both. I don't know if you've seen that, but Marie Forleo has a launch right now and that's what she has. She has like a just in time. So if you can't make it to the live version, watch it now, but you can also attend the live one that she has.

You made a great point that with setting up an Evergreen or automated launch, it's going to go much better if you've already done one or two live launches to kind of work out the kinks, craft all the materials, split test messages, things like that.

I mean there are so many people like fighting against, ah, Evergreen is so much better or automated do this, you don't need to live launch. But you know what, building an audience like, sure, if you have an ads budget and you have people who are able to determine right away who your audience is and not be spending a ton of money, then maybe you can go straight to Evergreen. But I don't think you can if you're really just a one person shop. Building your visibility, building your list. And I personally just don't think you can without that live element to it.

You mentioned another popular strategy, one that I always thought looked good and never did it, which is basically going on a webinar circuit on other people's platforms. What's your take on that strategy for boosting sales?

I love that because it is a great way to get in front of other audiences. I definitely did a bit of that and I've hosted other people. Again, you just have to make sure it's not always going to be a perfect match and sometimes you're not going to know. You're going to think her audience must be the same as mine or similar to Mine. And it's all a test. It's just like any sort of collaboration. It might look good on paper, it might look good to you, but you just have to think about your audience and how much overlap really is there. Are there the same types of people with the same sorts of challenges that you're already selling to and sharing your product with? So it can work.

But it seems like with that strategy, yes, what you said, you're trying to find aligned audiences and then usually the host gets some kind of affiliate commission or referral fee for sales that happen. So there's something in it for them. And then ideally, the way I've seen it done is you give their audience special bonuses or there is a time bound thing. Like anyone who signs up, by the end of this webinar, we'll get xyz.

Absolutely. And one thing I wanted to say, one thing that has worked really well is almost giving your audience and their audience the heads up that you guys have a relationship. Even if it's business, business besties, whatever. Those have worked really well in the past. When you're not just bringing someone on your audience, when you've been sharing their stuff all along, when you've been kind of saying, oh, this is the person goes to person for this. So that does help, kind of let them get to know the person a little bit before you just say, hey, I want to do this webinar with this person who's a web designer. And I know you guys all need websites for your launches and your launch pages, so here you go. Something like that will work better if they already know you. Kind of give them the heads up about your relationship a little bit in advance.

You did some great solo episodes. I always love your solos. At the end of season six on asking, do people actually know what you offer and making more offers. And you just make the great point that we assume people, even our own audience, knows what we do and how we work with people. And so often that's not the case. And so I'm curious if you can tell us there's three ways to do this. I took my diligent notes on communication, website updates and other people, which we kind of just talked about, like guesting on other audiences. How can listeners help people get clearer on what they actually offer? And what do you mean when you tell us to make more offers and sooner than you think?

Oh, yeah. Yes. And I probably will not even reference whatever I said because I do that often and I'll come up with different things that people can do. But for offers, first of all, we just have to be putting them in front of our people as often as possible. So what that means is what do you do every single week? Do you send out a piece of content? Make sure you're mentioning it. Make sure you're mentioning it not just as a little ad for yourself, but mention what you do in the course of your blog post, your podcast, whatever it is, or mention it in the course of creating social media content. If you send a newsletter out, make sure to add the PS that people can do this with you too. And don't be afraid to just basically you're name dropping your own things wherever possible in context. Like for me, if I'm talking about launch planning, I'm going to mention my little launch planning little mini course. I'm going to mention that it's something that I created so that you could do this and this and this. I try to do as much in content dropping as I possibly can just so that there's some sort of name recognition. And then also fearless. Launching the course was the course first. And then a couple years later I started the podcast by the same name. But now people always still ask me about that, even if it's not available at the moment. I don't know if I answered all those questions. What else did you want to know?

Yeah, I know I asked you. A complex one listener. As we said, this was my first interview in six weeks.

It's mine too.

Yeah, I take my own free time advice and I schedule nothing from mid December to mid Jan. And here we are on January 16th recording awkward as ever. TM, I was wondering when you say make more offers. Yes, I knew. I was like, you're looking at me because I have so many things. I. I will definitely weave things I've created into blog posts and cross posting across my different platforms. But as far as actually making offers, crickets on my end.

The thing is, we're often told like if we have, let's say a new offer or something we already have to offer, that we're just going to wait until specific times to mention them, to promote them, to put them on sale. And that's all great, but put them on your thank you pages, please. Even if First Touch with me might be my launch workbook, they might just download this little free workbook and that's great. And then maybe I'll send them some emails and then maybe eventually I'll tell them that they can go deeper. Now I have it on the thank you page because I'm like, nope, because maybe someone doesn't just want those first 10 steps already and maybe they know that. So I just put it right away. I think that you can offer these things as often as you possibly can. So even with, let's say, the evergreen stuff, I'm recording something later this week for one of those types of webinars. But you know what? I was like, you know, I'm going to make sure this is on my website right now. Someone can get it if they really want to. Just putting those things out there as much as you possibly can in your Instagram highlights. People sometimes just need to physically see a name to see what you're doing. So just keep repeating it wherever you possibly can.

I love the idea of sprucing up the thank you page. That's such a great point. Any best practices for what goes on that thank you page?

Honestly, I've had everything. The best performing things that I've seen is I put one of my evergreen webinars for Fearless launching was up on a thank you page for a very long time until I wasn't going to be offering it in the same way. So that was great because someone could sign up for the workbook and then it went straight to the thank you page. Like on the top it was essentially, hey, thanks for this. Your workbook is in your email inbox, so go grab that. Or maybe there was like a button to download it there. And then right below that it's like, hey, while you're waiting for that email, just check out this webinar. And they could just watch it right away. And then below that was the sales page essentially like a shortened sales page for that product. Now it's literally just a little mini sales page for this little mini product. That's what I think is the best. It's just like at the top, hey, thanks for doing this. And then below it can literally be the full sales page. But I try to make it a little bit shorter because those long sales pages just get me going crazy sometimes.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I've even seen it's like something so obvious and I never did it because even the thank you page for joining your newsletter, let's say, or the welcome email people put a photo of themselves and write a really warm message because a lot of email software just says you are confirmed, you know, and we're all too lazy to update it. But then the times where I've landed and it's a picture of the person, so I'm now connecting with them and their warmth. You know, even a quirky little statement. Just something that's as if you're welcoming somebody one on one into your home. And so then I love what you're saying. Like, and you surprise and delight them by giving a little freebie or a link to that next thing or reinforcing how you actually worked with people. It's such a missed opportunity on so many of our parts.

I definitely think it is. If people are signing up for something, where are they landing? What can you do on that page? I haven't even gotten my podcast back on. Like I have all of season six is not on the ansimolof.com blog because I was just like, I just need to make sure I can get the podcast done. So I had to like not do that part of the process. But you can also do it there too. If you're sending people to watch things at certain places. Make another place. And this is totally like a systems breakdown on my part. But I'm now publishing the podcast on YouTube as well. And really there's usually like an automated part of the about section, about the video section that I need to update because it's sending people to a product that I'm no longer offering. But that's an opportunity as well.

Yeah, that happens so often. There's so many little things to keep up with now. I know, I know listeners. I'll put Headliner is a great app. I'll put it in the show notes for me. I don't do much with YouTube, but headliner at least pulls every new episode from my feed and then makes a little audiogram and posts it to YouTube.

Oh my gosh, that's great. Yeah, send me that link.

I definitely will. I definitely will. Pretty sure it's headliner app, but I'll verify and put in the show notes. Another thing that's common, and I feel like your entire podcast addresses this. There's keeping up with the entreprajoness, as Mike Michalowicz would say. But especially with launches, what happens is some expert figures out the best way to launch. Like, we all know the Jeff Walker product launch strategy, but then everybody starts doing it. So then at a certain point, it reaches critical mass or critical adoption, and then people can't stand to see that type of launch. So there are launch trends that come and go, and I'm just curious. I feel like one of your strengths is helping people connect to their authentic way of communicating and even launching. And yet it can be so tempting because what happens if our own launch doesn't go exactly as planned? The natural thing to do would be to say, well, let me go listen to the experts. But then it's a vicious cycle because we get stuck doing some cringy launch practices that don't work. So I'm just wondering what you would say in terms of what are you seeing that is actually working and what's your experience with seeing certain techniques just get completely played out?

Well, I mean, I'm just gonna tell you. Like this week alone, I signed up for someone's free challenge, which I know exactly what it's leading into. There is a webinar I went to, and it was great. And if I didn't already have the product, I'm just like a launch stalker over here. If I didn't already have the product, I would have probably bought it. And also earlier this month or maybe in December, was on a, like another kind of video series slash challenge type of thing. They're all being used. There is no one type of launch that's not going to be okay if it's right for your audience, if it's right for you, if it's something you can pull off, well. So I'm of the mind that, yes, things get played out. Like, how many more summits do we need to see? How many more free challenges are there going to be? But there's always a lot of everything. It's almost like, I don't know what this psychological thing is, but if I used to have this thing where I'd be like thinking about a red Miata, long story, don't want to go into it, but I would always see red cars everywhere, little red miatas everywhere. So I think that we are just sensitive to that fact. So things that aren't great are the really big over the top launches just don't do as well. That seem super overproduced. And that's why I'm going to mention Marie again. I, I was so happy to see her. Like I've noticed her images lately have been like a little bit more personal feeling the photography and also if you're ever in that program, it's very like chill. Yes, it's produced but even like her webinar is very personal. I feel like that is what people have to remember. It doesn't have to be like a Tony Robbins three day or two day event thing that you also sell somebody into a VIP section so they can be with you. And like I love Tony Robbins, but it doesn't have to be that. And I think the smaller, more intimate, more boutique feeling launches are finally getting some attention.

I love that. And I love that you're a launch stalker.

Oh my God. That's been going on for a long time. I tried to stop myself but you know, I can't.

Is there anything that I should have asked you but didn't that you want to impart wisdom for our listeners around Anything really. It doesn't even have to be launch related. Just what you've learned in all this time, seeing behind the scenes of so many businesses, including your own, the work.

People really need to do. And I think you'll like this, maybe the work that people need to do because there's plenty of checklists and do your thing this way or that way, but actually the checklist doesn't mean you're going to get it done. Building up your stamina as an entrepreneur means putting out weekly content, putting out weekly communication, putting out weekly visibility things wherever it is for you. And I think that making sure that those systems work because a launch is just a giant intricate system and the more you already kind of are doing, it won't feel like you're ramping up from zero. You can choose any type of launch, but if you're not able to execute on it, if you're not able to actually get it done in some way, then you're going to feel like you failed. Build up your stamina with your day to day and your week to week stuff that you're putting out to your audience. That's what consistency is about. It's not just about having people know you're there, which is important. It's also about knowing you knowing you're there and you knowing how to be there.

And speaking of systems, we were talking about notion. I know you're working on a launch dashboard, but I love what you say too, of keep track of your launch because the more you track, the more you can reuse later so that you're not starting from scratch every time.

Exactly. I mean, having that library for yourself, having like a little launch library that you can be like, okay, those are really great performing emails. I'm going to use those again. I was just looking through the emails from like a beta launch that I did a couple years ago and I'm like, oh, using those. So reuse as much as you can.

If you could leave listeners with a permission slip to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be?

Well, just based on the year that I've had, which we really didn't go into this a lot, but I do talk about it on the podcast is don't be ashamed to take different projects into your world because they can actually give you a different perspective on what you are already doing. And I say that only because, I mean, it's a job. It was a project. Two different projects over the past year that were not related to online business. And it was the best thing that I could have done because it showed me how much stamina I had built up. And also it showed me what I had lost when I completely didn't pay attention to my business. So be willing to do something different and then you'll see how much you already probably know online in your business. Now, the amount that I realized just from taking those projects was astounding. It didn't take me too long to get back up and running again. And it has shown me that I can do both and I can make whatever I want part of my business, even if it feels like I'm stepping away a little bit from time to.

Time sometimes it could just probably be a relief to go back to an area of. It's not even back, but like reincorporate an area of your expertise. Like I think you were saying, these are VFX type clients. The work you used to do.

Yep. And it's actually great because the work that I did for many years in visual effects was essentially what brought me to being a launch strategist and a launch manager. Because getting a TV show out every 30 days. Well, it wasn't every 30 days, but with a compressed schedule, a lot of elements get out the door, a lot of things to get approved. And finally, and write and you have to get it to the editor so that they can launch it essentially. So it reminded me of where a lot of the things that I learned came from.

Yes. And then I feel like it gives you all these new stories and cross industry insights and observations.

Yeah. Yes, definitely.

Well Ann, it's been such a joy to connect. Thank you so much for all the work you did connecting with me across time and space. And now here on the pod, is there anywhere you'd like to send people or anything special you're cooking up that you want to let people know about?

Honestly, the best way these days I would normally send people to my website. You can definitely send them there. But follow me over on Instagram because I'm challenging myself right now to just be on reels way more often. Like once a day during the week.

Way to go.

Listen to me already, like backing away, like once a day maybe.

Way to go. Yeah. I love it. Well, thank you so much. Such a joy to talk big. Thanks everybody for listening.

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