Episode 65: Three Types of Launches

Welcome to the Create youe Laptop Life podcast, where entrepreneurs all around the world come to learn how to market and grow their online business right from their laptops, wherever they are. We don't have traditional nine to five jobs, and we don't want them because financial and lifestyle security and freedom is too important to us. We know the world is changing for the better and that the freelance and entrepreneur economy is the cleaner, greener, smarter way to work for both families and businesses. My name is Julie, and this podcast will teach you everything you need to know about creating and growing your laptop life. Hey, everyone, this is Julie. Welcome to my podcast. So, guys, I realize that I have not podcasted in over a month. What the heck? I wanted to come to you today to talk about something that I'm very excited about. One of the big programs that my partner Kathy and I are launching. It's actually starting today, although by the time you hear this podcast, we will have already begun, is a program called Launch Gorgeous. We sold it back during Black Friday and in November, and now it finally gets to kick off. So one of the reasons why I've been so absent from podcasting is I've been swallowed up not just by Christmas and New Year's and the holidays, but also by content creation and building this program called Launch Gorgeous. So I want to talk a little bit about it today because I thought it would be fun. And Launch Gorgeous is going to be coming back in March, I believe is when we're going to launch it again. So if you are interested as I go, you know, dive into this, you should Definitely go to launchgorgeous.com and get on the waitlist. So today I want to talk about three different types of launches. So. So, first of all, for those of you guys who don't know even what I mean when I say launch, essentially it is a way that you bring your product or service out to the market. It is a crafted campaign. It is a playbook. It is a storyline of how you release something new into the world. And we talk a lot about sales funnels in marketing and online business, which are pathways to products. And some people think, well, do funnels and launches go together? And they absolutely do, because the first time you release a program, even if it isn't a funnel, you should launch it. And so many times I see people, they build a funnel and they don't actually take the time to launch that funnel. They just sort of throw it out there. And then when it doesn't get the result response that they want, then they think that something's wrong with the funnel and then they get disillusioned and sometimes they even throw the whole offer and funnel out. And I say to people, when they do that, listen, if you've taken all this time to build this funnel and create this offer, it's kind of like building a little bit of a rocket ship. And then if you are going to try to get it off the ground and you're going to go to that rocket ship, you're going to just light a little match underneath it, it's not going to go anywhere. And then you'll be like, oh, this rocket sucks. No, your fuel sucke. And so that happens a lot. People build funnels and then they just throw it out there and it doesn't get the response they want. So launching is something you do when you first release a funnel. The other time you launch is when you're reintroducing an offer that maybe has been around for a while and needs a new burst of momentum invigoration. And so in that way you could have a funnel that's right running and then you relaunch it, which is sort of a way to just give it some new energy. So as I was building the content for Launch Gorgeous, I realized that depending on what it is that you're bringing out to the market, there's really three different types of launches. And so the entire first phase is going through these three different launch model types. Why you use them, when you use them, and sort of as you're brainstorming your offer, you're also brainstorming the launch model that you want to use. So Launch Gorgeous went from hey, here's one curriculum to hey, here's three. So I sort of fell down a rabbit hole because I realized, gosh, depending on, are you going to launch a small intimate retreat? Are you going to launch a big signature program? Are you going to launch a low ticket funnel? What are you going to launch? That depends. It changes the type of funnel that you use. And so the realization that I had that, oh my gosh, I actually have to create three curriculums for this one program. So what's the first one? The first launch type I'm calling a power launch and a power launch is done most often with what I call an excite level funnel. So if you don't have any of some of my other programs that I built with Kathy, you should go get them. One of them is Funnel rx. It is an awesome program I am so proud of that course really teaches people how to figure out Funnels based on your value ladder, based on whether you're trying to get new customers, get your customers to spend more money or to really serve your die hards and really understanding that customer journey. And so what I say, a power launch is done with an excite level funnel. What I mean is the excite level of your business is usually that front end. It's that part of your business where you're trying to get somebody to become a customer. So excite level funnels are front end funnels. They are low ticket funnels. They are typically offering 15, 20, 30, $40 products. Nothing too expensive. And so the launch model that I teach for those types is called a power launch. This is probably the smallest type of launch because you don't really need lot of people. In fact, you can technically launch with a list of zero. But it's because you need to focus heavily on paid advertising. So in the power launch model, we teach you how to drum up a small list. But knowing that the majority of your time and energy is going to be spent on advertising, we focus and dial in on making sure that offer in that funnel is really ready for paid traffic. So an classic example of a power launch would be when Kathy and I launched Offer Cure. That came out in October. We knew we were gonna do paid ads to it, but for the first week we'd launched it internally to our list. But there was no webinar, there was no like big dramatic rah rah. But we did build some, we built some pressure, we built some buzz, we launched it and then we turned ads onto it. So that's one model type, that's one launch type, and that is covered in launch gorgeous. The second is the pressure launch. And the pressure launch is the classic established level, mid tier level launch where you have a signature program, a flagship offer, and this is where you're building buzz. Sometimes there is a webinar, sometimes there's not, sometimes there's JVs, sometimes there's not. There's a lot of pre launch, two to three weeks beforehand. These launches can be huge things. Think like Marie Forleo level huge or they can still be small. But the key is you're building pressure. And there is a time when the cart closes where as in a power launch, the cart doesn't actually ever close. So in a pressure launch it does. And I always say to people, you should do a pressure launch for anything that's in the mid level of your value ladder. Or you should do a pressure launch anytime you have something new. So even if it's you're not sure where it goes in your value ladder but you're just trying to validate it and see if anybody's in interested in it. You should do a pressure launch. The funnel is way simpler than a power launch. A power launch funnel is far more complicated than a pressure launch funnel. But the pressure launch has more pre build whereas the power launch doesn't. So it was really interesting because as I was building these launch plans for the students, I realized they are all the same amount of work. It's just the work is divided up differently. So in a power launch you're spending more time on building the funnel and actually getting that content ready. Whereas in a pressure launch you're not building a super complicated funnel, you're not building the actual course content, but you're building the storyline to launch it. Like that's what you're actually spending a lot of your time on. And then so I was just going to say that the pressure launch model we classic example is Webinar Gorgeous. We did a classic pressure launch for Webinar Gorgeous back in June and then now it's evergreen. But that was a classic example of a pressure launch for a new product. Now the third type of launch is called a premium launch. This is done at the elevate level of the value ladder. This is the highest level, this is the level of the value ladder where really only 5% of your customers are probably ever going to go up to that point. It is done for high ticket, for one on one type programs, events, group programs, retreats. And the signature, you know, sort of piece of a premium launch is that oftentimes this is done with a phone call or an exclusive invitation through an application. And it is very, very exclusive. It does not use paid ads. It's leveraged by an existing list. So typically premium launches are done once you have a customer list, you have other things going on and you want to sell something super high ticket. So these are the three launch models. And it was crazy because in our business, Kathy and I funnel Gorgeous, we actually have done all these launch models. So I was like offercure was a classic power launch. Webinar Gorgeous and Launch Gorgeous were classic pressure launches. And our Funnel Gorgeous retreat is a classic premium launch. And so it's been really fun to build these based on not just theory but actual practical. Like this is how we sold out our retreat. This is how we made 100,000 in our webinar Gorgeous launch. This is how we made 100,000. Our first 100,000 in offercurrent and so that's sort of what I've been doing for the last month, is really dialing in these three different launch models and just the plan. So I am super excited to start actually teaching this. We have about 150 people ready to dive in, and their first assignment, of course, is going to be to pick their offer based on their value ladder and to decide on a launch model. And for the rest of the program, they are going to stick with that plan because every type has a full calendar, so they're going to see exactly what the homework is. It has a trello board, has tons of spreadsheets and stuff, and I've actually color coded them and created icons so people can identify. Oh, this is for Power. This is for Precious, for premium. So I just am having so much fun and I'm actually getting ready to brainstorm an entire program on how to do course design, because, in fact, I have a book on my table right now I can't wait to read, which is about the art and science of teaching. Because I'm just loving learning how to teach things because I think it's a part of the industry that's really lacking. And so some of you might be asking, well, how did you come up with that? Because I certainly didn't come up with this idea of these three launch types. When I initially thought of launch Gorgeous, I thought, oh, yeah, I'll teach people how to launch. But this is where having experience in the real world is so valuable because you see these slight nuanced differences that you can immediately tell when you take a course from somebody who hasn't actually done it in the field because they don't see these, these little nuances. But maybe I'll do a podcast episode on that someday about, like, how to. How to actually break down great course design. So, guys, I'm super excited to kick off 2020. It is going to be a great year. Thank you for, as always, for listening to my podcast. I really appreciate it and I'll talk to you soon. If you're ready to create, grow, scale your online business, you can go to createyourlaptoplife.com forward/podcast and get a free plan on how you can get started today.