With every launch, there's so much that's in your control, and there's also
so much that is out of your set. You can have everything perfect in
your launch, you know, Like I was so happy with the copy that
I wrote for that launch, but it was completely out of my control that
my audience was exhausted and their calendars were full and they couldn't commit to four
weeks of calls. Like, that's not within my control. All we can
focus on is the things that are in our control. Welcome to Imperfect Action.
I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I read all the books, downloaded
all the freebies, and did all the courses, but it wasn't until I
started taking imperfect action that my business had its first million dollar year. Imperfect
Action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action,
and moving forward even when you're not sure you're doing it right. On
this show, you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies to
build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom, and even more
joy. You want the list to get my daily businesses. Every day,
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a more intentional way, sign up at Steph Taylor dot co, forward slash
DBB, or at the link in the show notes. Hey, welcome back
to Imperfect Action. This is episode seven hundred and sixty one. Today is
a little bit of a different episode where I'm chatting with Anata Sikh, who
is one of my biz besties ad real life best friends. We're debriefing on
our launches from twenty twenty three. So Anita runs a very similar business to
mine in that most of her business is also based around launches of her courses
and programs. She's a brand strategist, a copywriter. She is the founder
of word Fetti, and she's also the host of brand Ferti podcast. So
if you haven't checked out her podcast, go and listen to it. But
after you listen to this episode, of course, and today we're sharing what
worked well in our launches in twenty twenty three, what didn't work, and
what we're going to change going forward into twenty twenty four and beyond. It's
a very candid, very casual chat. But I know that you'll get a
lot out of listening to experience launches talking about what goes on a little bit
behind the scenes, So enjoy and we're back. We are back where we
are going to be doing the twenty twenty b three V briefs of our launches.
Ooh, I am a bit nervous but also very curious about this one
with you, Steph. So if you were just tuning on in, I
have got my big a bestie, Steph Taylor here on the podcast. If
you're tuning in also on podcasts in Perfect Action. Hello, I am Anita,
I'm the work bas Uh and I am also the host of Brand Fetti
the podcast. We're doing a bit of a series of conversations. So we
recently did one over lessons of twenty twenty three. We've got one more coming
to about predictions for twenty twenty four. But today we're talking about debriefs for
launch. Steph, let's kick started with you. So when it comes to
the launches that you've had in two thousand and twenty three, maybe walk us
through some of their like I think we were going to go through like some
of the things that didn't go well, things that did go well. Should
we go through from Z beginning? Yeah? Should we start with what didn't
work? Let's start with what didn't work. Let's go all right, So
end of I'm going to start with the most recent one that was like such
a I was such a like, oh why did this not work? But
in hindsight, I understand why I didn't. So around, I think it
was like mid November last year, mid to late November last year, I
did a bit of I did an audience survey. I always do my audience
surveys, and I realized, Oh, nobody knows what they're doing next year.
Everyone's overwhelmed, they're scattered, they don't know what they're doing in twenty
twenty four. So I thought, oh, I'm gonna just put together like
a small group twenty twenty four planning strategy intensive kind of over four weeks,
we go through and plan out everything for twenty twenty four, work through the
mindset blocks that are stopping them from taking action on the things they want to
do. And it was a solid off, Like I was pretty stoked with
it. I was. I wrote all the copy myself because it was such
a last minute thing. I was so happy with it, and we ended
up not going ahead with it because not enough people signed up for it to
be worthwhile, and it was such a shock to me at the time,
because I was like, this is everyone's overwhelmed. They so clearly need the
strategy and the planning and the action steps, but everyone was so overwhelmed that
they couldn't commit to doing extra calls free Christmas. So that was it was
good insight to learn. You know, maybe next year November December, we
probably will not launch something like that. But yeah, it was. It
was kind of like a reality check because we haven't had a failed launch in
a very long time. It was such a reality check of oh, yeah,
that can still happen all the time. Yeah, which it happens all
like at any given time. So when you had when did you decide to
kind of be like, no, we're not going to go ahead with it.
Uh. I think it was just after doors closed. Yeah, I
kind of had an inkling about halfway through. I was like, oh,
we probably at this rate, we probably would have wanted a few more people
signed up, but you know, the launch is never over until doors closed,
and some launches I've had where most people sign up at the last minute,
but this one it was, Yeah, it was after doors closed,
and I had to do the whole email to a few people like sorry,
we're not going ahead with this because we just don't have enough people, like,
it's not not worth our while to go ahead with it. And to
be fair like, it wasn't like we'd been planning this launch a month.
It was something that I spotted the opportunity. I was like, cool,
let's throw this together. See what happens. I had outlined what we were
going to do each week in the group calls, but I hadn't actually created
it, and then I turned that outline. I was able to use that
outline anyway because I taught that then to my Freedom fast Track students in January
instead of teaching it to a small group, so I was able to reuse
that anyway. Yeah, that's It's one of those things where it's interesting because
I have a slightly different perspective for launching something in November and December, and
I guess it really speaks to the what people need in that given moment,
right. I think when I reflect on my we'll talk about the winds in
a moment, But when I reflect back on twenty twenty three and a learning
or a failure and learning that I had was towards the second launch that we
had for Word for Your Words, which is our sintral copywriting program. Towards
the second half of the year, was around September, our ads were very
very very expensive, like and we and I was so because we ran a
three day challenge and the conversion rate was chef kiss like it was like seventeen
eighteen percent when we did ere day to be Confidence challenge and it is a
really great challenge, Like so eighteen percent of the people in the challenge converted
into word for your Words. Yes, yes, wow, that happened me.
It's the highest we've ever had. And we launched that in a way
at the beginning of the years. I'm like, you know what, now
we're going to go ham on ads. Yeah, you know, because we
didn't really put as much ADS in the April launch, which was when we
first did the challenge. So come September, I'm like, yep, we're
going to put x amount on ads because now we know we've got some data,
We've got the math. Yes, so we yeah, we ran ads
and look, so many different things can influence how much ADS cost, of
course, from external factors to gosh, so many different factors, right,
But I think I had placed so much hope towards using ads for us to
really get the people that we wanted into the challenge that I think it was.
We started ads probably two and a half weeks before the actual challenge,
and it literally got towards I usually leave ads up around five days to see
how it goes and you know, then make the call. What do we
do? It was costing us almost oh my goodness, like one hundred well
I don't even remember. Did I text you about this? Like it was
like one hundred, one hundred and twenty dollars per person. Yeah, I
remember this signing up to which, by the way, it is a pay
challenge, so we were also hoping to offset the cost, but that that
was just beyond because it was forty nine dollars per person and that it was
increased. The price was also increased, so we weren't even making back.
You know, we were losing money. But in a way, I was
like I really wanted to, like, you know, get that number.
But towards probably day ten was when we were like, you know what this
is. This is not happening, and it really I was frustrated. I'm
not gonna lie because I was like the launch, I was like we were
going to get We knew we needed X amount of people to get X and
we didn't get the number. And of course there was a little bit of
me that was like why hard get taught me that It taught me a lot
because I think I had not diversified the I just put almost all my eggs
in the basket of trusting the fact that we were going to get X amount
in people signing up to the challenge. That I forgot what you know,
what they say about how there's usually five or ten or ten percent whatever of
what you do that will create the ninety percent the eighty twenty year rule eight
percent, yeah, or the queen Bee queen Bee role whatever. And one
of the biggest things for me which I definitely found towards the second half of
the year that I kind of wobbled a little bit with me, me and
the team was the consistency in our content. And we were still consistent,
but we weren't like there was a lot of arenas where like even with emails
and all of that that we started to and this is also personally I knew
towards the second half of the year, I was to be honest, like
exhausted I was exhausted towards the second half of the year, towards September October,
along with so many people I know who probably would have been exhausted too
that I think towards the second half of the year, I just put all
my eggs and basket of the ads that I didn't think to create, continue
on with that momentum, with the twenty percent that I knew, which was
you know, just completely original different pieces of content. On our social media,
a lot of our content is usually a mix of repurposed content, which
still is the case. I'm a big lover of repurpose content, but we
definitely wabbled a little bit purely also because that was just exhausted. Yeah,
so I feel that, Yeah, so that was probably our flirting towards the
launch that we had. The second launch, we just had big hopes with
ads and it just didn't pan out. But you know what, you have
no control. It's so hard, like you know, with every launch,
there's so much that's in your control and there's also so much that is out
of your cast. You can have everything perfect in your launch, you know,
Like I was so happy with the copy that I wrote for that launch,
but it was completely out of my control that my audience was exhausted and
their calendars were full and they couldn't commit to four weeks of calls. Like,
that's not within my control. All we can focus on is the things
that are in our control, and in your case, yeah, the content
that you're sharing, how you're showing up, how you're removing the risk of
just relying on that one source of leads for your challenge. Yeah, it's
always a lesson, isn't it? One hundred percent? Always, always,
always, always What would you say have been something that has worked well in
your launch? Just last year's Steah, Oh, I think that you feel
like lunched really well. So one thing that we do every time that we
launched launch Magic. I think we started doing it actually in twenty twenty two
for the first time, and it's just it's been such a game changer in
twenty twenty three as well, is teaching module one of Launch Magic as a
live workshop for free. So many people don't quite understand what is actually involved
in Launch Magic. They're like, oh, like, how is this twelve
weeks long? Like I want to launch really quickly, Like surely this is
just going to be repeating so much beginner stuff and then as soon as they
do module one, they're like, oh, I get it. There's actually
a lot to it. There's a whole strategy here that I didn't even know
I needed. And this is and because we get straight into it, like
it's straight into the meat and potatoes, like the Americans say, it's straight
into the good stuff. It's not like we're spending the first module just doing
basics, and that gets them across the line. Like there've been so many
people who have signed up because they've done that workshop and they've seen what's inside
it previously. In twenty twenty two, I just released the module. I
gave them access to the pre recorded module for seventy two hours, and so
many people didn't complete it. But teaching it live was the game changer.
That was three people registered, they showed up, they could ask questions.
It was the way to do it. Yeah, so a Q. When
you say you taught it live, how long was the session or was that
like a like a summarized version of that. It was like moduled like maybe
ninety minutes module, Like my modules are you've never done my courses? Terrible?
Friend's terrible, right, but I'm not. I'm not one of those.
Like probably the longest video in my course, in any of my courses
would maybe be twenty minutes. Like I'm a short. Like if you listen
to my podcast episodes, my lessons are the same. It's like, this
is what you need to do. Sometimes I might give you a bit of
why you need to do it. Generally you probably already know why you need
to do it. This is what you need to do, this is how
you're going to do it. Here is a spreadsheet or a workbook to go
and implement it. That's kind of my process. So yeah, all of
module ones pretty short, but there's a lot of Q and a time in
there, and a sales pitch as well. I love so it's almost like
giving them that first step we win, so that it almost is like okay,
I mean even if they turned up to the master class or the weapon,
they would have gotten epic value. This is epic value, but it's
like if they want to continue on, it's like the most perfect next step.
Yeah, and this is separate, So I do I do a master
class as well, which is very different to this is module one. The
two separate events. Yep, Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I worked
well for you, So it spanned on when I was chatting about what didn't
go well every single time, And this happens with each launch. It's always
something that just does not go to plant. I'm just gonna say it out
right now. There's always for me anyway, there's always like a tech fart.
There's usually like just something that just does not go to plan. When
don't one thing I feel like has really supported us and helped us a lot
in the last yeah, but alls the last year and a bit, I
feel because we had our worst launch probably towards the end of twenty twenty two,
and this was when it all started for me and the team where we
would kick start the launch, we would prep and do all the things,
but then you don't really know until you're kind of in the thick of the
launch what the vibe is like. It's almost like a science experiment where you're
like, you're hypothesizing that given this and this and this, that you think
it's probable that it's this, But it's not until you do the freaking thing
that you're like, oh, okay, so with your example, it's just
like, okay, people are really overwhelmed and this is not the thing that
they mean want. So one thing that has worked well, especially moments like
that when things are not going to plan and adds are very expensive, is
literally me, so I will literally go in me writing or rewriting certain emails
in our launch sequence. Yeah. So that is something that I did with
the previous launch, but also the launch earlier in the year as well,
where yes, the launch emails are done prior, but the thing is there
is fluidity for us to actually completely rewrite or tweak certain emails within the middle
or introduce new bonuses. So with both our launches in twenty twenty three,
we rewrote probably the last three or four days worth of emails and tweeked certain
messaging in the emails, which I feel like and I think has really supported
us in still getting the numbers that we had projected or aimed for. And
this is a bit of a mixture as in the next question that people may
actually have is like, well, how or what do you rewrite or why
do you rewrite it? So obviously, when you're open doors, you start
having conversations with potential students and people, or even in QA, you start
getting people asking certain questions, and there are usually certain themes that I would
see and feel or read and what would then end up happening is if there
is a certain theme. So, for example, one of the biggest objections
I feel like for twenty twenty three was just time, overwhelm time. And
I heard that consistently, and I feel like you probably would have yeah as
well. Yeah, right, And of course when it comes to objection handling,
when it comes to time, it's like more around prioritization, like they're
not prioritizing and all of that. But that was not enough, Like even
us explaining like this is why you should prioritize it and this is why copy
is really key, that wasn't in a way enough. And I think what
really helped, I feel like with our last two launchers to support this particular
objection was actually literally getting one of like a number of our students actually speaking
to this objection and how this looked like for them. So we interviewed a
series of students or alumni and actually would ask some questions and being like,
you know, you you're a mom, and for example, you're a mom
and you've got like two three little humans and your time for so how did
you actually go through word fortt of your words and actually launch your south page
or launch your website. So we then started to create content really specific,
not just saying this is why you should care about copy and learning how to
write copy, but actually placed someone who fit that persona almost to a tea
and time and lack of time was relei event for the busy mums, it
was also relevant for someone who was in the thick of service execution and delivery.
So we then chose also specific personas that fit within time. If that
make sense, Yeah, absolutely, no, really similar. Actually, as
you were saying, as you were speaking, I was like, oh,
yeah, we did this as well in two of our launches. So at
the start of last year, I launched Freedom fast Track for the first time.
And obviously when you launched something for the first time, you kind of
don't really you're still feeling it out right, You're still trying to figure out,
like what objections are people going to have, what questions are they going
to ask? And the one question that kept coming up was I'm at this
stage in my business. This is how much money I'm making, this is
the kind of business I run? Is this the right fit for me.
So I think it was like two days before doors closed. I went and
just created a quiz for people to figure out where they could answer a bunch
of multi choice questions and figure out if they were a right fit for it
or not. And I added that email in that converted so many people.
Oh wow. The other thing that I did in one of our launch Magic
launches last year, so similar to very similar to what you did. One
of our big objections is all, my audience is too small to launch.
I need to wait. I'm going to grow my audience first and I'll join
next time. So I added a case study email of somebody who had I
think she had one hundred and fifty people on her email list when she launched
and had like a sixteen thousand dollar launch, right, so right, yeah,
And I for each of those specific objections, I went through because I
have so many testimonials, so many case studies. I went through, and
I was like, what case study can we turn into an email here to
just speak to that directly? So yeah, one hundred percent. I'm a
big fan of adding extra emails as soon as you start spotting new objections,
like it's it's all well and good schedule at all. Great, but also
listen to what people are asking you and add those things conversations. Yeah,
don't be able to to ask somebody why are you not buying? Yes,
one hundred. It's it's also I think when when in the topic of testimonials
such a big missed opportunity for us, we think testimonials is just oh,
it was so nice to work with Steph and she's awesome and she smiles really
nicely, Like it's not just nice words about you, Like you can get
straight strategic and start theming up your testimonials, like maybe it's time, maybe
it is you know, out of budget. But then they're like, you
know, I make back my money in X amount of days, you know,
start theming up your testimonials. Yeah. Yeah, This is actually a
tweak that I've made, so I do all of my testimonials via zoom.
I had I used to go. I used to stick to a script where
I had said questions I would ask everybody, and then I would turn that,
turn their responses into a testimonial, get them to check it, and
then use the testimonial. But now I've actually stopped sticking with the script.
I'm now more interested in listening to what they're telling me and try to identify
what parts of their story somebody else who is my ideal client is going to
relate to, and then I can ask extra questions about those parts of the
story. So similar to what you did with your clients like that, Yeah,
love it, love it. What are you going to do differently this
year? Or you test in twenty twenty four steps. So one thing we
have started doing already is working with a Facebook ads agency. For so long,
I've been running the ads myself because I'm actually really good, but you're
very very good at it. I wasn't. It's not the best use of
my time. And as a result, it was kind of the ads were
becoming an afterthought in all of our other launches because launch strategy is where I
shine, and then the ads were just something that I could do. So
that would become like a, oh, prep card openers tomorrow, I'd better
go set up some ads instead of strategically having somebody like you know, creating
the graphics and the caption, like the text everything. So yeah, now
I've got an ads agency doing that for our next launch, which will be
really interesting just seeing how that goes. And something else that we're doing differently
is just being a lot more organized with our launches, a lot more structured.
You know, there's always been an element of ad hoc because the first
I mean most of the launches that I did in the first couple of years
of my business were just me, so I was working off my own mental
to do list. I wasn't having to give instructions to anybody else. And
then in the last two years, I've really started delegating parts of the launches,
but at the end of the day, it's all still been you know,
I've still been the one that's it's all in my head and I'm delegating.
So now trying to be a little bit more structured in terms of all
of the tasks are in click up there is nothing in my head, and
all of the processes are getting documented and we're starting to you know, everyone
knows what they need to be working on at any given point, and if
they can't meet a particular deadline, well then they need to communicate that in
time. Yeah, it's such a transition. Like I've it's sometimes you can't
and help be like, wait, I don't want a document all my like
launch it's it's yeah, we did that last year, like literally create like
a template for each like word for your words, launch all this, and
now it's so much the first one is like where you have to pour in
or like what do I do like during launch because I'm like, ah,
I don't know, Like I just like it's just so in our head that
we just do not think to like when we start to remove certain things out
of the things that we do, we're just like, oh wow, I
do all that? What yeah exactly, And it's you know, we've been
through. This is now our third launch where since we started building out our
master launch process, and it's still there's still so much that needs refining in
it, but it's getting that. It's always a working exactly. Yes,
yeah, what are you going to do differently? You know what I really
missed writing like love letters or emails to my email list, so I would
now all now I say it, it's going to be like hashtag keep me
accountable, But I would love to write war emails and love letters. I'm
going to coin it love letters my audience. And I think, yes,
there is podcast content that I do, but this is again this comes back
to and I think we were talking about this in the first conversation episode that
we were doing. I used to just write it so quickly, but then
it's just come to like towards the last two three years, these emails in
my head are just like, oh no, it must have so much value
in it that I then don't write the email because you know, we get
such incredible, beautiful responses from people for our e lessons, so one of
our freebies that I'm like, oh my god, I need them or make
sure it is as much and as good a value. But I definitely want
to write more emails and I want to connect with the community in our emails
a lot more. So that's definitely one thing I definitely want to test and
do and have some fun with this. Here more emails and love letters.
I love the heay get me back you. I think that's our launch debrief
episode done. How exciting and join us. Make sure you subscribe to both
of our shows, Brand FTTI and Imperfect Action, and we'll be back in
your ears very soon, both of us with our twenty twenty four predictions.
YAYO. Chat to you guys. Fia